The Ups and Downs of Being Dead (16 page)

Robert nodded. “Yeah, I was there.”

“But…how can you talk about her like that,” Suzanne
sputtered. “Why aren’t you still with her? Didn’t she stay like I did?”

Great. Now he’d have to explain the argument he had with
Amanda just moments after she was shot to death. And probably the details of
his wife and attorney in bed together. This was why men didn’t get into
meaningful conversations. They never ended until the guy somehow got blamed for
everything.

“No,” he said, vaguely waving his hand, “she didn’t stay.”

An awkward silence wedged itself between various mechanical
beeps and whooshes in the room. Suzanne sat quietly, studying her fingernails.
Then she wandered over to have a closer look at the machines keeping her
daughter alive.

There was no clock in the room, but when a different nurse
came in later, Robert figured it was a shift change. The nurse checked all the
monitors and took Angie’s pulse. When she lifted an eyelid and shine a light in
her eye, Angie flinched.

Her eyes fluttered a few times before staying open. Suzanne
rushed to her side, but of course, it was useless.

“Angie,” the nurse said in a commanding voice, “you’ve been
in a car accident. You’re in the hospital. Do you understand?”

Angie gave a weak nod. Her head thrashed a bit and her eyes
widened.

“You have a breathing tube in your mouth,” the nurse told
her. “But now that you’re awake, I’ll get the doctor. Maybe we can take that out.
Okay?”

She nodded again, stronger this time.

Suzanne slumped onto Angie’s chest with a sob.

“Oh, thank God,” she said. “My baby. My sweet girl.”

She even attempted to brush Angie’s hair back.

“Very good,” the nurse told Angie. “You just hang tight. Someone
will be back shortly.”

Sure enough, a different nurse rolled in a cart with a tray
of medical knick-knacks, and a doctor swooshed in a while later.

He told Angie to squeeze his fingers, asked her a few
questions, then told her he was going to take the tube out of her throat.

“This will be a bit unpleasant,” the doctor said. “But if
you blow real hard when I tell you to, we’ll get it over with quickly, okay?”

Angie blew as instructed and the doctor pulled this long
tube out. There was lots of gagging and choking, but eventually Angie settled
back on her pillows with a sigh.

“Better?” the doctor asked as he held her wrist, his fingers
on her pulse.

“Yes,” she croaked.

“The nurse will give you some ice chips. That will quench
your thirst and ease that sore throat. Then I’m afraid you’re in for some more
pain. The police want to ask you some questions about the accident.”

The officer was just about to take a seat when Angie asked,
“My mom. How’s my mom?”

Remaining on his feet, the officer shook his head. “I’m
afraid your mother didn’t make it. She could not be resuscitated at the scene
of the accident.”

Angie let out a wail that nearly brought Robert to his
knees. There she lay, flat on her back, bruised and broken, and totally alone.

“Oh, baby,” Suzanne cried along with her. “It’s okay. It’s
okay.”

Where the hell was Maggie? Robert stepped out into the
hallway, but she was nowhere in sight. He wondered if he could pop back to the
center during all this confusion and tell Maggie to get her butt back here. Robert
would be more than happy to keep Asa company now.

The policeman offered his condolences, his feet shuffling on
the floor, his fingers sliding nervously along the band of his hat. Finally a
nurse came in and sat on the edge of the bed, right on Suzanne, and took
Angie’s hand.

“Your grandparents are on their way,” she told Angie. “We
just got a call from the airport.” She moved a strand of blood-caked hair off
Angie’s forehead and tucked it to the side as she softly reassured the girl
that everything would be all right.

Suzanne moved away from her awkward position between Angie
and the nurse. She tried to make eye contact with Robert, but he wasn’t going
there. She expected some sort of comfort, but he had no idea what to do. He
cursed himself again for not going back to the center with Maggie.

With no one to talk to, Suzanne drifted over to the far side
of the bed and perched next to Angie, stroking her hair as the policeman went
through his painful questions.

Robert wondered if Angie would be charged with vehicular
homicide. Hopefully, the cop had the decency to wait until she was out of the
hospital to hit her with that bad news.

