In Sickness and in Death

by Jaye P. Marshall

  “Yes, but, darling, it’s primarily doctors and lawyers who live in that area – and maybe the owners of professional sports teams. I didn’t think corporate management made that kind of money.”

  Brian laughed. “Well, maybe I don’t make that kind of money, but I’m doing all right.” As long as Adrienne doesn’t get her heart set on a mansion somewhere, he thought.

  Shortly after he and Adrienne moved into the condo, Brian came home to find her standing in the middle of the living area, surveying the room with pursed lips and a frown creasing her brow.

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  She turned slowly toward him. “I was just thinking,” she murmured. “We should really be planning on doing some entertaining. Aren’t we going to be having your business associates over?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess we might need to invite some sales people or customers or somebody like that at some point in time. Especially when the business really takes off.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.” She turned around and continued to scrutinize the room with a critical eye. “This will never do,” she muttered.

  “What? What will never do?”

  “This furniture. Look at it! Look at that ancient dinette. Can’t you just imagine serving dinner to your important customers at a table like that?”

  “It looks okay to me.”

  “Okay? It’s horrible.” She whirled around toward the living room area. “And look how ratty that old couch is. I’d be ashamed to have anybody see it, let alone sit on it.”

  “Are you telling me that we need new furniture?”

  “I would think you could see it for yourself!”

  He sighed. He knew by now that whenever her voice took on that set tone there would be no talking her out of whatever she had made up her mind to do. “Okay. Maybe we can go shopping over the weekend.”

  Over the next few days, Brian spent much of his time thinking about the purchase of new furniture. I’m deep enough in debt right now, he argued to himself . What with the car payments and the increased rental on the condo. I certainly don’t need to go out and buy furniture. But each time one part of his mind demanded that he set his foot down, another part told him that he would never be able to stand up to Adrienne’s angry outburst and the weeks of pouting that would inevitably follow. On Saturday morning, Brian reluctantly followed Adrienne’s lead as they made the rounds of the various furniture showrooms. At each store they roamed between aisles of couches, chairs and end tables; then moved on through displays of dining tables, buffets and sideboards. Regardless of how much they searched and debated, Adrienne couldn’t find anything that she really liked.

  “Why don’t we just give it up?” Brian suggested as they left the latest store. “We can look again later.”

  Adrienne glared at him. “You agreed that we needed new furniture. There are lots of places we haven’t been to yet.”

  “But,” he protested, “I’ve got a lot of work I need to do.”

  “Is that all you ever think about?”

  He shrugged. “It’s just that I’ve got several contracts that have to be reviewed this weekend and I’d really like to watch the game this afternoon.”

  “You said we’d go shopping and we’re going to shop.” She hurried toward yet another showroom with Brian trailing reluctantly behind.

  He glanced apprehensively at the white marble façade with its gilt script, Fine Furniture Salon, and slowly followed Adrienne through the double glass doors. Instead of the groupings of sofas and chairs the previous stores had contained, this interior was a wide expanse of individual rooms; each accessorized and decorated in a particular style. Soft lighting enhanced the displays so that it was not at all hard to imagine visiting in an upper manager’s living room.

  With eyes shining, Adrienne wandered from room to room, brushing her fingertips across the polished walnut or gleaming mahogany and caressing the rich velvet or silky damask.

  “Oh, look at that china.” She said, pointing to a china cabinet in a dining room.

  “Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

  Brian, seeing years of mounting debt accumulate with each enthusiastic exclamation, dejectedly leaned against a buffet while Adrienne chatted vivaciously with a salesman. She turned to Brian with a brilliant smile. “Darling, we’ll want six dining chairs, won’t we?”

  It was hopeless. “Do we need that many?”

  “Oh, I think so.”

  Brian shrugged and waited patiently while, heads together, Adrienne and the salesman perused large books of fabric samples. With little input from Brian, the salesman began writing up the order. Adrienne came over to join him.

  “What do you think of this wine cabinet?” she asked, stroking the glowing wood.

  “We don’t need a wine cabinet.”

  “But we really do, if we’re going to be entertaining. Besides, you know that I like a little glass of wine with dinner.” Brian shrugged, thinking of how infrequently they had a sit-down dinner at home, and Adrienne returned to the salesman. “We’ll want this wine cabinet also.”

  The salesman smiled. “Of course,” he said, writing on his order pad. At least he’s got something to smile about, Brian thought. He’s probably anticipating the huge commission he’ll make on this sale.

  By the time Brian and Adrienne left the Fine Furniture Salon, they had on order a complete mahogany dining set with pedestal table, two armed chairs, four side chairs, wine cabinet, china cabinet equipped with a set of service-for-eight Lennox and a set of crystal. There was a crystal chandelier in addition to a damask sofa, two arm chairs, mahogany coffee and two end tables along with lamps for all the tables and framed prints for all of the walls.

  The level of Brian’s indebtedness had suddenly rocketed.

