She knew the hospital was only half a block away, and all she had to do was get there in a hurry. She saw the bellmen watching her, and the clerk at the desk, and when she got outside into the warm September air, she felt a little better.
“Cab, miss?” the doorman asked, but she shook her head and tried to straighten up, but she couldn't. A flash of pain made her gasp, and suddenly a cramp of unbelievable strength buckled her knees, as he reached out and caught her. “Are you all right?”
“I'm fine … I just have … a little problem …” At first he thought she was drunk, but when he saw her face, he could see that she was in pain. And she looked vaguely familiar. They had so many regulars and movie stars, sometimes it was hard to know who you knew and who you didn't. “I was just going … to the hospital …”
“Why don't you take a cab? There's one right here. He'll take you right across Park Avenue and drop you off. I'd take you myself, but I can't leave the door,” he apologized, and she agreed to take the cab. She could hardly walk now. The doorman told him Lenox Hill, and she handed the doorman and the driver each five dollars.
“Thanks, I'll be fine,” she reassured everyone, but she didn't look it. After they'd crossed Park Avenue, and pulled into the space for the emergency room, the driver turned to look at her, and at first he didn't see her. She had slipped off the seat, and she was lying on the floor of his cab, unconscious.
Chapter 15
As they wheeled Grace into the emergency room, she saw lights spinning by overhead, and heard noises. There were metallic sounds, and someone called her by her first name. They kept saying it over and over, and then they were doing something terrible to her, and there was awful pain. She tried to sit up and stop them. What were they doing … they were killing her … it was terrible … why didn't they stop … she had never felt so much pain in her life. She screamed, and then everything went black, and there was silence.
The phone rang in the house in Washington. It was five-thirty in the morning. But Charles wasn't asleep. He had been awake all night, praying that she would call him. He'd been such a fool. He had been wrong to react the way he had, but they were all worn down by the constant attack of the tabloids. And it had been a shock. But the last thing he had wanted to do was lose her. He had told the kids she'd gone to New York for a conference for “Help Kids!” and would be back in a few days, which would give him a little time to find her. He wasn't sure where she was. He had tried calling the house in Connecticut all night and she wasn't there. He'd called the Carlyle in New York and there was no one registered by the name of Mackenzie. He wondered if she was at a hotel in Washington somewhere, hiding. And when the phone rang, he hoped it would be her, but it wasn't.
“Mr. Mackenzie?” The voice was unfamiliar. His name was on an I.D. card in her wallet, simply as Charles Mackenzie. And her driver's license read Grace Adams Mackenzie.
“Yes?” He wondered if it was going to be a crank call, and was sorry he had answered. The letters and calls had started again in full force after her photos.
“We have a Grace Mackenzie here.” The voice seemed totally without interest.
“Who are you?” Had she been kidnapped? Was she dead? … Oh God …
“I'm calling from Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. Mis. Mackenzie just came out of surgery.” … oh God … no … there had been an accident … “She was brought in by a cabdriver, hemorrhaging very badly.” Oh no … the baby … he felt a hand clutch his heart, but all he could think about was Grace now.
“Is she all right?” He sounded hoarse and frightened, but the nurse was slighdy reassuring.
“She's lost a lot of blood. But we'd rather not give her a transfusion.” They did everything they could now to avoid it. “She's stabilized, and her condition is listed as fair.” And then for a moment, the voice became almost human. “She lost the baby. I'm sorry.”
“Thank you.” He had to catch his breath and figure out what to do. “Is she conscious? Can I talk to her?”
“She's in the recovery room. I'd say she'll be there till eight-thirty or nine. They want to get her blood pressure up before they send her to a room, and it's still pretty low right now. I don't think she's going anywhere till later this morning.”
“She can't check out, can she?”
“I don't think so.” The nurse sounded surprised at the question. “I don't think she'll feel up to it. There's a key in her bag from the Carlyle Hotel. I called there. But they said no one was with her.”
“Thank you. Thank you very much for calling me. I'll be there as soon as I can.” He jumped out of bed as soon as he hung up, and scrawled a note to the kids about an early meeting. He dressed in five minutes, without shaving, and drove to the airport. He was there by six-thirty, and caught a seven o'clock flight. A number of the flight attendants recognized him, but no one said anything. They just brought him the newspaper, juice, a Danish, and a cup of coffee, like they did for everyone else, and left him alone. For most of the flight, he sat staring out the window.
They landed at eight-fifteen, and he got to Lenox Hill just after nine o'clock. They were just wheeling Grace into her room when he got there. He followed the gurney into the room, and she looked surprised to see him, and very groggy.
“How did you get here?” She looked confused, and her eyes kept drifting shut, as the nurse and the orderly left the room. Grace looked gray and utterly exhausted.
“I flew,” he smiled, standing next to her, and gently took her hand in his. He had no idea if she knew yet about the baby.
“I think I fell,” she said vaguely.
“Where?”
