Until Death

by Alicia Rasley

  But I couldn’t tell him that he didn’t inspire the passion to make me vault over all fear-of-commitment and once-burned-twice-shyness and right into bed with him. And I for sure couldn’t tell him how relieved I was that I was safe from that sort of passion.

  All I could say was, “Really, Will, I’m flattered, but I just don’t feel ready for this.”

  “Hmm.” He didn’t sound upset. In fact, he sounded intrigued. Oh, great. “Hmm. Well, we’ll see about that. We’ll see.”

  No, we won’t see, I almost said. Instead, I just said goodbye and hung up.

  An hour later, a delivery van pulled up out front, and a young man kicked open our door. His arms were full of roses. Six dozen roses. You don’t want to know about the vases. Waterford. Barb knew all about that sort of thing. Fortunately, I got to the card before she did, or she’d know a lot more than that.

  “Thank you for the flowers,” I said when I called Will. “But you’re wasting your money.”

  “We’ll see.” He sounded as cocky as he did whenever he decided Bill Gates needed a comeuppance. “We’ll see. So what else is going on?”

  I parried an invitation to lunch and promised to fax him the form he needed to sign to give the Highway Department notice of his plans. He got the hint. The next day there was no message, no email, not even to ask about the project. But at the office, I got a phone call.

  “Mom!” Tommy’s voice was cracking with emotion. Fear? Excitement? “Mom, you have to come to school now! It’s so tight! You got to see it!”

  My curiosity wouldn’t wait. Calling out a farewell to Barb, I let myself out the back and drove the mile to the school. There, gleaming in the sun, was a delivery truck, and standing by it were the two dozen kids in Tommy’s computer camp. The driver was handing each a computer component, and they trooped across the lawn to the front door.

  Tommy broke off from the line and grabbed my arm. “Come on, Mom, wait till you see!”

  The kids fell back as I approached. I felt like Madonna, someone who got to go to the front of every line. From this vantage point, I could see the truck was filled with desktop computers and notebooks.

  I followed Tommy inside the school. When he saw me, Mr. Trent cried, “Can you believe it? They’re hardly even used. Developers’ workstations. It’s so . . .”

  Words failed him, and he stood there, beaming, in the middle of the pile of boxes. Suspicious, I rebooted a nearby laptop. Welcome to the Netmore Center came up on the splash screen, before fading into the familiar wallpaper. I knew who’d last used these machines.

  On his way out, the deliveryman handed Mr. Trent a card. With trembling hands, he opened it. “An anonymous donation to Riverside High School, in memory of Donald Ross.”

  Everyone stopped and looked at Tommy. His face reddened, and I almost went to him. But then Lily said, “Hey, Tom, have I got the right cable for this? It’s a Bluetooth port, right?”

  The tension broke. Tommy crossed the room. “That’s for the USB, dummy. Here, let me do it.” As he bent, I saw Lily’s grin, and I remembered that last month she’d installed a new sound card for me first time, no hitches. One more woman pretending incompetence to make a man feel manly. If it hadn’t benefited my own son, I’d have taken her aside and nagged at her for it.

  When I got back to the office, I dialed the now-familiar number. “Hey, next time you make an anonymous donation, you might delete the Netmore splash screen off the bootup.”

  “Hell, I don’t know how. I can’t even get the DVD drive to play my Metallica cassette tapes.”

  “No kidding. It meant a lot to Tommy to have it be in his father’s memory.”

  “Well, I couldn’t help noticing, the class was working on old Pentiums, and, you know, like why bother? We just upgraded the whole pilot unit, and they’d probably only warehouse our old PCs. Now as long as I’ve got you on the line—”

  He was going to do it again. Ask me out. The jerk. But I’d forgotten this was one of the wiliest men in the new economy. He just said, “Makes good sense, you know, giving the old components to schools. I want it done right by the IRS, and we ought to get our name in the paper and all that good stuff.”

  “Well, a foundation is the way to go. You know, like Bill Gates did,” I said.

