Pot of Gold

by Judith Michael

  "I have no idea. I was told that the young lady fled in a state of agitation, and when she was reminded of her coat, she evidently said it didn't matter. More than once, I'm told."

  "She left alone.?"

  "Several of my people told me that."

  "Was this at the end of dinner.'"'

  "I think so. Is this important.? I can call the waiter who served their table, if you'd like."

  "It is important. I'd appreciate that."

  The waiter sounded as if he had been awakened. "She was very lovely, the young lady, but very unhappy. Twice she has to leave the table; once I am there to pull it out for her, and she goes to the ladies' room downstairs, but the second time she is gone before I can help her, and this time she leaves the restaurant."

  "Had they finished their dinner.?"

  "He had, monsieur; the young lady barely ate."

  "And what did they drink.?"

  "Ah, that I remember. A Graves, a C6tes-du-Rhone, a Chateau d'Yquem, and then cognac."

  "Full bottles or half.?"

  "Full, monsieur."

  "A great deal for two people."

  "Indeed, monsieur. The young lady seemed to drink moderately. Except for the cognac."

  "What does that mean.?"

  "It was after she came back from the ladies' room. The cognac

  was there and she drank it all at once. Like a . . . what do you say , . . like a bet. It caused her some difficulty."

  "You seem to have kept an eye on them."

  "On the young lady, monsieur. She was so happy, you see, and then suddenly so unhappy."

  "Were they quarreling.^"

  "I think so." There was a pause. "I think the young man wanted to quarrel and so they did."

  "What about.?"

  "Alas, monsieur, I am suddenly very busy and I do not get close enough to hear. That is why the young lady leaves the table without my help."

  "Thank you." Alex turned back to the owner. "May I call the maitre d'.^'"

  The owner contemplated him. "You are conducting this like a police investigation."

  "I'm asking questions because I don't know what happened and the young lady is very ill. I think I can safely say you and your restaurant are not involved."

  After a moment, the owner nodded and dialed another number. Again, he handed the telephone to Alex. "I'm told the young lady who fled the restaurant last night said her coat didn't matter," Alex said.

  "That is correct, monsieur."

  "Did she say anything else.''"

  "No, monsieur. She pushed through the door before I could help her, and she was gone."

  "And then her companion left. When was that.'"'

  "About ten minutes later, monsieur."

  "And he made a remark about marriage.?"

  "A totally uncalled-for remark, monsieur."

  "And then.?"

  "He got his coat and I gave him the young lady's coat, and he left."

  "Was he cheerful.?"

  "I have no idea."

  "Well, was he upset.? If they'd been quarreling, as the waiter says, he would have been upset."

  "He did not seem upset, monsieur. If I had to give you a word, I would say he seemed satisfied."

  "Satisfied," Alex repeated. "Satisfied," he said again after he left the owner's office and crossed the street once again. He reentered the hotel lobby and went to the pay telephone. He had made a note of the clerk's telephone number when the day clerk dialed it. "I'm sorry to bother you again," he began.

  "Hey, dude, I'm sleeping," the clerk said angrily. "I work at night; I sleep in the day."

  "I'm sorry; I wouldn't have called if it wasn't important. I only have a few more questions. Please."

  "Well, what the hell, you got me awake now. Go ahead."

  "Did Mr. Eiger say anything when he came in last night.'' Did he ask about Miss Goddard.'"'

  "Yeah, he said she was upset because she wanted to get married and he didn't. Something like that."

  "He told you that.'* Something so personal.'"'

  "People do that."

  "But he should have stayed with Miss Goddard," Alex said, probing.

  "Yes, he should!" the clerk burst out. "You don't leave young girls alone in the middle of New York!"

  "Right. Thanks for your help." Alex went to the front desk. "I'll take Miss Goddard's suitcase, if I may."

  "Yes, sir. You'll have to sign for it."

  When he left, holding Emma's suitcase, he hailed a taxi. And he was repeating the word satisfied2^."^ he went back to the hospital.

