Impact (20 page)

As Laura disappeared toward the kitchen, Tollison sank to the love seat by the fireplace, enjoying the sun's farewell and the soft tinkle of a familiar sonata. A moment later Laura brought him his drink and sat down in the chair across from him, curled her legs beneath her, and offered a silent toast.

“I should have come to your office,” she began. “I don't like to take advantage of … us.” She swirled the liquid in her glass.

“No problem,” he said, as careful as he had been in the years before he knew his desire for her was reciprocated.

“But it's hard for me to go out these days,” she went on. “People always want to talk about Jack. When I tell them there's no news, they look at me as though it's my fault, as if they think the doctors have been trying to call to tell me he's recovered and I haven't bothered to answer the phone.” Her voice broke, then mended itself in the succeeding pause. “It's odd what people blame you for, isn't it? It's almost always for the wrong thing.”

He refused to indulge her urge to judge them. “Jack's condition hasn't changed?”

She shook her head. “They say he's stable, his vital signs are good, but he's still unconscious.” Her expression took on a stricken cast. “Sometimes I think he doesn't want to come back. Sometimes I think he's happier the way he is.” She paused and hugged herself, as though her husband's wounded ghost had forced its way into the room.

Tollison looked at her with what he hoped was detachment. “We haven't been alone for a long time.”

Her eyes shifted toward the world outside the window, as though it harbored enemies. “I know.”

“I've missed you.”

“I've missed you, too.”

“I keep hoping you'll need me for something, and you keep doing just fine on your own.”

“I don't know if fine is quite the word for it.”

There was a place he wanted them to go, but he no longer knew how to get them there. As he struggled for an endearing phrase, Laura looked everywhere but at him.

“Your friend Marlene is worried about you,” he managed finally. “She thinks you blame yourself for Jack's accident.”

Laura opened her eyes and closed her fingers. “What on earth would give her that idea?”

“Something you said about retribution.”

When there was no response, frustration made him blunt. “You didn't cause the plane crash, Laura. And neither did I.”

She looked at him through a wary squint. “Are you sure?”

“For crying out loud—why are you getting mystical about this? You didn't feel guilty about us six months ago, so why feel guilty now?”

She shrugged and raised her glass. “Guilt seems to be a lot like cockroaches—it thrives no matter what you use against it.”

He went to her side and sat beside her chair, taking her hand. “If you knew how much I've thought about you over the past months,” she declared from her perch above him. “How many nights I've almost jumped in the car and raced to your house and crawled in your bed and begged to stay with you forever.”

“I wish you had.”

“I know. But it's not that simple anymore.”

“Why not?”

“You know why not.”

His response was instantaneous and cruel. “Just because he's in a coma doesn't make him a saint.”

She stiffened. “Please, Keith.”

Chagrined, he kissed her hand. “I'm sorry, but I'm fighting for my
life
here, Laura. I
love
you; I've loved you ever since Jack first came by the office to show you off. I can't sit by and let you put an end to everything.” He sighed and searched for words. “Nothing's
changed
, don't you see? We're not
kids
anymore, Laura. This could be the last chance we have to make our lives what we want them to be. I'm sorry Jack's hurt, and I hope he gets better, I really do. But there's nothing you can
do
for him. And even if there was, you're not obliged to do it.”

In the wake of his desperation, her words were wretched. “I
can
help, Keith. So I have to.”

“How? You're not a doctor, for crying out loud.”

She pulled her hand away. Though he sensed her gaze, he wouldn't turn to meet it.

“I'm an LPN,” she said quietly. “That's how we met. I was working at the Free Clinic in the Haight, and Jack came in to help a friend down off a bad trip. He hung around all night. By morning he had swept me off my feet, maybe because he was the first guy I'd seen in a week who wasn't stoned out of his mind.”

His mouth was as dry as gypsum. “You never told me you were a nurse.”

For the first time since he entered the house, her tone was affectionate. “That's because we did it backward, you idiot; we were lovers before we were friends.”

He looked up at her, his mind spinning with misery and newness. “Is that what we're doing? Going back to friendship?”

“It might not be a bad idea, do you think?”

“What I think is that you're telling me it's over between us.”

She shook her head, though slowly enough to admit of ambiguity. “I'm just saying we have to wait.”

Panic clouded his vision. “So I pray for a miracle, is that it? For Jack to be revived as the son of a bitch he always was, and then I get to screw his wife again. Somehow I don't think those particular prayers will be answered, Laura. So maybe I'll just wish he was dead.”

Her silence was the judgment he deserved. “I didn't know I'd hurt you that much,” she murmured finally.

“You're hurting me worse than I thought I could possibly be hurt.”

“But I've been hurt, too, don't you see? That's my
husband
in that hospital. The man I swore to love in sickness and in health is as sick as you can get. I can't just let him rot away while I frolic with his boyhood buddy.”

“You can, but you won't.”

“That's not fair.”

“It depends on your perspective. And Jack and I were never buddies.”

She was quiet long enough to let him recover a shred of dignity. “How's Brenda?” she asked finally.

The question seemed to seal his fate. “Brenda's up and down,” he said as he got to his feet and returned to the love seat. “When she found proof that Carol had been on the plane, she was ready to hunt down the president of SurfAir and shoot him between the eyes. Now she seems to be blocking the whole thing, as though Carol slipped away after a lengthy illness and is living on a silver cloud.”

“That's not healthy, I don't think.”

“I don't, either.”

They unlocked their eyes and fidgeted. Absent guidance from the woman across the room, Tollison pulled his briefcase onto his lap and opened it. “We might as well go over these papers, since I don't seem to be of any use around here except professionally.” He paused. “If you want to look them over, you'll have to sit here by me.”