  “We don’t say that name around here. We call him Darth Vader. So can you do it for us? Set up a foundation? We could call it PCs for Pubescents.”

  I hesitated. I’d love to add charitable foundation formation to my resume, especially if my own kid’s school would benefit. And Netmore was used to being billed at top dollar and could afford to pay Barb and me well to help them be charitable. “Will, that’s great of you, but you’ve got accountants on staff. Why spend money on me?”

  “Because I trust you. Because I know you’ll do it the right way. Because you’re the one with the ideas. Because maybe you’ll go out with me if I pretend it’s more business.”

  I was so unused to being the object of anyone’s interest that I almost didn’t believe this. The richest man in town was pursuing me? Oh, come on. “I don’t think—”

  “You just keep don’t thinking, Meggie, and I’ll keep thinking. And I bet I win in the end.”

  I should have taped that last little bit of his and replayed it when I started weakening. It was a game for him. And he thought he could buy the victory. Well, we’d see about that.

  In a belligerent mood, I decided I might as well take advantage of his expensive tactics. I sailed into Barb’s office with the news of more business. “This foundation is just Will’s latest brainstorm, and who knows if he’ll be able to persuade Netmore to go along. But—”

  “But nothing.” Barb was, no doubt about it, the go-getter in our partnership. “I’ll start up the PR angle. You can do the boring stuff.” She dropped into my client chair and picked up a legal pad. “Let’s get a plan going. First item has to be you giving me the big scoop on Mr. Bountiful’s availability, or have you already called dibs on him?”

  “Ha.” Barb was my best friend, but I wasn’t ready to confide. I didn’t believe it myself, that a rich guy who usually took up with dewy-fresh long-stems might be interested in me. I refused to let myself—or Barb—expect anything from him. “Will has been dating twenty-five-year-olds for twenty years. I wouldn’t count on him going for a grownup for long.” I didn’t want her extrapolating anything from Will’s sudden interest in a woman of his own era.

  Or maybe I just wasn’t quite ready to hand an eligible fellow over to my best friend, at least not until I’d completely, entirely, absolutely forever decided he wasn’t for me. “How about you prepare a quick summary of the marketing advantages of a foundation, and we’ll hold off on the technical details till we know they’ll pay us?”

  “Finally. I was wondering when you’d realize we can’t give away our expertise.” She charged out the door, calling back, “I’ll have it to you by tomorrow afternoon. A couple pie-charts, maybe some sample graphics, full-color even.”

  And off she went to potter happily around in her Photoshop program, leaving me to contemplate my office full of roses.

  EXCEPT FOR THE hangover, it had been sort of a good day. And then the adjustor arrived.

  His name was Peterson, and he came to my office late in the afternoon. He surveyed the front lobby as if checking for fire hazards and entered my office with more reluctance than its condition warranted. The roses adorning every available surface seemed to offend him. He sat down, set his briefcase on his lap, and wasted no time. “We have some questions about Mr. Ross’s death that will delay payment, or perhaps negate the policy.”

  He’d heard the rumors. The chill passed through me, leaving me lightheaded and scared. I knew what he would say, but I asked anyway. “What are you talking about?”

  Delicately, he moved a pencil away from the edge of my desk. “T
he mode of death was . . . well, suspicious. Contestable.”

  I strived for calm, or its appearance. “The death certificate said accidental death.”

  “From a fall.” He drew that last word out. “This sort of death makes us suspicious. Especially so soon after the policy was taken out, and with circumstances like this.”

  “Circumstances like what? He fell out a building. It happens.”

  “Not with adults. And there are other circumstances—”

  “What?” I was getting angry. It felt better than terrified.

  “We also provide his health insurance, and we were informed he was on medication.”

  “So he took steroids for his asthma. That’s not suspicious. You just don’t want to pay out.”

  “Steroids?” He made a note on his pad, then said coldly, “In cases of suicide within the first year of a policy, we are not obligated to pay out. We assume the policyholder was anticipating his own death. And that’s illegal.”