  Hannah had arrived when he returned to the waiting room; she was holding Claire's hand, and shaking her head, back and forth, back and forth; she could not stop. "Another hospital. Another child. I should have done more, I know what dangers there are, I know what loss is. I was complacent; I thought evervthing was smooth ... so much money ... a home ... a family . . . but I was wrong, nothing is ever completely smooth. I let Emma down; I should have said something more, done something to help her."

  "We all tried; we didn't ignore her," Gina said. "It's not smart to sit here blaming ourselves; it's awful enough without that." She looked up as Alex joined them. "Well.''"

  "They quarreled at dinner and Emma left alone." He sat beside Claire and took her hand. "We hac to consider the possibility that Brix somehow got her to take more Halcion than she

  would alone. Paula Brauer agrees with you; she says the idea of suicide contradicts ever'thing she knows about Emma."

  Hannah stared at him. "You're saying he tried to kill her."

  A long moan escaped from Claire. "I let her go out with him, I didn't try hard enough to stop her."

  "You did as much as you could," Alex said. "Every parent I know says the same kind of thing—'I should have done more,' 'I should have been wiser,' 'I should have been stricter'—but their kids were going to break away and do their own thing whatever happened at home. You know that, Claire; you couldn't keep her under lock and key forever. And you wouldn't want to; how would she find her own way, if you did.^ You're no different from every other parent; after a while, all you can do is be around if your kids need you, and hope for the best."

  "But other kids don't end up in a coma," Claire said. "This wasn't just adolescent rebellion, this was a dangerous relationship and I should have done something about it."

  "You didn't know it was dangerous."

  "I knew what he'd done in college."

  "You heard a story that Quentin contradicted, and you had nothing to help you choose between the two versions. Anyway, it was ru'O years ago and by now he's a responsible person; a vice president of his father's company. Most mothers would have cheered."

  Claire shuddered. Abruptly, she stood up and went to the nurses' station outside the intensive care unit, then in another moment came back. "Nothing. She's just the same. It's more dangerous, the longer it lasts." She stood in place, looking out the window. "She was so happy, just a few months ago. We had all that money and she was so excited; she loved that red car—she couldn't believe it when I told her it was hers—and then we went to Simone's . . . my God, it seems like a lifetime ago. We bought presents for friends and for each other; we bought the house; we bought and bought and bought, like kids in a toy store. We thought the world was wide open to us, and we could have anything in it we wanted, or the whole damn thing, for that matter, and our lives would be perfect from then on."

  They were silent. In the corridor, a doctor was paged, a nurse gave instructions to a hospital volunteer, carts were wheeled past the waiting room, interns came by, trailing a doctor on his rounds,

  a telephone rang at the nurses' station. "What happened to me?" Claire asked, speaking almost to herself. "Why did I forget all those obvious things people always say about money.'' It's so trite. Money cant buy happiness. Everyone says it; I wonder how many people really believe it. I didn't. I thought I did, but I didn't."

  "How could you.^" Gina asked, "when you were barely making it from one paycheck t
o the next.^"

  "It's hard to think clearly about money," Hannah said. "It wasn't your fault." She looked to Alex, silently asking him to help.

  "Most people have trouble thinking about money rationally," he said. He knew Claire was listening, even though most of her attention was on the corridor and the room at the end of it where Emma lay. "Money and power. I suppose it's because they seem simple, but in fact they're very complicated. And slippery: the more you think about them the more your ideas about them change, until, after a while, you see the world in terms of money or power, or both, instead of people. How many people do you know who think they have exactly enough money.'' I've met men worth hundreds of millions of dollars who go on increasing their wealth even if it means destroying people or companies or open land. They get blinded."

  "I was blinded," Claire said in a low voice.

  "Yes, no one could have that much money fall out of the sky without being blinded by it. There's nothing more cold and brutal than money, but it can sing, like the sirens, luring people on."

  "Like Midas," Gina said. "As soon as he had the power to turn things into gold, he couldn't stop; he transformed everything he saw. At the end he even turned his own daughter into gold, and it killed—oh, God, oh, God." She put her hands over her face. "I'm sorry, Claire; I'm not thinking straight."

