“Is he all right?” She sounded as though the bottom had just fallen out of her world, and it had, and for an ugly moment Peter couldn't help wondering if she would have sounded like that if it had been him instead of her father. Or was Frank right? Was he just a toy they had bought and paid for?
“I think he'll be all right. It looked a little grim there for a minute, but the guys from 911 were great. We had paramedics here and the fire department,” and there was still a policeman outside calming everyone down, and taking a report from Frank's secretary, though even she didn't know exactly what had happened. They were waiting to talk to Peter, but it all seemed pretty straightforward. But as Peter listened to his wife, he realized that she was crying. “Take it easy, sweetheart. He's fine. I just think you should come in to see him.” But he suddenly wondered if she'd be in any shape to drive. He didn't want her having an accident on the way in from Greenwich. “Is Mike around?” She sobbed into the phone that he wasn't. He could have driven his mother in if he'd been there. Paul only had a learner's permit, and wasn't a good enough driver to come all the way in from Greenwich. “Could you get one of the neighbors to drive you?”
“I can drive myself,” she said, still crying. “What happened? He was fine yesterday. He's always been in such good health.” He had, but there were mitigating factors.
“He's a seventy-year-old man, Kate, and he's under a lot of pressure.”
She stopped crying then, and her tone was hard when she asked the question. “Were you two having an argument about the hearings again?” She knew they'd been planning to meet about it.
“We were discussing it.” But they were doing more than that. Frank had been hurling abuse at him, but he didn't want to say anything about it to Katie. What her father had said had been too hurtful to repeat, particularly in light of what had happened after. If he died now, Peter didn't want Kate to know that had come between them.
“You must have been doing more than 'discussing' if he had a heart attack,” she said, accusing him, but he didn't want to waste time with her on the phone and he said so.
“I think you should come in. We can talk about all this later. He's going to cardiac ICU,” he said bluntly, and she started crying again. Peter hated the thought of her driving. “I'm going over now, and see what's happening. I'll call you in the car if anything changes. Make sure you leave your phone on.
“Obviously,” she said with a cutting edge to her voice as she blew her nose. “Just make sure you don't say anything to upset him.”
But Frank was beyond listening to anyone when Peter got to New York Hospital twenty minutes later. He had to talk to the police first, sign some forms the paramedics had left, and he got caught in endless traffic on his way to the East River. And when he got there, Frank had already been heavily sedated. He was being closely watched, and his face had gone from florid to gray now. His hair was disheveled, there was still dried vomit on his chin, and his bare chest was covered with wires and sensors. He was attached to what looked like half a dozen machines, and he looked both extremely sick and far older than he had an hour before. And the doctor told Peter honestly that Frank was by no means out of the woods yet. He had had a major heart attack, and there was still a risk that his heart would go back into fibrillation. The next twenty-four hours were crucial. And looking at him, it was easy to believe all of it. What was impossible to believe was that two hours before, he had actually looked youthful and healthy when Peter walked into his office.
Peter waited for Kate in the lobby downstairs, and he tried to warn her before she came up. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and her hair was a mess, and she had a wild-eyed look of panic as she rode up in the elevator with her husband.
“How is he?” she asked for the fifth time since she'd arrived. She was completely distraught, and unusually distracted.
“You'll see. Calm down. I think he looks a lot worse than he is.” The machines attached to him were frightening, and he looked like a body they were working on, more than just a patient. But Katie was in no way prepared for what she saw when she went to the CICU and caught a glimpse of her father. She started sobbing the moment she saw him, and had to force herself not to cry when she stood next to him and clutched his hand. But he opened his eyes and recognized her, and then drifted off to a drug-induced sleep again. They wanted him to rest completely for the next few days, in the hope that he'd live through it.
“Oh my God,” she said, nearly collapsing into Peter's arms as she left the room. He had to get her into a chair as quickly as he could, and a nurse brought her a drink of water. “I just can't believe it.” She couldn't stop crying for the next half hour, and Peter sat with her. And when the doctor finally came back to talk to them, he said that Frank had about a 50-50 chance of surviving.
His words sent Kate into hysterics again, and she spent the rest of the afternoon crying in a chair outside the CICU, and going in to visit him every half hour for five minutes, when they let her. But most of the times she went in, he was unconscious. And by the end of the day, Peter tried to get her to leave to get something to eat, but she absolutely refused. She said she would sleep in the waiting room for as long as she needed to, but she wasn't leaving, not for an instant.
“Kate, you have to,” Peter said gently. “It won't help anything if you get sick too. He'll be all right for an hour or so. You can go to the apartment and lie down, and they'll call you if they need to.”
“Don't waste your breath,” she said stubbornly with the look of a child who would not be moved. “I'm staying with him. I'm sleeping here tonight, and for as long as I have to till he's out of danger.” In truth, it was nothing more or less than Peter had expected.