  “It’s also nonsense. Don procrastinated with the policy. He waited until the last moment. He wasn’t trying to cheat anyone but me.”

  “That may be. But my preliminary investigation indicates Mr. Ross had been behaving erratically this last year.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Divorce after a long marriage, for one thing.”

  Amazing, how men now saw Don’s desire for greener pastures as a sign of instability. “I don’t think dumping an older wife for a younger one is considered pathological these days.”

  “It’s part of a pattern of impulsive activity, including questionable business practices. That might be evidence of manic-depression. And manic-depressives have a high rate of suicide.”

  He rose. I didn’t. I couldn’t. “But you can’t just say suicide and ruin a man’s reputation.”

  “Ma’am, we have to protect our stockholders’ and our policyholders’ interests.”

  “And their interests would be injured if you went with accidental death? The policy pays double for accidents, doesn’t it?”

  “But this doesn’t qualify as an accident.”

  My anger boiled over. “He fell off a building. If that doesn’t qualify as an accident, what does?”

  “An auto accident. A plane crash. Murder. Drowning. A lightning strike.”

  I heard only one word in there. “Murder? That’s considered accidental?”

  Peterson made a scoffing noise. “Yes, but there’s no need to go down that path. There was no indication of that.”

  “There’s no indication of suicide either.” I gave him a hard look. “I know this. An insurance company that denies a claim has to pay treble damages, if the denial is in bad faith.”

  “Bad faith is hard to prove.”

  “So is suicide,” I shot back. “Especially when the coroner said it was accidental.”

  “Coroners seldom find suicide in ambiguous cases.”

  “Ambiguous means ‘uncertain’. You can’t deny the claim if there’s no certainty.”

  He hefted his briefcase and turned to go. “We can deny the claim if we think the case warrants it. If you disagree, there are remedies. You can appeal to our claims investigation committee.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet they’re independent and don’t give a thought to who signs their checks.”

  He shrugged. “You can always sue in the state courts. Good afternoon, ma’am.”

  His implacability followed him out the door. But I didn’t have time to get any angrier. If Mr. Peterson was going to try to prove that Don committed suicide, thereby nullifying the life insurance, I was going to have to prove he was wrong. But I had to be careful not to exacerbate the rumors already out there. Peterson might be interviewing Don’s colleagues, and the more who said, “Huh? Suicide? Don? No way,” the better.

  I was up against the combined might of the United Guaranty Trust and its pit bull Peterson. But I had to shut him down. If I didn’t, well, our comfortable lifestyle would become considerably less comfortable. With the check I’d just sent to Tracy, the income from my assets wouldn’t come close to replacing Don’s support payment. And what cash value there was in the annuity now wouldn’t pay for a year of state college for Tommy.

  And Tommy would know his father hadn’t left him anything. I couldn’t let that happen, and I couldn’t let him hear that his father might have committed suicide. He didn’t need to carry that additional burden of guilt around with him. I wouldn’t allow it.

  Mr. Peterson didn’t know what he was up against. Warrior Woman. I’d fight—I’d die—to protect my son, and there was no way Mr. P cared nearly as much about his precious stockholders. I’d bulldoze him and his adjustors’ committee.

  The last time I’d let the warrior take control was more than a year ago, when I was fighting to save my family. I felt a spurt of hatred towards Don, as intense as the day I’d realized he’d only been going through the motions of working on our marriage. He’d done it again, given up and left me flailing away alone. If he had done what Peterson was saying, I’d curse him.

  The resolution cleared my brain. My first task was to stanch the cash flow. I’d ask Tracy to send back the check. I’d promise her half now for Steve and half when Jenny graduated. Surely in a year, I’d be able to afford to make good on my promise.

  When Tracy answered, I got as far as “I hate to ask this—”

  She interrupted me. “I made the deposit on the dorm room today. I can’t tell you what this means to me. I thought Don forgot us, but now I know we were never out of his thoughts.”