  "Mrs. Goddard, will you come with me.''" A nurse stood at the door of the waiting room.

  They all sprang up. "What is it.?" Claire asked. Instinctively, she put her hands over her ears, like a child, so as not to hear bad news.

  "She's not dead," Alex said flatly, as if he could make it true by saying it.

  "No," the nurse replied. "She seems to be coming out of the

  coma, and she may respond to her mother. If you'll come with me, Mrs. Goddard ..."

  Claire took a tottering step and Alex reached out to steady her. "Do you want me to come.^"

  "Just Mrs. Goddard," said the nurse.

  "She'll recover now," Gina said to the nurse, daring her to deny it.

  "We don't know that," the nurse said gently, "but this is a beginning."

  "Go on, go on," Hannah said to Claire. "We'll be here. We'll wait as long as it takes. You go to your daughter and help her live."

  NINETEEN

  E

  M M A ' S bed was in a corner of a large room, bright with fluorescent Hghts and crowded with equipment: metal boxes, plastic tubing, wires, TV monitors with jagged peaks or waves on the screens. The narrow bed had low, barred sides, like a crib, and Emma was partially screened by a curtain on a U-shaped rod in the ceiling. Her eyes were closed; her hands were folded on her chest; an intravenous tube ran to the back of one hand from two plastic bags hanging on a chrome rack beside the bed, and she breathed oxygen through a small plastic device in her nose. Her skin was as pale as parchment; the only color anywhere was her red-gold hair, spread on the pillow. Everything else was white and chrome, sterile, cold, starkly efficient, smelling of antiseptics.

  Claire sat in a plastic chair beside the bed, her back to the room. She held Emma's free hand in hers, stroking it gently and steadily, the way she always did when Emma was sick. "You're going to be fine," she said softly. "You're going to get well. You'll feel good again, and happy, and we'll have so much fun ..." Her words caught in her throat and she took a shaky breath.

  Her whole world at that moment was centered in Emma; she could not bear to think of a world without her. They had been so close, they had been the boundaries of each other's life for so many years that Claire thought of Emma as her other self, a self Claire had only dreamed of being, a self she willingly gave to her daughter and rejoiced at when she saw the woman Emma became. If Emma died, Claire knew she would only be part of a

  person, never again whole, never again able to see the world as a place of marvelous possibilities. She could not imagine any marvels, with Emma dead; it would be as if an eclipse had wiped out the light, everything in the world diminished.

  She could not stand thinking about it. She wanted to scream with helplessness; she wanted to scream Emma's name, to clutch her shoulders and shake her to force her to respond. Instead, she sat still, watching Emma, her eyes burning with tears she would not allow to fall, because she was determined that when Emma opened her eyes, she would see her mother smiling and confident, absolutely certain in her love and her ability to help Emma get well, to help her forget the past.

  Why would she do it? Why would she want to kill herself?

  She didn't, she didn't, she didn't. The words ran through Claire's mind beneath all the words she was saying aloud to Emma. She wouldn't try to kill herself. Something else had happened. She'll tell us what it was. Soon. When she wakes up.

  When she wakes up. "Emma, listen to me," Claire said urgently. "Listen. You will wake up. You'll get well and we'll do wonderful things together; I've got so many ideas about things we can do—" She stopped, holding her breath. She thought Emma's hand had moved in hers. "Emma.^" She waited, barely breathing, as if she were straining to catch an elusive sound. "Emma, do that again." And Emma's hand stirred against her mother's palm.

  Claire closed her eyes. In the cold brightness of the room, there were just the two of them, close together, and Emma telling her mother she was alive.

  Claire put her mouth beside Emma's ear. "I'm here, Emma, as close as I can be. Can you look at me.^ Can you tell me you hear me.'^ I won't go away; I'll stay right here. I won't leave you, I'll help you wake up, I'll help you get well. Emma, can you look at me.'* Can you open your eyes.-^ Can you tell me you hear me.^" She sat there without moving, leaning forward, holding Emma's hand, her lips brushing Emma's ear. And then she thought of how she used to sing to Emma when she was sick. She had not done it for a long time, but now, very softly, she began to sing, old nursery rhymes and folk songs that Emma loved: songs of love and homecoming, of partings and reunions, of parents and children and again, always, of love. Her back ached, her leg was numb and tingling, but she did not move. It had been over two hours since

  the nurse brought her to Emma's side, but still she held Emma's hand, and talked and sang and talked again.

