We went our separate ways and met again that evening. This time, it turned out, her car had to go in the repair shop to have its right turn light fixed, so she arrived in a cab. So when we left, I ran her over to Watergate, and when she asked me up, I went. I seemed to dread being alone.
It was the first time I had been to Hortense’s apartment, and it gave me an odd feeling. It was full of pictures — of Hortense, of Mr. Garrett, of Mrs. Mendenhall, and of me, mostly in football attire, with the bare brisket showing.
We were hardly in the door, though, before Mrs. Mendenhall said: “I simply have to get out of these clothes and into something comfortable. If you’ll excuse me.” And she disappeared, going out through what looked like a dining room beyond a large arch. Then “Woo-hoo” came her voice. “You could keep company, Dr. Palmer.”
I decided it was time to leave.
When I took my place in the hall one day, the nurse beckoned to me. “She’s been moved,” she said and gave me the new room number. I found my way there and tapped on the door. Mrs. Mendenhall came out.
“She’s better,” she whispered. “The fever’s down and she’s well past the crisis, but she’s horribly depressed. She keeps talking about her baby, the one she thinks she lost. We haven’t told her yet, the way things turned out — thought the surprise would be nicer if we took her down to look and then all in one swoop, she’d see what we’ve been saving for her.”
I agreed that it was a nice way to handle it, and we went in. Hortense hardly noticed that I was there.
“I’m just a thing,” she wailed. “Not a woman at all anymore. Just a thing that looks like a woman but isn’t any more. My sweet little baby, the last one I can have. They took it from me that night. It’s not in me any more. I can feel with my hands: it’s not there. And I can never have—”
She kept it up until I motioned Mrs. Mendenhall. “O.K., Horty,” she said, “you’ll feel better in a moment. We’re taking you out for a ride. A little ride around so you have a change. Now, isn’t that going to be nice?”
“All right,” Hortense said listlessly.
The nurse instructed her carefully after pushing up the wheelchair on what she was to do: lock her hands on her neck and hold on while the nurse lifted her. “And then—”
“Hold it,” I said. “I have a better idea.”
I peeled the covers down, sat beside Hortense, put one arm around her back, the other under her knees, and lifted exactly the way I lifted her that first time when I had carried her back to the bedroom from my living room. It worked fine again. I slid her down in the chair with no trouble, hoping for a pat or smile or kiss — or something, at any rate, something that would tell me that she remembered. All I got was nothing. The nurse wheeled her out in the hall where Mrs. Mendenhall and I joined them, and off we went, to the elevator, with the nurse pushing Hortense down the hall toward the window of the nursery I had come to know so well. When we were almost to it the nurse stopped, leaving Hortense in the chair, and skipped ahead to the window where she tapped. The other nurse nodded and disappeared. Then our nurse came back and pushed Hortense to the window. The nurse inside was there, pushing the same bassinette. Mrs. Mendenhall said: “O.K., Horty, there’s the big surprise we’ve been saving for you. You didn’t lose your child. They saved it and here it is, right in front of your eyes. There he is — your little son.”
Hortense just stared.
“Isn’t he beautiful?” And then as she had said twenty times: “He’s the spitting image of Richard.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Mother,” Hortense snapped, “he’s not Richard’s child; he’s Lloyd’s. Be your age, will you?”
Mrs. Mendenhall shot a look at the nurse and then said quickly: “Horty, in this hospital, he’s Richard’s — or he’d better be, if you know what’s good for you and for him. He’s registered as Richard’s, and any move on your part to change that is going to raise a stink that will last his whole life. So, unless you want to ruin it—”
“All right.”
Our surprise was a bit of a flop.
When we got back to the room, Sam Dent was there. At first Hortense seemed glad to see him, smiling a bit when she told him to turn his back as I lifted her back in bed. But after some friendly moments, while he asked how she was and she told him, “well as can be expected,” it all exploded once more when he half-cleared his throat and began: “Hortense, as soon as you’re able, I’d like for you to read some papers and stuff like that. One or two things have come up—”
That was as far as he got. She didn’t even let him finish, screaming at him in a weak voice that sounded all the worse for being so ghostly.
“Do you have to pester me now? Do I have to beg for consideration? Do you know what it means to be shot by a lunatic, to have a child taken out of you, to lie at death’s door for five days—”
“Three weeks,” Mrs. Mendenhall said.
“To have a foot in the grave the better part of a month? Do you think I can turn around then and begin reading stuff you bring me? So you can get on with some job?” There was more, but Mrs. Mendenhall and the nurse kept trying to calm her down, and Sam kept saying, “I’m sorry, Hortense; forget it. I didn’t mean to upset you.” When he and I were out in the hall, he tried to explain why he was bothering her about business at a time like this.
“Lloyd,” he said, “I had to. Legally, she’s it. She’s the only one who can say what goes on this stuff that keeps coming up, that’s going to keep on coming up. Since Mr. Garrett didn’t leave any will—”
“He didn’t? I thought he did.”
“He kept talking as though he had, and he certainly meant to, but as far as he got with it was one of those clipboard jobs that he was so fond of — a memo to me about what he meant to put in it. And it leaves her in complete control. There’s things we don’t dare do without an O.K. from her. Like the debentures on the motorbikes. It’s a way to get working capital, but they can’t put them out until she signs the order.”
“Does she know about the notes?”
“I gave her a copy of them. It was a memo to me, so I had to keep the original. That’s part of what’s bugging her, maybe. I’ve thought since then that perhaps I shouldn’t have done it. But I had to if she wanted to do what he wanted — I mean, carry out his wishes.”
“What’s the rest of it?”
“You mean, why I shouldn’t have given it to her?”
“Yeah, I’d be curious to know.”
“Does the name Teddy Rodriguez mean anything to you?”
“Yes. Teddy’s a very close friend.”
“He meant to leave her a million.”
“Ouch.”
“But I had to show it to her — if she wanted to carry out his intentions, as she kept saying she did, whether he made a will or not.”
“What other bequests were called for?”
“Million to me, million to you, million to Mrs. Mendenhall, million to the child if, as, and when born, five million trust fund for Inga, to cease upon her death. But without any will to go by, it’s Hortense — and she has to make decisions, or else some of these companies that ARMALCO is made up of are behind the eight ball.”
“I get the picture.”
“He slung millions around like popcorn.”