After #2
Cassandra’s face hovered right above Gretchen’s, wide-eyed and terrified. There were other grave faces, too. Strangers all ringed by light. Had Gretchen’s eyes been closed? Why was everyone looking at her? She was so confused.
The stroke. Now she remembered.
“Am I dead?” Gretchen asked.
A man with soft, cool hands and large brown eyes cradled her wrist carefully in his fingers, taking her pulse. He was about Cassandra’s age and very striking. “Do you know what day it is?” he asked her. “And the month?”
“Friday, September twelfth.”
“Do you remember where you are?”
“Ophelia’s school. Sloan School. The welcome assembly.”
“Okay. Good. Are you feeling better?” The man helped her sit up. “I’m a doctor. I was called over when you passed out.”
She was in the center aisle, splayed out on the floor.
The stage was empty, the houselights up.
But the auditorium was still full. Everywhere Gretchen looked, there were eyes on her.
Everyone was staring. Her skirt was pushed all the way up to her thighs and twisted around her.
She tried to tug it down, but before she could, Cassandra swooped in to fix it. Oh, God, this was humiliating.
“Listen,” the man continued, addressing Cassandra now, not Gretchen. “She probably just got overheated. Maybe dehydrated. I don’t think it’s anything to worry about—but someone her age, she should probably get checked out.”
Someone her age. Was he even old enough to be a doctor?
“Oh, poor Ophelia,” Gretchen said, remembering her darling granddaughter. She’d made such a spectacle at her show. Of all places. “I’m so sorry. Cassandra, please tell her that I’m very sorry.”
“Mom, she’s completely fine. All the kids are backstage. They can’t even see what’s going on.” Cassandra turned back to the man. “Thank you, Whit. We’ll take her to the doctor right now.”
Whit? As in Whitney? Not that striking after all, and a woman’s name.
“Is she dead?” Gretchen heard a little boy nearby ask. “She looks dead.”
Apparently not all the children were backstage. This was horrific. Gretchen upsetting people, embarrassing Cassandra and Tom and poor Oppy.
And to think: This spectacle was only the beginning.
She held out a hand. “Cassandra, please help me up off this floor.”
—
An hour and a half later, Dr. Davis, their family physician, was sending Gretchen home with assurances and a prescription for Xanax.
Truth be told, by the time she’d reached his office, she was feeling absolutely fine.
Well, not fine. But much better. She told Dr. Davis she was sure it was stress.
And then the excuse popped into her head: She’d just found out that her own mother was in the hospital—a ministroke.
Gretchen’s mother was eighty-nine, still alive and well.
She spent her days rattling around her sprawling Greenwich mansion, hosting teas and luncheons, and serving on boards.
Gretchen’s father had passed suddenly three years ago—a heart attack while arguing with a stranger about a parking spot.
Dying as he lived, in a rage. Her mother had barely missed a beat.
If anything, she seemed relieved he was gone.
Dr. Davis quickly agreed that a panic attack tracked with the description of her physical symptoms. And all of Gretchen’s vital signs were normal now, the most important thing.
“Are you getting the support you need with your mom, emotional and otherwise? A health crisis like that can be its own kind of trauma for loved ones.”
“I haven’t told many people yet,” she explained, the cherry on top of her fib sundae. “I’ve been too upset.”
It was something of a relief talking to Dr. Davis in this way. She carefully avoided even saying Richard’s name, but it felt like a confession all the same.
“That may be the problem,” the doctor suggested gently. “Pretending something isn’t happening is never a good idea. The body always finds a way to tell the truth.”
—
“Why didn’t you tell me about Gram!” Cassandra demanded once they were outside on the wide, pristine Fifth Avenue sidewalk. Unfortunately for Gretchen, Dr. Davis had escorted her to the waiting room and taken it upon himself to tell Cassandra he was so sorry to hear about her grandmother’s stroke.
At least Cassandra had waited until they were outside to shout.
People were staring. But Cassandra was the kind of person who drew attention even when she wasn’t making a scene.
As tall as a model and just as lovely, she wore Jackie O.
sunglasses and an eye-catching, tastefully cropped Burberry shirt.
Cassandra had Richard’s eyes, too—the clearest blue—and her feelings were as transparent and straightforward as that color.
Elizabeth and Becks had inherited Gretchen’s muddier gray-blue and, like her, everything inside them stayed hidden, a messy, indecipherable stew.