  Emma thought it was a river, a sweet, murmuring river buoying her up. She floated on the river, and when she put her hand in the water, it was warm and gentle; there were no rocks or rapids, only softness and the low, steady sound that was so comforting as it held her and carried her forward, away from danger. She loved the river, she thought she had never loved anything as much as she loved the river, and she sank into it, giving herself up to it, letting it take her wherever it wanted to go.

  / wont leave you, Vll help you wake up, Vll help you get well.

  The voice seemed to be inside her, but she knew it was her mother's voice. And suddenly Emma thought, I didn't die. I was going to die but I didn't. I didn't die because my mother found me.

  "I'll help you get well." This time the voice was outside her, a whisper, a soft breath in her ear. Her mother's voice. Her mother had found her and was beside her, talking to her. Her mother would take care of her. "Emma, can you look at me.'* Can you open your eyes.'"'

  / want to, but they're so heavy . . .

  "Emma, can you tell me you hear me.?"

  Struggling, forcing her muscles to move against a great weariness, Emma opened her eyes—and looked into the eyes of her mother.

  "Oh, Emma, thank God, thank God ..." Claire leaned down, sliding her arms beneath Emma's shoulders to hug her and kiss her cheeks and forehead. "You'll be all right. I promise, you'll be all right."

  Oh, my mother is so beautiful, Emma thought; nothing is more beautiful than my mother. She wanted to tell her how beautiful she was, and how much she loved her, but no words came. She tried to talk, but her throat and mouth could not push out the words. She thought them; they were in her mind, and she made sentences of them in her mind, but it was too hard to push them out; that terrible weariness that weighed on her eyes kept her throat and mouth from moving. She tried and tried, but nothing
happened; she could not talk.

  It frightened her. Maybe she would never talk again, or maybe

  she wasn't awake at all; maybe she was dreaming her mother was there and she was still dying. She remembered thinking she was dying. She couldn't remember very much, but she did remember that. She looked past her mother, at the white curtain, and looked back again, wondering where she was.

  "You're in the hospital," Claire said. "In New York. We brought you here when we found you. You were very sick. When you're better, we'll take you home."

  Who.'' Emma wondered. She looked at her mother.

  "Can't you talk.^ Try, Emma." Claire watched Emma's lips open. No sound came out; her eyes were filled with fear. "It's all right," Claire said quickly. "It's because you're weak. You'll be fine in a little while; you'll be fine. Right now I'll do the talking; you nod if you understand. Emma.'' Do you understand.''"

  Emma nodded. It was hard to move, but her chin rose and fell enough for her mother to see.

  "Good, that was very good." Claire squeezed Emma's hand. "You're going to get stronger every minute; you'll see. Well, what shall I tell you.'' Gina and Alex and I found you. Hannah's here, too; she came just a little while ago. All the people who love you best—"

  "Oh, this is wonderful," the nurse said, appearing beside the bed. "Hello, Emma, we've been waiting for you to wake up. Excuse me, Mrs. Goddard." Claire moved back, and the nurse took Emma's blood pressure and temperature. She checked the intravenous fluid, adjusting the valve slightly on one of the bags, checked the oxygen flow, watched the monitor showing Emma's heart rate and breathing. "Welcome back," she said, and her voice was tender and thankful. "I have a daughter," she said to Claire. "She just had her fifteenth birthday." She paused, and Claire knew what was going through her mind. Because we all have the same nightmares, she thought; all the parents in the world. There's nothing I can tell this woman that she doesn't already know; in fact, she's seen worse than Emma and worse than anything I can imagine. "I'll get the doctor," the nurse said. "She's in the hospital; she'll be here in a few minutes."