At some point, Robert felt a presence and turned to see a
man in the doorway. He was handsome in his three-piece suit, his hair styled by
a professional. Robert guessed the man was in his early thirties. He held a
bouquet of red roses in both hands, like an offering.

“Wow,” Robert muttered. “I wonder who he’s looking for.”

Suzanne turned to look and groaned. “That’s Mark, the man
Angie’s been dating.”

“Are you serious? He’s the creep?”

She folded her arms in contempt. “Look at that suit.”

“I know,” Robert said. “I’m guessing it’s custom-fitted. And
that’s a fabulous tie.”

“No,” Suzanne whined. “I mean it’s so pretentious.”

“I think he has impeccable taste.”

Mark paled a bit at the sight of Angie’s injuries. If he
turned and ran, Robert wouldn’t blame him. But he didn’t.

“Oh, honey,” he gasped.

Jolted out of her misery, Angie raised a tentative hand to
smooth her hair, like that might help. But Mark obviously didn’t care. With a
rush, he charged into the room, tossing the flowers carelessly on the chair.
The nurse barely had time to stand before Mark brushed past her and sat in the
same small indention on the edge of the bed.

The police officer snapped his notebook closed. Maybe he
thought Mark was Angie’s attorney.

“Oh, brother,” Suzanne mumbled. “He’s putting on quite a
show.”

“Angie, baby,” Mark moaned. Taking her hand, he kissed her
fingers, then brushed them against his cheek. “I just found out.”

Robert tried to look past the swollen, bruised face to
imagine what Mark saw in her. The man oozed confidence and success, but Angie
had the same mousy hair and plain features as her mother. What was the
attraction?

“I’ve been calling your cell for hours,” Mark told Angie,
“but I figured you had it turned off.”

Angie’s fat bottom lip trembled.

“My mother—”

“I know,” Mark said. “I heard.”

A tear trickled out of Angie’s puffy eye, and Mark quickly
dabbed it with a tissue from the bedside stand.

Tears gushed. She bawled like an orphaned calf, her mouth a
gaping chasm. Her anguish didn’t faze Mark in the least.

Lifting tubes, he managed to wrangle closer to Angie. He
cradled her gently in his arms and let her tears soak into his fabulous suit.

Robert turned to Suzanne. “You think this is all an act?”

“No,” she whined. “I don’t know. But this isn’t the way he
was last night at dinner.”

She went through the motion of wringing her hands, but when
she didn’t get any tactile satisfaction, she splayed her fingers in front of
her face and stared at the useless appendages. Then she dropped her arms to her
sides.

“He was so patronizing, so condescending to both Angie and
me.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “He seems genuinely concerned to
me.”

Suzanne actually stamped her foot. She might have stormed
out of the room, but at that moment an elderly couple tottered through the
door. The grandparents.

They were about what Robert expected. Suzanne’s mother wore
her gray hair twisted into a knot at the nape of her neck. She was petite, like
Suzanne, and still shapely for a woman her age. But the drab beige slacks and
white blouse did nothing to add color to her pallor.

Suzanne’s father was a good six feet tall, with a full head
of gray hair, and a stature that said he’d been successful for a very long
time. Did Suzanne interpret his confidence as patronizing, too?

The room was suddenly overflowing with people. The nurse
made a quick exit, and after introductions and the passing of business cards,
the policeman left as well.

There were more tears of course. Mark politely stepped aside
to let the family grieve. Angie ranted that her mother’s death was all her
fault, and the grandparents dutifully denied her culpability.

Robert had decided he was ditching the whole scene when, at
last, Maggie showed up.

“Where the hell have you been?” he asked.

“There was a bit of trouble at the center,” she said,
glancing beyond Robert’s shoulder to take in all the new faces.

“Well, I’m out of here,” he insisted.

Maggie patted the air with her hand. “Sure, sure. Let me
just say goodbye to Suzanne.”

The drama had eased up a bit. Mark offered to find a second
chair and dashed out the door. Maggie took a moment to ogle the man before
waving Suzanne over.

She appeared more stricken with grief than before, if that
was possible.

“It looks like Angie’s got plenty of support now,” Maggie
told Suzanne. “I’ve got a bit of an emergency I need to take care of. Would you
like to come along?”