“I don't remember … I was in a cab in Washington and someone hit us …” She wasn't sure now if it was a dream or not … “And then, I had terrible pains …” She looked up at him, suddenly worried. “Where am I?”
“You're at Lenox Hill. In New York,” he said soothingly, sitting down in the chair next to her, but never letting go of her hand. He was frightened by how bad she looked and was anxious to speak to the doctor.
“How did I get here?”
“I think a cabdriver brought you in. You passed out in his cab. Drunk again, I guess.” He smiled, but without saying anything, she started to cry then. She had touched her belly and it felt flat. At three months there had been a little hill growing there and it was suddenly gone. And then she remembered the terrible pain the night before, and the bleeding. No one had told her anything yet about the baby. “Grace? … sweetheart, I love you … I love you more than anything. I want you to know that. I don't want to lose you.” She was crying harder then, for him, for the baby they'd lost, and their children. Everything was so difficult, and so sad now.
“I lost the baby … didn't I?” She looked at him for confirmation and he nodded. They both cried then, and he held her.
“I'm so sorry. I should have been smart enough to know you'd really go. I thought you were bluffing and needed some space that night. I almost died when I read your letter.”
“Did you give my letters to the children?”
“No,” he said honestly. “I kept them. I wanted to find you and bring you back. But if I'd been smart enough to keep you from going in the first place, you wouldn't have had the accident, and …” He was convinced it was all his fault.
“Shhh … maybe it was just from ail the stress we've been through … I guess it wasn't the right time anyway, with everything that's happened.”
“It's always the right time … I want to have another baby with you,” he said lovingly. He didn't care how old they both were, they both loved their children. “I want our life back.”
“So do I,” she whispered. They talked for a little while, and he stroked her hair and kissed her face, and eventually she fell asleep and he went to locate the doctor. But he wasn't encouraging. She had lost a dramatic amount of blood, and the doctor didn't think she'd be feeling well for a while, and he said that while she was certainly able to conceive again, he didn't recommend it. She had
a startling amount of scarring, and he was actually surprised she'd gotten pregnant as often as she had. Charles did not volunteer an explanation for the scarring. The doctor suggested that she go to the hotel and rest for a couple of days, and then go home to Washington and stay in bed for at least another week, maybe two. A miscarriage at three months with the kind of hemorrhaging she'd experienced was nothing to take lightly.
They went from the hospital to the hotel that afternoon, and Grace was stunned by how weak she was. She could hardly walk and Charles carried her into the hotel, and to her room, and put her right to bed, and ordered room service for her. She was sad, but they were happy to be together, and the room was very cozy. He called his aides in Washington and told them that he wouldn't be back for a couple of days, and then he called the housekeeper and told her to explain to the children that he was with their mother in New York, and would be back in two days. She promised to stay with them until he returned, and drive Matt to school. Everything was in order.
“Nice and simple. Now all you have to do is get well, and try to forget what happened.”
But after they left the hospital, the nurse at the front desk had commented to the doctor, “Do you know who that was?” He had no idea. The name had meant nothing to him. “That was Congressman Mackenzie from Connecticut and his porno queen wife. Don't you read the tabloids?”
“No, I don't,” he said, barely amused. Porno queen or not, the woman had been very lucky not to bleed to death. And he wondered if her “porno” activities had anything to do with the scarring. But he didn't have time to worry about it, he had surgery all afternoon. She wasn't his problem.
At the hotel, Charles made her sleep as much as she could, and the next morning, Grace was feeling better. She ate breakfast and sat up in a chair, and she wanted to go out for a walk with him, but she didn't have the strength to do it. She couldn't believe how rotten she felt. He called her former obstetrician in New York, and he was nice enough to come to see her. He gave her some pills and some vitamins, and told her she'd just have to be patient. And when they went out in the hall, Charles asked him about what the doctor at Lenox Hill had said about the scarring. But her own doctor wasn't impressed. She'd had it for years and it had never given her any trouble.
“She's got to take it easy now though, Charles. She looks like she's lost a lot of blood. She's probably very anemic.”
“I know. She's had a rough time lately.”
“I know. I've seen. Neither of you deserves that. I'm sorry.”
He thanked him and the doctor left, and they curled up on the couch and watched old movies and ordered room service, and the next day, he bundled her up in a limousine, and took her to the airport, and put her in a wheelchair. He had thought about driving her back to Washington, but that seemed too tiring too. Flying was quicker. They flew first class, and he got another wheelchair for her when they arrived, and he wheeled her quickly through the airport. But she waved frantically for him to stop as they passed a newspaper stand. And they both stood there, dumbfounded by what they saw.
A new edition of the tabloid had come out with a raging headline. “Senator's Wife Sneaks off to New York for Abortion.” Grace burst into tears the minute she saw it, and he didn't even bother to buy one for them to read. There was a huge picture of her on the front from a congressional party months before. He just wheeled her through the airport at full speed and took her to where he had left his car two days before. She was still crying when he opened the door for her with a strained expression. Were they never going to give her a break and leave them alone? Apparently not.