  Chapter 5

  Months passed and Brian struggled with the mounting debt. After paying the monthly bills, he had to be careful of every small purchase he made. He could not remember when he had been in such a financial straightjacket. The only small flickering light signaling an end to the tunnel of debt was that, if the new business did well, he would receive a substantial year-end bonus. That seemed to be the only path to regaining control. But, if he were to earn that bonus, he had to make sure the business was a success. He began working increasingly longer hours. When Adrienne worked evenings, she would sometimes get back to the condominium before he did.

  One evening as summer waned, she came in just as he was getting out of his suit and ready to take a shower.

  “You’re working a lot of long hours lately,” she commented with a frown. Brian shrugged. “Have to get this business up and running.”

  “I just don’t know how I’d make it without you working so hard. If anything happened to you . . .” Her voice trailed off as she stared sadly into space. He walked over to her and took her gently in his arms. “Don’t worry,” he said.

  “Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

  She looked up at him, tears welling in her eyes. “I just don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  S-s-h-h-h-h-h,” he murmured, stroking her hair. “I’m perfectly fine. There’s nothing for you to worry about.” He held her at arm’s length. “Now, I’m going to go take my shower. We need to be getting to bed.”

  While he was in the shower, Brian wondered about Adrienne’s sudden concern over anything happening to him. She had never before seemed to be worried about anything like that. Had something changed to make her begin considering such things? He tried to think of anything different about their relationship but could find nothing. Everything seemed to be going pretty much as it always had. He shrugged off the mystery, stepped out of the shower and got ready for bed.

  Later, as Adrienne snuggled against him, she whispered against his shoulder,

  “Seriously, Brian. What if something did happen to you? What would I do? I couldn’t possibly make the payments on the car. I couldn’t afford the rent. I would be booted out on the street with no pl
ace to go and no way of getting there.”

  “But I’ve told you, there’s no reason to worry.”

  “But you never know when you might be in an accident or something. What would I do then?”

  “I have good long-term medical benefits at work. They’d cover everything.”

  “But what if you were killed? What then?”

  Brian gulped. He had never thought about his mortality. He was too young to be concerned about dying. Yet it happened every day. Young people, even teenagers, were killed in automobile accidents or any other of a hundred different ways. Maybe Adrienne was right. He’d never considered life insurance, but maybe he should. He had responsibilities now. He, at least, had a responsibility to Adrienne. Hadn’t he persuaded her to come live with him? Didn’t that make her a part of his responsibility?

  “You think I should get some kind of life insurance?”

  “It’s the only smart thing to do. Then neither one of us would have to worry about anything.”

  “I don’t know anything about any of that stuff. I wouldn’t even have a clue as to how much I’d need.”

  She shrugged against him. “I’ve always heard that one should have at least five times his annual salary.”

  Brian paused and calculated in his mind. “That’d be nearly a million bucks!”

  Again she shrugged. “That’s what they recommend.”

  He sighed. How could he possibly make the premiums on a million-dollar insurance policy? But he didn’t need to tell Adrienne that little fact. “Okay, I’ll look into it.”

  Brian tossed and turned the hours away. Every time he dozed off he was startled awake by a nightmare of being pursued by an army of unpaid bills that were screaming for his life.

  The next evening, Brian came home earlier than usual. He was sitting at the dining table going over some contracts when Adrienne came in from work.

  “Oh, I’m glad you’re home,” she said.

  “Yeah, I thought I might as well review these papers in comfort.”

  She tossed a thick brochure on top of the stack of legal documents.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “Everything you need to know about life insurance.” She laughed. “And probably more than you ever wanted to know. I stopped by an insurance office today and asked some questions. There’s an application in there too. You want a cup of coffee?”

  “Might as well, I need something to keep me awake while I plow through all this.”

  She went into the kitchen and he began to peruse the booklet she had given him. When she returned and set a mug beside his arm, he mused aloud. “I wonder whether they’ll accept the results of my last physical.”

  “I don’t see why not since it’s been only a few months since you took it. The agent said that they use many of the same providers that most medical policies accept.”

  “Hope so. I’d hate to have to go through the fasting and all that crap again so soon.”

  “I’m sure they’ll take those results. You’ll just have to ask your doctor to release a copy of the paperwork to them.” She took a sip from her own cup. “So, are you going to fill out the application?”

  He shrugged. “Might as well, I guess, and get it over with.”

  For hours, long after Adrienne had gone to bed, Brian sat poring over the insurance brochures. He perused the various plans and compared the costs. There was no way that he could afford a permanent policy. It would be a stretch even to manage a ten-year term deal. That would, at least, give Adrienne some protection, if anything should happen to him, and surely he would have all of the debt paid down by the time the policy expired. He might be able to swing that kind of a deal, if he skipped buying lunch and cut all other expenditures that weren’t absolutely necessary.

  With a sigh, he pulled out the application form and shoved the brochure to one side. He filled in all the blanks including the required medical history and the provider of his last physical. He signed the consent form to release his medical information, stuffed the form into the envelope and shoved it into his briefcase. He’d mail it in the morning.

  Within a matter of days the insurance application had been accepted and Brian’s life was worth a small fortune.