“Hello? Mom?” Cassandra waved a hand in front of Gretchen’s face. “Anyone in there? What happened to Gram? How is she?”
It took Gretchen a beat. “Oh, no, no. She’s fine, I promise. I just spoke with her last night.”
“You made up that Gram had a stroke? Why would you do that?”
It sounded bad put that way. Very, very bad.
Gretchen stared down at her feet. She could feel Cassandra’s eyes boring into her, but she had no idea what to say.
She could tell another lie, but that would only make it worse if— When.
When she eventually had to come clean. She did know that time would come.
Maybe doing so now was the only reasonable option.
“Mom, what is going on?” Cassandra pressed when Gretchen stayed silent. But Gretchen couldn’t help herself. Her mouth felt glued shut.
Because once she started, what was there but the whole ugly truth? She wished that there was some kind of halfway measure. A way to tell Cassandra part of what was going on without getting into all the sordid details.
“Mom, can you please say something? This is not— You’re acting really weird.
Should we call Dad? I’m worried there’s something more going on here.
Something neurological…” Cassandra trailed off.
Her tone was gentle, her concern real, but Gretchen winced anyway.
Now she was old enough for early dementia to be a plausible concern?
“You’re not acting at all like yourself. ”
No more stalling. Once Cassandra found out what was really going on, it would make it seem like she thought Richard was guilty. Gretchen needed to rip off the Band-Aid.
“Can we sit on a bench for a minute?” Gretchen motioned toward Central Park across the street. “I’m okay. I am. But we do need to talk, Cassandra. It’s about your dad.”
—
“What is it?” Cassandra had barely waited for them to get across the street. “I’m sorry you’re upset, but you can’t do that thing you always do.”
“What thing?” Gretchen adjusted her position on the wood-slatted bench. It was nearly as uncomfortable as the one in the police station.
Cassandra was pacing in front of her. “Pretending everything is fine.”
“Can you please stop with the back-and-forth?” It was making Gretchen queasy. “Anyway, I don’t know what you’re—”
“Mom, you’re scaring me. I was already worried when Dad wasn’t at the assembly.
I know you said it was work, but he never misses anything at school.
Is he sick? Is it— He didn’t have a heart attack or something, did he?
I swear to God if you decided you didn’t want to disrupt the day by telling me he’s in the hospital—”
“He’s not sick, Cassandra. Your dad is fine.” Gretchen paused. “Well, I guess ‘fine’ is something of an overstatement.”
“Mom!!”
Gretchen’s eyes fluttered closed. “He’s been…arrested.” The words burned as they made their way out. And the weight Gretchen had hoped might lift when she shared the terrible truth only pressed down harder on her chest.
But when Gretchen opened her eyes, she was surprised to see that Cassandra looked relieved. “Those assholes at the SEC have nothing better to do.”
“Oh, no—it’s not that.”
Oh, goodness. Not that bad—that’s what Gretchen’s tone suggested.
Cassandra’s brow knotted. “Okay, what, then?”
“The police have made a mistake, obviously. A very big one. And there will be all sorts of people having to make apologies when we finally get this—”
“Mom, please.” Cassandra’s voice was tremulous now. And she looked exhausted. Gretchen was exhausting her. “What happened?”
“Someone your dad climbed Kilimanjaro with—they’ve been killed, apparently.”
“Another person from the climb is dead?”
Gretchen met Cassandra’s gaze as calmly as she could.
“Yes, I know. What are the odds?” Gretchen actually felt a little better now.
Maybe Dr. Davis was right, and she just needed to keep talking about the situation.
Exposed to daylight, the unsavory details might eventually lose their power.
“But the police think this was murder. That’s what they’re investigating. ”
“And they think Dad had something to do with it?” Cassandra’s mouth twitched down, and her eyes started darting around. “But that’s…insane. What, wha— I don’t even understand what you’re saying. Who was killed? Where?”
“We need to stay calm. That’s the important thing.
” Gretchen felt steadier now. Cassandra’s distress was forcing her to find her equilibrium.
After all, that was a mother’s job: to hold everyone and everything together while the world was falling apart.
“You know how these things are. The police act first, ask questions later. It’s a mistake, of course, but they aren’t going to admit that right away. ”
As if Gretchen had great experience in such matters.
“Where is Dad now?” Cassandra asked.
“He’s at a police station in the East Village,” Gretchen said. “Scotty already went to see him. He’s going to bring in another lawyer to help, an expert in these kinds of cases.”
“A police station? Let’s bail him out!”