“I should go home and check on the boys at some point,” he said thoughtfully, and she nodded. Her children were the last thing on her mind as she sat in the bleak hallway. “I'll go out and settle them down, and then I'll come back later tonight,” he said, making a plan while he talked, and she nodded. “Will you be all right while I'm gone?” he asked her gently, but she scarcely looked at him. She already looked bereft as she stared out the window. She couldn't even imagine a world without her father. For the first twenty years of her life, he had been all she had in the world. And for the next twenty, he had been one of the most important people in her life. Peter thought Frank was a land of love object to her, a passion of sorts, almost an obsession, and although he would never have said it, she seemed to love him more than her own children. “Hell be all right,” he said softly, but she only cried and shook her head as he left, and he knew there was nothing more he could do for her. All she wanted was her daddy.
Peter drove home as quickly as he could in the Friday night melee, and fortunately all three boys were home when he got in, and he told them as gently as he could about Frank's heart attack, and all three of them were deeply worried. He reassured them as best he could, and when Mike asked, he said only that they'd been having a business meeting when it happened. Mike wanted to go into town to see his grandfather, but Peter thought it was better to wait. When Frank was feeling up to it, his oldest grandson could come in to see him from Princeton.
“What about tomorrow, Dad?” Mike asked. They were supposed to take him to Princeton the next day, and as far as Peter knew, almost everything was ready except for the rug and bedspread Kate hadn't been able to get that afternoon, but Mike could make do without them.
“I'll take you in the morning. I think your mom is going to want to stay with Granddad.”
Peter took them out to a quick dinner, and by nine o'clock he headed back to town, and called Kate from the car. She said there was no change, although she thought he looked worse than he had a few hours before, but the nurse taking care of him had said that was to be expected.
Peter got back to the hospital at ten, and stayed with her till after midnight, and then he went back to Greenwich to be with the boys. And he took Mike to school with all his trunks and bags and sporting gear at eight o'clock the next mor
ning. He had been assigned a room with two other guys and by noon Peter had done everything that was expected. He gave Mike a hug, wished him well, and headed back to New York to see Kate and her father. He got there just before two, and he was astonished at what he found there. Frank was sitting up in bed, looking weak and tired. He was still pale, but his hair was combed, he had clean pajamas on, and Kate was spooning soup into him like a baby. It was a huge improvement.
“Well, well,” he said as he walked in. “I'd say it looks like you turned a corner,” he said, and Frank smiled. But Peter was still cautious with him. He couldn't forget the things he'd said, or the tone with which he'd said them. But in spite of that, he didn't begrudge him his survival. “Where'd you get the fancy pajamas?” He certainly didn't look like the same man who'd lain on his office floor, covered in his own vomit only the day before, and Kate smiled brightly. She didn't have those memories to contend with, nor the ones of his vicious attack on Peter about having been bought and paid for.
“I had Bergdorf messenger them over,” she said, looking pleased. “The nurse said they might move Daddy to a private room tomorrow if he keeps improving.” Kate herself looked exhausted, but she didn't falter for a moment. She would have given him all her strength, all her lifeblood, if it would have helped him.
“Well, that's good news,” Peter said, and then told them both about Mike's arrival at Princeton. Frank looked extremely pleased, and a little while later, Kate gently helped him lie down again for a nap, and she and Peter walked out into the hallway. But she didn't look nearly as animated as she had when she was spooning soup into her father. And Peter knew instantly that something had happened.
“Daddy told me about yesterday,” she said with a pointed look as they wandered down the hallway.
“What does that mean?” He was tired himself, and had no interest in playing games with her. He found it hard to believe his father-in-law had confessed how vicious he had been, or repeated what he'd said to and about Peter. Peter had never known him to apologize, or admit a mistake, even when it was blatant.
“You know what it means,” she said, stopping to look at him, wondering if she even knew him. “He said you threatened him about the hearings, almost to the point of violence.”
“He said what?” Peter almost couldn't believe it.
“He said he'd never heard you speak to anyone like that, and you refused to listen to reason. He said it was just too much for him, and …and then …” She started to cry and couldn't go on speaking for a moment as she looked up at him, her eyes filled with accusations. “You almost killed my father. You would have, if he weren't basically so strong …and so decent …” She looked away from him then, unable to face him any longer, but Peter heard what she said very clearly. “I don't think I can ever forgive you.”
“That makes two of us then,” he said, looking at her with unbridled fury. “I suggest you ask him what he said to me before he went down. I believe it was something about having bought me years ago, lock, stock, and barrel, and seeing me dead if I didn't go to his goddamn hearings.” He looked down at his wife with clear blue eyes, and she saw something in them she'd never seen before, and then he strode away as fast as he could, and got in the elevator while she watched him. She made no move to follow him, but it didn't matter to him now. There was no question in his mind anymore about her allegiance.
Chapter Eleven
Frank recovered surprisingly well from his heart attack, and within two weeks he was sent home, and Katie went to stay at his house with him. Peter thought it was just as well, they both needed some time to think, and decide how they felt about each other. She had never apologized to him for what she'd said to him in the hospital, and he'd never brought it up again. But he hadn't forgotten it either. And of course, Frank made no mention again of Peter having been “bought and paid for.” Peter almost wondered if he even remembered.