He fumbled with obstreperous documents and felt her snuggle against his side. When she was comfortably canted against the padded arm of the love seat, she crossed a leg and looked at him expectantly. As he flipped through the stack of parchment bond her hand rested on his thigh, lightly at first, then grew weighty with his preoccupation. He let the moment build, to see if it contained a possibility, but she took her hand away.

“This is an application to make you Jack's conservator. That means you'll have the right to make decisions about most details of his life, from his property to his person. Dr. Ryan has signed an affidavit stating that Jack is unable to act for himself, so there won't be any problem getting the appointment approved. It's pretty routine. Just sign there.”

She turned the pages, pausing only at Dr. Ryan's statement. “He doesn't sound too hopeful, does he?”

“He's just trying to help.”

For the first time, she sounded as desolate as he was. “Who does it help to say Jack may never regain consciousness?”

“The judge,” he answered simply. “And speaking of help, I think it's time you made a decision about a lawsuit against the airline. The insurance company isn't going to talk settlement seriously until you have a complaint on file.”

“Then file me a complaint.”

“I've told you a dozen times; I'm not competent to handle a case like this. How much are the medical bills up to, by the way?”

“Over two hundred thousand, the last I asked. They're getting embarrassed to talk about it, I think.”

“So there's that, and Jack's lost earnings and pain and suffering, plus the loss of consortium you've suffered. You could recover millions.”

“Consortium? What's consortium?”

He felt himself redden. “Affection. Companionship. Stuff like that.”

“You mean sex.” Her grin was mocking. “They put a price on such matters, do they?”

“They try.”

“And people say lawyers aren't clever little devils.”

“I've heard them called devils a lot more than I've heard them called clever.”

Her smile faded. “I really would like you to handle it, Keith.”

He shook his head. “You should retain an aviation expert—someone who does this full time.”

She scowled. “I've talked to one of those experts—a man named Scallini calls here twice a week.”

“How'd you run afoul of him?”

“There was another patient in Jack's room for a while—a crash victim who was barely hanging on. People were streaming in and out—specialists, priests, medical students stopping by to gawk—it was like
St. Elsewhere
in there sometimes. Then this Scallini person showed up, claiming he was this poor guy's lawyer.” She swore. “What a repulsive man; his toupee has a streak of gray in it that makes him look like a skunk. Anyway, since his client was too out of it to listen, he started in on me. Told me he could get Jack ten million dollars. Started handing me papers—a fee agreement, power of attorney, some sort of arbitration thing in case I claimed malpractice. I think he even made a pass, right there in front of Jack, though maybe massaging a woman's knee is what passes for charm in lawyer circles. Anyway, when he started referring to Jack and his client as
droolers
, I had the nurses throw him out.”

She crossed her arms and shook her head. “But he won't take no for an answer. Someone keeps calling and claiming I've indicated I'm interested in Mr. Scallini's services and telling me what I have to do to retain him. I can't
bear
to deal with people who see Jack in terms of dollars and headlines, Keith. Why can't someone I
like
look after my interests? If we get millions out of this, some lawyer is going to get a juicy hunk as a fee. Why should it go to a stranger instead of you?”

He sighed. “You'll get your millions because the stranger will know how to pressure an insurance company into paying you that much. I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to go about it. Hell, I don't even know how airplanes stay in the air.”

“You don't have to know that, though, do you? You just have to know why they crash.”

Her summation was as jarring as a cudgel. Speechless, Tollison found refuge in the papers in his lap.

Once again her hand lit on his thigh. “Are you telling me you won't help me, Keith?”

Her voice was thick and throaty, impossible to refuse. Still, his terms were tentative. “Have you heard anything from the insurance people?”

She nodded. “They called last week. They asked if I would accept two hundred thousand plus the medical bills. When I said I'd have to ask my lawyer, they asked who my lawyer was. When I gave them your name, they asked if you were representing me in the crash case. I said I wasn't sure. Then they said I'd better settle quickly, because if I didn't I was going to learn things about my husband that I wouldn't want to know.” She laughed. “That's a pretty good definition of my marriage, come to think of it—learning things about my husband that I didn't want to know.”

He turned to face her. “I want you to see this guy I was in law school with. He's a pro at this stuff, one of the best in the country. If you still want me to handle things after you talk to him, I guess I will. But I want us to see him first, so he can tell you exactly what you're up against. Okay? Can I make the appointment?”

She hesitated, then nodded. “Whatever you say.”

“I'll call him tomorrow and let you know. By the way, who was that guy who left here just before I drove up?”

“What guy?”

“Drove a gray Taurus. Looked about fifty. Beard.”

She shook her head. “There was no one here this afternoon. Maybe he came up to look at the lots. They still do that once in a while.”

“I hope that's all it was. You could use the money.”

“You're telling me.”

The sentence implied a struggle Tollison was only dimly aware of. “All the more reason to get your lawsuit under way,” he said.

“I suppose.” Her interest in both him and her legal rights was flagging.

He put his papers back in his case and placed it between them. “The main thing I need to know is that you're psychologically sound, Laura, that you're dealing with your troubles in a healthy way.”

She stood up and regarded him with a stalwart gaze. “What I have to deal with isn't trouble; what I have to deal with is responsibility.” She walked toward the kitchen and left him in a muddle.

A moment later she returned, refreshed and cheerful. “I've got some soup on the stove and some ham in the fridge. Would you like to stay for dinner?”

He grabbed his briefcase. “I can't. I'm sorry.”

“Oh.” Her disappointment was plain and unexpected.

“I made another appointment. I didn't think you'd want me to stick around.”

She smiled slyly. “Brenda?”

He nodded.

“I'm the one who should be sorry. Go on. Don't look so miserable. Say hi to her for me.”