A Family To Cherish. Carole Gift Page

room and hesitated for a few minutes before lying down on the neatly made queen-size bed. “It feels strange being here like this,” said Barbara, easing herself down so she wouldn’t muss the chenille spread. “I’m too tense to relax. Maybe we should have stayed at the hospital.”

      Doug rolled onto his side and ran his hand soothingly over her arm. “Try to sleep, Barbie. We need our rest. We’ve got a long, hard road ahead of us, and we’ve got to be strong.”

      Stronger than we were when Caitlin died? she wondered silently. How can we be strong now when we still haven’t got past that loss?

      Barbara fell into a fitful sleep punctuated by vivid, exhausting dreams. She and Doug were climbing a mountain, trying to reach Caitlin, who stood perched on a precipice, crying for help. No matter how high they climbed, there was always more rugged terrain waiting to be scaled. When they finally reached the spot where Caitlin had stood, she was gone, and they were alone on the mountain, just the two of them, buffeted by dark winds, with the precipice yawning like a black hole below them. “We’ll fall unless we hang on to each other,” she told Doug, but when they tried to embrace, the winds and the darkness drove them apart.

      Barbara woke suddenly, her heart pounding, her face wet with perspiration. Doug was no longer in the bed beside her. An irrational fear seized her, coupled with the lingering memory of the black chasm. She bounded off the bed and rushed into the living room, her breathing ragged.

      Doug sat on the rattan sofa, talking on his cell phone. “Thanks, Jim, I’d appreciate anything you could do.” He hung up and looked at Barbara, his eyes shadowed with weariness. “I asked some of my old colleagues who are practicing in San Francisco to take a look at Nancy. See if they can help.”

      “Do you think they can?”

      “They’re going to talk with her physicians.”

      Barbara sat down beside her husband. “Did you get any sleep?”

      “Enough. How about you?”

      “I dreamed mostly. More like nightmares. I feel as if I don’t want to close my eyes again.”

      Doug took her hand and caressed it gently. “I’m going back to the hospital, Barb. Why don’t you stay here and try to rest.”

      “No, Doug. I want to go with you.”

      He squeezed her hand and smiled faintly. “Okay. Let’s freshen up and head back.”

      They arrived back at the hospital just as the sun was lowering, a pale orange ball on a hazy, salmon-pink horizon. In the ICU waiting room they found Doug’s sister Pam and her husband, Benny Cotter, talking with a physician.

      “It’s Dr. Glazier,” said Doug. “He must have news.”

      With hushed, solemn words Barbara and Doug greeted Pam and Benny. Pam was an attractive, sophisticated brunette in her mid-thirties, and Benny, a balding, impeccably dressed man with a ski nose and a booming baritone voice. They owned a used car dealership outside Portland. Benny sold cars; Pam worked for an accountant and helped keep the books for Benny in her spare time. Doug always said they were an unbeatable team; they knew how to make money and how to keep it.

      The two couples embraced briefly, then turned back to the doctor. “How is my sister?” asked Doug.

      Dr. Glazier was stony-faced as he said, “Dr. and Mrs. Logan, I was just telling Mr. and Mrs. Cotter that your sister has slipped into a coma. I’m sorry. It doesn’t look good.”

      They talked with the physician at length, Doug doing most of the talking, using medical terms Barbara couldn’t follow. When there seemed to be nothing more to say, the two couples took turns checking on Nancy, who looked as if she were peacefully asleep. Then they visited Janee’s room. She, too, was slumbering serenely and her coloring was better; the nurse assured them she would likely be awake and alert in the morning.

      It was after nine when they went to the hospital cafeteria for coffee and a bite to eat. As she ate, Barbara’s weariness deepened. Conversation around the table was sparse, forced, hollow. The four of them had never been close, held little in common in attitudes, beliefs or interests, and now it seemed even harder to find common ground, aside from this sudden tragedy they shared.

      The truth was, Barbara had always considered Benny an insufferable boor and Pam a brittle, self-serving woman who could be catty and mean-spirited one moment and nauseatingly saccharine-sweet the next. Barbara always had the feeling she should be on guard around Pam, as if Pam were secretly comparing herself with others and looking for ways to undermine the competition. Such negative feelings made Barbara feel guilty and uneasy. Maybe she herself was the one making such comparisons and looking for ways to diminish Pam and Benny. Maybe they had no idea how they came across to others. Maybe this whole undercurrent of dissension lay solely in Barbara’s own mind.

      That was what Doug said whenever Barbara had questioned Pam and Benny’s actions or motives over the years. “What is there about Pam that makes you feel so inadequate, Barbie?” Doug had asked her after one of their rare visits. “Do you resent them for choosing not to have children because it would interfere with their freewheeling life-style? Do you dislike Pam because she’s not the maternal, nurturing type? She’s not you, Barbie. Why don’t you just try to be friends with my sister instead of second-guessing her?”

      Barbara had no answer. Maybe Doug was right. Maybe the problem was her own. And yet now, sitting across from Pam and Benny as the four of them commiserated, dawdling over lukewarm coffee and cold soup, Barbara knew her instincts were correct. She would never trust Pam and Benny with anything precious to her.

      “I still can’t believe this is happening,” Pam was saying as she stirred cream into her third cup of coffee. “I’m not good with things like this. I just fall to pieces inside. I’m a bundle of nerves.” She held her hand up, her red acrylic nails catching the light. “Look at me. I’m shaking.”

      “We’re all feeling that way, Pam,” said Doug, sipping his coffee.

      Pam’s voice grew shrill. “Nancy’s not going to make it, is she, Doug? You’re a doctor. You know these things.”

      “I’m not giving up on her, Pam, and neither should you.”

      “And poor Paul,” Pam went on miserably. “Now we have a funeral to plan. I can’t do it. I wouldn’t know the first thing. I hate funerals. I never go, do I, Benny?”

      He nodded. “This lady will skip her own funeral—I’m not kidding.”

      “You don’t have to plan the funeral, Pam,” said Doug. “Just be available. Barbara and I can make the arrangements, can’t we, Barb?”

      Barbara stared into her coffee cup, biting her lip to keep from saying what she really felt.

      “Would you, Doug? I think that would be best,” said Pam. “After all, you and Barb have, uh, well, you know…had the experience already. You know what to do.”

      Barbara’s stomach knotted and a sour taste rose in her throat. Yes, she and Doug knew all about funerals. Four years ago Pam and Benny were out of the country on vacation and missed Caitlin’s funeral. They sent an enormous bouquet of pink roses, but never again mentioned Caitlin’s name, never even acknowledged in their conversations that she had ever existed. For Barbara, that was the worst sort of betrayal.

      But then, she and Doug never talked about Caitlin either.

      “We can’t stay in town more than a couple of days,” said Benny. “You know how it is, Doug. When you’re in business for yourself, you gotta stay at the helm or the ship sinks.”

      “Will you be leaving, too, Pam?” asked Barbara.

      “It depends on how Nancy does. But Benny’s right. When he’s away from the dealership more than a day or so, everything falls apart.”

      Barbara dabbed at a water ring on the table. “The doctor says Janee will be released from the hospital in a few days. She’ll need