He helped her into the car, and walked around and got in himself, and then he turned to her with a look that touched her very soul. “I love you. You can't let them destroy us … or you … we have to get through this.”
“I know,” she said, but she couldn't stop crying.
At least this time, the six o'clock news did not dignify the story with a comment. This was strictly tabloid material. And they told the children about it that night but said it wasn't true. They said that Grace had gone to New York and been in an accident in a cab, which was almost true. She had, but it had been in Washington, and she had lost a baby. But Grace didn't think they should know that, so they didn't tell them about the miscarriage.
She was still feeling very weak the next day, but the children were being very good to her, even Abby brought breakfast to her room, and at lunchtime Grace went downstairs for a cup of tea, and happened to look out the window. There were pickets lined up outside carrying signs of “Murderess!” “Baby Killer!” “Abortion Monger.” There were photographs of aborted fetuses, and Grace had an asthma attack the moment she saw them.
She had Charles paged, and when he called her he was horrified, and told her he'd call the police immediately. They came half an hour later, but the pickets only moved across the street, in peaceful demonstration. And by then, a camera crew had arrived, and it became a circus. Charles came home shortly after that, and he was beginning to wonder if they would ever have a normal life again. He refused to comment to the camera crew, and said that his wife had been in a car accident and was ill and he would really appreciate their leaving, after which there was a lot of hooting and jeering.
But that afternoon, when the children came home, the pickets were gone, and only the camera crew remained, and Grace, looking deathly pale, was fixing dinner.
Charles tried to force her to go upstairs, but she flatly refused. “I've had enough. I'm not going to let them ruin our lives anymore. We're going back to normal,” She was determined, although she was visibly shaky, but he had to admire her, as he pushed a chair under her and suggested she sit down while he made dinner.
“Could you maybe wait a week before this show of strength?” he suggested.
“No, I can't,” she said firmly. And much to everyone's surprise, they had a very pleasant dinner. Abby seemed to have calmed down again while Grace was gone, and if anything, she seemed helpful and sympathetic. It was hard to know what, but something had turned her around. Maybe there had just been so much grief, that she had figured out they all needed each other. And Andrew commented on the ghouls outside, and said he was tempted to moon them from his bedroom window, which made everyone laugh, even Grace, although she told him not to.
“I don't think we need to see any more Mackenzie flesh in the tabloids,” she said ruefully.
And afterwards, while she straightened up, Abby asked her quietly. “That wasn't true about the abortion, was it, Mom?” She looked a little worried.
“No, sweetheart, it wasn't.”
“I didn't think so.”
“I would never have an abortion. I love your father very much, and I would love to have another baby.”
“Do you think you will?”
“Maybe. I don't know. There's an awful lot going on right now. Poor Dad is under a lot of pressure.”
“So are you,” she said, sympathetic for the first time. “I was talking to Nicole's mom about it, and she said she felt really sorry for you, that most of the time, they tell lies and ruin people's lives. It made me realize how awful for you all this must be. I didn't mean to make it worse.” There were tears in her eyes as she said it.
“You didn't” Grace leaned over and kissed her.
“I'm sorry, Mom.” They hugged for a long time, and had a quiet moment, and then they walked upstairs arm in arm, and Charles smiled as he watched them.
Life was peaceful again, for the next few days, with the exception of hate letters about her alleged abortion. But by the weekend, another of Marcus's photographs had been printed in Thrill again. She wore the same black velvet ribbon around her neck, and the same lack of clothes. It was essentially the same photograph they'd seen before, just a slightly different position, and only slightly more suggestive. It didn't shock her anymore, it just made her angry. And, of course, his supposed “release” from her allegedly covered this one also.
“What are we supposed to wait for he
re? An entire album?” Grace said in fury. But Goldsmith told them again that they had no legal recourse, all the same conditions existed as before. There was supposedly a signed “release” with her signature, and the fact that Marcus owned the pictures and she was a so-called celebrity because of whom she was married to allowed him to publish whatever he wanted. As celebrities, they had no right to privacy anyway, so they could not be “invaded,” and they couldn't prove loss of income, or actual malice. “Do you suppose we should call that bastard Marcus and try to buy the rest of what he has?” she asked Charles, but he shook his head.
“You can't. That would be like paying blackmail, and he might not sell them to you anyway. He might keep some of them back, there's no way of knowing. Thrill is probably paying him a pretty penny for this. Pictures like that of someone like you are worth a lot of money.”
“Nice for him, maybe we should get a commission.”
She was so angry, but there was nothing she could do. And the following week she went to some campaign events with Charles. It was hard to determine how much damage the tabloids had done, people still greeted her warmly. But it was certainly unsettling for all of them, and very distracting.
A third photograph was released two weeks later, and this time when Matt came home from school, he was crying. And when Grace asked what had happened, he said that one of his friends had called her a bad name. She felt as though she'd been slapped when he said it.
“What kind of a name?” She tried to sound calm, but she wasn't.
“You know,” he said miserably. “The ‘H’ one.”
Malice Page 33