He was cordial with his father-in-law when he visited him, which he did regularly, both out of courtesy and to see Kate, but relations between Peter and Frank were visibly cool. And Katie was keeping her distance from Peter. And she was too busy with her father to even pay much attention to Patrick. Peter was taking care of him, cooking dinner for him every night, and he really was no trouble. The two older boys were away at school, and they had already heard from Mike several times. He was crazy about Princeton.
It was exactly two weeks after his heart attack that Frank brought up the hearings again. Both men knew that in spite of everything, they were still on the FDA agenda. And the hearings were only days away. If they were not asking for early approval from the FDA, their appearance in front of them had to be canceled.
“Well?” Frank asked, leaning back against the pillows Kate had just fluffed for him. He was impeccably shaven and clean, and his barber had just come to give him a haircut. He looked like a magazine ad for pajamas and expensive sheets, not a man returning from death's door, but Peter was nonetheless anxious not to upset him. “Where do we stand these days? How does the research look?” They both knew what he was asking.
“I don't think we should discuss this.” Katie was downstairs making lunch for him, and Peter had no intention of starting an argument with him, and then having to deal with both Donovans. As far as he was concerned, until the doctors told him otherwise, Vicotec was a taboo subject.
“We have to discuss it,” Frank said staunchly. “The hearings are only a few days away. I haven't forgotten that,” he said calmly. Nor had Peter forgotten what he had said to him in his office. But Frank made no mention of that as he looked at his son-in-law. He was a man with a mission. It was easy to see now where Kate got her stubbornness and perseverance. “I spoke to the office yesterday, and according to the research department, We've come up clean on everything.”
“With one exception,” Peter added.
“A minor test, done on laboratory rats in exceptional conditions. I know all about it. But apparently, it's irrelevant, because the conditions represented in those tests could never be reproduced in humans.”
“That's true,” Peter conceded to him, praying that Katie wouldn't come in and catch them in this discussion, “but technically, in terms of the FDA, that disqualifies us. I still say we don't go to the hearings.” And what's more, they hadn't been able to complete their redo of the French tests yet, and those were crucial. “We need to check Suchard's material again too. That's where the real flaw lies. The rest of this has all been fairly routine. But we need to go over the same ground he covered.”
“We can do that before Vicotec is ever used clinically, and the FDA doesn't need to know anything about it right now. Technically, we've passed all their requirements with flying colors. They don't want anything more than we have. That should satisfy you,” he said pointedly to Peter.
“It would. If Suchard hadn't come up with a problem, and we'd be lying if we concealed that fact from the FDA.”
“I give you my word,” Frank said, ignoring him, “if anything …anything at all …the merest hint of a problem appears on the subsequent tests, I' pull it. I'm not crazy. I don't want a hundred-million-dollar lawsuit. I'm not trying to kill anyone. But I don't want us killed either. We've got what we need. Let's go with it. If I give you my word to pursue it to the nth degree even if we get approval for early human trials, after all our laboratory tests, will you appear at the hearings? Peter, what harm can it do? …Please …” But it was wrong, and Peter knew it. It was premature, and it was dangerous. With approval for early clinical trials, they could administer it to humans immediately, and he didn't trust his father-in-law not to do that. It didn't matter to Peter that the clinical trials would involve extremely low doses of Vicotec used on a very small number of people. The whole point, to him, was not taking undue and irresponsible risks with even one single person. They had been warned of potential hazards in using Vicotec, as it was now, and Peter was unwilling to fly in the face of that warning. Other companies had experienced horror stories when they did, and the
re were even legendary stories of products that had been fully packaged and sitting on trucks, waiting for FDA approval, so they could be delivered moments after they got it. Peter was afraid that his father-in-law had something like that in mind eventually for Vicotec, despite its potential problems. If Frank wasn't prepared to be reasonable, the possibilities for abuse were endless. And the abuse could result in needless loss of life. Peter couldn't endorse it.
“I can't go to the FDA,” Peter said sadly. “You know that.”
“You're doing this as revenge … for what I said … for God's sake, you know I didn't mean it.” He did remember then. Had he said it only to be cruel, or because he believed it? Peter would never know now, and he also knew he would never forget it. But he was not vengeful.
“It has nothing to do with that. It's a question of ethics.”
“That's bullshit. What do you want then? A bribe? A guarantee? You have my word that I won't go forward if there's still a problem when we complete all the tests. What more do you need?”
“Time. It's only a matter of time,” Peter said, looking tired. The Donovans had worn him out in the past two weeks, and actually, if he thought about it, long before that.
“It's a matter of money. And pride. And reputation. Can you calculate the loss to us if we back out of those hearings now? It could even hurt our other products.” It was an endless round-robin and neither of them agreed with the other's position. They were both looking grim when Katie came in with Frank's lunch, and suspected they were having forbidden discussions.
“You're not talking business, are you?” she asked both of them, and they both shook their heads, but Peter looked guilty, and she cornered him a little while later. “I would think you'd want to make it up to him,” she said cryptically, as they stood in her father's kitchen.
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