  Chapter 6

  The early autumn breezes turned crisp and the smell of burning leaves hung in the air. Brian continued to work long hours and frequently came home to find Adrienne entertaining some of her coworkers.

  When he came into the condo and heard the muted sounds of the stereo, he would go directly into the living room and find a small group of nurses sipping wine and chatting in muffled tones. Inevitably, whenever he stepped into the room, the talking would abruptly cease.

  “Just wanted to let you know I’m home,” he would tell Adrienne. She’d introduce him to any new members of the group and he would move down the hallway to shower and change, shaking his head over their stifled giggles. Why was it that whenever a bunch of girls got together, they always seemed to giggle?

  The relationship between the couple seemed to be running relatively smoothly. Adrienne did not nag him nearly so much about his late hours and Brian tried not to push it, all the while he doggedly struggled to pay down the debts they had incurred. As the Christmas Holidays approached, the traffic around the shopping malls slowed Brian’s drive home to a crawl and he kept arriving later and later. One evening in mid-December he arrived particularly late. Adrienne and her friends were gathered in the living room. After a brief greeting, Brian went directly to the shower.

  Standing under the steamy pulsating water, he flexed his tense shoulders and kneaded the tired muscles of his back. He thought of his father and smiled. He would never have been able to convince him, a blue-collar factory worker, that sitting behind a desk all day could be so physically exhausting. His old man, no doubt, would have smirked and wondered aloud what kind of a candy-assed son he had raised. Brian’s smile withered. He missed the old man. Dead of a heart attack at only forty-eight. He shook his head. Maybe it was a good thing he’d gotten that insurance policy. If his dad had planned better, perhaps his mother wouldn’t have had it so hard when the old man was suddenly gone.

  When his stiff muscles had finally relaxed, Brian stepped from the shower. With his towel wrapped around his waist, he padded barefoot into the bedroom. Adrienne sat on the bed and silently watched him cross to the chest of drawers and remove a pair of briefs.

  “The girls leave?” he asked.

  She nodded, but said nothing. Brian felt the tension creeping back into his shoulders. As he brushed his hair before the mirror, he glanced repeatedly at Adrienne’s reflection.

  “Sue and David are going on a cruise,” she said, breaking her long silence. “Bermuda. Over the Christmas holidays.”

  “Oh?”

  “And Elaine and Tom are going to Cancun.”

  “They should enjoy it.”

  She sat silently, a brooding expression clouding her face, while Brian proceeded to get into the bed. Suddenly, she turned to face him.

  “Why can’t we go to someplace nice like that?”

  “You know that we can’t afford it, not for a while at least.”

  “That’s what you always say, every time I want to do something. We can’t afford it,”

  she mocked.

  Brian heaved a deep sigh. It was no use arguing. They’d been down this road before. He reached for the switch of his bedside lamp, clicked it off and slid under the covers. Adrienne flounced off the bed and marched from the room, slamming the door on her way out.

  Brian turned over, crossed his arms behind his head and stared at the ceiling. So, it was starting all over. Adrienne would continue to put the pressure on until his resistance crumbled. That’s the way it had always happened. But this time he just couldn’t allow that to happen. This time he had to be firm. This time he couldn’t give in. Finally, Brian drifted into a restless sleep. When his alarm sounded, he punched the off button and reached for Adrienne. He snapped fully awake. Her side
of the bed was empty. Flipping on the lamp, he looked around the room, remembering their previous discussion. Everything looked the same as it had the evening before. He crossed to the door, quietly opened it and listened. The house was silent. He went down the hall, peered into the kitchen, and then proceeded to the living room. There, curled up in the recliner, was Adrienne sound asleep in front of the muted morning newscast. Brian’s first reaction was to wake her up and ask why she had spent the night in the chair. He slowly shook his head. No, that was how he would have normally behaved. This time he had to act differently. This time he had to be sure that he didn’t cave.

  He returned to the bedroom and dressed quickly. He’d stop on the way to the office and get coffee. There was no sense in taking a chance on waking her by making it at home.

  When Brian got into his office, he struggled with the temptation to call Adrienne. How he hated having all of this tension between them. But, if he called, she would know that her behavior was bothering him and from there, well, it would only get worse. Suddenly, he realized that ever since they had started dating, he had allowed her to manipulate him with her anger and the ensuing long periods of silence. Time after time, he had given in to her desires in order to hold onto the woman with whom he had fallen in love. Sadly, that woman had only remained until the next want came along. This time it had to be different. This time he had to at least pretend that her sulking wasn’t bothering him. Surely that would be manageable what with all of the long hours he was working. Throwing all his energies into getting together the figures for the business’ year-end report to upper management, the hours passed quickly as he concentrated on the visuals that he would include in his presentation.

  It was late in the evening when he opened the door of the condo. All was quiet. There was no music coming from the living room, no hint of muted voices. He walked into the living room and through the dining room, pausing to glance into the kitchen. There was no one there.

  His pulse raced as he moved quickly down the hallway. Had she left him? Had she just moved out without even saying anything to him? He opened the bedroom door and flipped on the light.