“No, no,” Suzanne said. “I want to stay here.”

“I understand,” Maggie nodded. “We’ll be back in a couple
days to check in on you, okay?”

Again with the zombie nod. What was wrong with Suzanne all
of a sudden?

“Funny, isn’t it?” she said to Robert. “I’m the only one who
doesn’t like Mark. And now I don’t even know why. If I hadn’t jumped to
conclusions, if I hadn’t forced my opinion on Angie, we never would have been
arguing in her car.”

She choked out a bitter laugh.

“If I’d given him half a chance, I’d still be alive.”

Robert practically sprinted to the window in the waiting
room at the end of the corridor. He dove to the sidewalk below and then waited
for Maggie to catch up.

“What a nightmare,” he said, shivering his torso like he was
shaking off a clammy hand.

“Don’t you feel any satisfaction in helping someone through
a rough time?”

“No,” he said. “Usually, when I stick my nose in someone
else’s business, the only thing I end up with is a bruised nose.”

“Well then, you better not come with me,” Maggie said,
“because I’m heading to South Carolina to check in with somebody.”

“You mean butt in?”

“A man named Stan Borkner joined the Cryonics Center seven
years ago. He was advised at the time to set up a Living Will and establish a
Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care. But we don’t think he did.”

“Oh, great.”

Not only had Jackson Burke drawn up those documents for
Robert, he’d gotten Amanda, Rachel and Robbie all to sign Relative’s
Affidavits, accepting his decision to be cryopreserved and agreeing not to
interfere.

“So what’s the emergency with Stan Borger?” Robert asked.

“Stan
Borkner
died
six months ago. The Cryonics Center was never notified to come and get the
body.”

“Oh, boy.”

“Yeah. The center just found out about his death when his
brother sent a request for a refund.”

“A refund!”

“He reasoned that since he was next of kin, and Stan never
used the center’s services, the brother was due a refund.”

“Which was his plan all along, no doubt,” Robert said.

“We were all warned about greedy family and relatives. I
don’t know why Stan didn’t take proper precautions.”

“I still don’t see what this has to do with you.”

“The Cryonics Center will handle the legal repercussions of
this incident. But as the designated representative of the newly-departed, it’s
my job to handle glitches with the dead. I need to go see if Stan Borkner is
still in South Carolina and needs our support.”

“That’s a pretty high-falutin’ way of saying you’re going to
go poke around.”

“Wouldn’t you want someone to listen to your frustrations?”
she asked. “Don’t you think we helped you when you first got to the center?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Robert agreed.

He imagined Stan Borkner might be pretty steamed. Was he
hanging around his brother’s house banging doors and creaking floorboards?
Another image popped into his head of Asa making the trip to South Carolina
instead of Maggie. All that blustering and yelling would probably put poor Stan
over the edge.

Once they got settled on a flight, Maggie asked Robert if
anyone in his family objected to his being preserved.

“You mean, like everyone I told?”

Maggie laughed. “I guess Joe and I were lucky. Both our sons
agreed with our decision.”

“My wife Amanda was opposed to it the most, but then she
stood to lose the most. Rachel was supportive, but after I told her, she always
looked at me a little different. Robbie really didn’t care. But I suspect that
was mostly because he was so out of it on drugs. He must have figured that his
mother would get all the money and he’d be sitting pretty.

“He did add a nice note to the Relative’s Affidavit he
signed. He wrote, ‘Who the fuck cares what you do?’”

“I guess the closest we came to someone objecting, was my
sister, Maeve. But her concern is that we’re jeopardizing our chances of
reincarnating as a higher being.”

“How long were you and Joe married?” Robert asked.

“Sixty-seven years.”

“Are you going to try and hook up again…in the future?”

The idea of spending another whole lifetime with the same
woman was revolting to Robert.

“Sure. Why not? We’ve been very happy together. Why mess up
a good thing?”

“So, you’re one of those soulmate people who thinks you were
meant for each other.”

“Not at all. But we’ve learned how to live harmoniously. We
know each others’ favorite things, our hot buttons, foods, entertainment,
sexual preferences.”