  I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t. I let her go on and on about how great I was, and how I could have kept the money for myself, but of course I wouldn’t, because I was so honorable. Well, I defy anyone to renege under those circumstances. The worst of it was, I couldn’t even feel virtuous, because only embarrassment kept me from asking for the money back.

  Eventually, she asked why I called. I had to salvage something of the conversation. “I wondered--” What was I wondering? I remembered Peterson. “When did you last see Don?”

  “I saw him Wednesday, before he died. About five-thirty or so. He just stopped by to say hi. He said he had to get to some store before it closed, so he didn’t even stay for dinner.”

  My heart sank. The pawnshop transaction, the enigmatic card to me, the visit to his sister. They meant nothing, but they could be interpreted as, well, a farewell round. Brad’s theory—a drunken fall—would be easier to prove than suicide would be to disprove. “Did he look like he’d been drinking?”

  “He wouldn’t drive if he’d been drinking. Why do you ask?”

  I had to gamble. “Uh, I didn’t want to tell anyone this. But I got a card from him. Mailed on Wednesday afternoon. And it just seemed so weird. So I thought maybe he’d got a bit drunk at happy hour and got sentimental about the past.”

  She said reluctantly, “When I saw him, he was kind of distracted. I asked him what was wrong, because he kept drifting off focus as we talked. He said he’d taken a couple of pills. Allergy season, you know.”

  Allergy pills wouldn’t make him suicidal. “It’s just . . . I almost had a heart attack when I saw his handwriting on the envelope.” Suddenly, I realized I had just made Don’s cryptic little last message public. I didn’t know what Mr. Peterson would make of that. “Don’t tell anyone about the card, okay?”

  She thought I meant Wanda. “Right. Not a word.”

  I hung up, cursing myself for the whole botched encounter. I’d wimped out on getting the money back, and I could have offended Tracy by implying her brother was drunk, and I told her about that stupid card. And I was no closer to proving Peterson wrong.

  Then again, the conversation did give me an idea of Don’s last day. He must have bought the card, then headed to Tracy’
s, then gone to the pawnshop and mailed the card with the pawn ticket before the last pickup at seven-thirty. That was all I could glean.

  Except . . . both Peterson and Tracy had mentioned that Don was on medication. Peterson had learned about it from a claim filed on Don’s health insurance, which is why I thought it must be the prescription Don used for his asthma. Tracy was talking about allergy pills, and Don used the cheapo generic, no prescription needed, no insurance claim filed.

  It didn’t make sense. Neither medication should have had much effect on Don’s mood, and yet the adjustor implied that medication was evidence of suicidal tendencies. I rooted in my desk for my vial of prescription eye drops and called the pharmacy number. The pharmacy clerk answered and offered to put me through to her boss. But I knew better than to ask the pharmacist for help. He might be a stickler for patient confidentiality and other inconvenient rules. “Oh, it’s just for a refill on my husband’s prescription. It’s for Donald T. Ross.”

  “Just a minute, ma’am.” She came back on the line a minute later. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Ross, but there are no automatic refills on the Misticol.” I jotted the name on the edge of my blotter. “You’ll have to ask the doctor for another prescription. And, well, I don’t know if he’ll give another one, considering Mr. Ross just filled the initial prescription a week ago Tuesday.”

  “You mean he has to talk to . . . ” it took a minute, but I came up with the name of Don’s internist, “. . . Dr. Nguyen?”

  “Dr. Nguyen?” She sounded flustered. “But the prescription came from Dr. Warren.”

  Dr. Warren. I managed to get off the phone without choking. Helpful Dr. Warren. Who’d come to the funeral, who’d called just to see how I was doing, who’d given me such helpful advice on children and grief. Who’d never said a word about seeing Don just before he died. Who’d never mentioned prescribing Don God-knew-what psychiatric medication.

  Dr. Warren, who’d lied to me.

  Chapter Eight

  WHEN I GOT HOME, Tommy was online. Nothing unusual there. If he was home, he was online or texting the friends he’d just left. Now he was aggrieved when I said I needed the laptop. “It’s for school,” he said. “That report.”