Queen of the Night

She shrugged and shook her head. “It’s tough. Everybody leads you to think that hospice is this really great thing, that once you accept it, life just smooths out and everything is peachy keen. What a load of crap! The hospice people are here a couple of times a week, and I’m grateful for that, but when Geet was in the hospital, he had round-the-clock nursing. Here at home, it’s up to me twenty-four/seven. People offer to help out from time to time, but it’s mostly my problem.”

“Is there anything I can do to help today?” Brandon asked.

Sue thought about that for a moment. “He’s asleep right now. I gave him some pain meds a little while ago. If you could sit here with him long enough for me to go to the grocery store and to pick up some prescriptions from Walgreens . . .”

Brandon’s heart ached for her. Sue Farrell needed to run away, too. Looking at her haggard face, he caught a glimpse of his own possible future.

“Of course,” he said. “Not a problem. Take your time. Do whatever you need to do. In fact, if you want to kick up your heels and go visit a friend or see a movie, that’ll be fine, too. I’ll be happy to look after Geet for you. It’s the least I can do.”

Sue’s eyes filled with tears. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” he said. “Where is he?”

“In the living room,” Sue said. “We moved most of the furniture out and set it up as a hospital room. I hope it’s not too warm for you. He’s so cold that we keep the thermostat set at eighty-five.”

“That’s not a problem, either,” Brandon replied. “Now that I’ve given up jackets and neckties in favor of Hawaiian shirts, the heat doesn’t bother me.”

Sue led Brandon into the small living room, where the blinds were down. The only light in the room came from the bright colors of a flat-screen television set over the fireplace where, in sound-muted silence, Speedvision was showing practice runs for Sunday’s NASCAR race.

Most of the room was taken up with sickroom equipment—a hospital bed, a walker, a wheelchair, an oxygen tank, a side table covered with medication, a power lifter to help get Geet in and out of bed, and a rolling portable potty. Everything there was designed to make the patient’s life livable, while at the same time stripping him of the last bit of dignity.

Other than the television set, the only piece of living room furniture that remained was a long cloth-covered sofa. Apologizing for the mess, Sue hastily stripped a sheet and pillow from that and carried them away to another room. No wonder she looked tired. Exhausted. That couch was probably where she was sleeping, or not sleeping, during her unending shift at Geet’s bedside.

After Sue left the room, Brandon took a seat on the newly cleared couch. Geet was snoring quietly. He seemed to be sleeping peacefully. Sue appeared to be the one who needed some rest.

G. T. Farrell had always been a big man, a hearty man. Now he was a shadow of that former self. The hands that lay on top of his covers looked bony and frail. His hair had gone sparse and stark-white. The gray pallor of his sagging skin told Brandon that the man wouldn’t last long. For Sue’s sake, Brandon found himself hoping the battle wouldn’t last much longer.

Brandon remembered too well his own recovery from bypass surgery several years earlier. He had hated it. He had hated being weak and needy, and he had hated the trouble he had put Diana through. No doubt Geet felt the same way, and Diana would, too, if it came to that.

When it comes to that, Brandon thought.

When Sue emerged from the bedroom, she had changed into a turquoise-colored pair of shorts with a matching shirt. She had pulled her hair back into a ponytail and had dabbed on some makeup. She wasn’t one hundred percent, but she was decidedly better than she had been when she first answered the door. She was also carrying a banker’s box.

“This is the case Geet wants to turn over to you,” she said, setting the box down next to him on the couch. “While you’re just sitting here you might want to go through it.”

“Sure,” Brandon said easily, but he didn’t mean it.

This was Geet Farrell’s case to pass along, not his wife’s. Brandon Walker had no intention of opening the box and looking inside it until Geet himself had given the goahead. The poor man might be dying, but Geet deserved that much respect, that much self-determination.

Sue gathered her purse and car keys and then stood uncertainly by her husband’s bed, as if reluctant to leave.

“Give me your cell number,” Brandon said gently. “I’ll call if anything happens, but you need a break.”

Sue nodded gratefully and gave him the number. She also gave him some instructions about Geet’s pain meds. Then she rushed out the back door before she had a chance to change her mind.

In the silence her departure left behind, Brandon sat there watching the silent race cars speed around and around an oval track, but he didn’t really pay attention. He was far too preoccupied with real life—his own real life.

For months now there had been little warning signals that things weren’t quite right. Brandon’s history with his father should have set the alarm bells ringing, but denial is an interesting thing. He hadn’t discussed his concerns with Diana. By mutual agreement, it was off the table. He also hadn’t mentioned it to the kids, Davy and Lani. But now the jig was up, and Brandon would have to deal with it and discuss it.

Earlier that week, he’d come back to the house from a meeting and found Diana in despair.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“I just talked to Pam,” Diana said. “They hate the book.”

Pam Fender was Diana’s longtime agent.

“Who hates the book?” Brandon asked. “And what book are we talking about?”

“Everyone hates the book,” Diana said bleakly. “Do Not Go Softly, the manuscript I just turned in. Cameron hates it and so does Edward. They’re turning it down.”

Cameron Crowell was Diana’s longtime editor in New York. Edward Renthal was her publisher and Cameron’s boss.

“They can’t turn it down,” Brandon objected. “They bought it. They paid for it.”

“They paid an advance on delivery and acceptance,” Diana corrected. “If they don’t accept the book, they may want their money back.”

Brandon had been thunderstruck. “How could that be?” he had asked. “And why?”

“They say it’s not up to my usual standard.”

Over the years, Brandon and Diana had developed a system that called for Brandon to read the manuscripts only when they were finished. That way, Diana had a pair of fresh eyes looking for typos in the material before sending it off to her agent and to her editor. Brandon had read Do Not Go Softly. He hadn’t liked it much, but he figured that was just one man’s opinion.

“Can’t you fix it, rewrite it or something? What does Pam say about all this?”

“She’s asking them to hire someone else to do the rewrite.”

“You mean like a ghostwriter?”

“That way they’ll still be able to use my name on the book, and we’ll be able to keep part of the advance. She’s hoping to get them to take the remaining advance from upcoming royalty checks.”

Shadow of Death, the book Diana had written about her experience with a serial killer named Andrew Carlisle, had won her her first Pulitzer. Considered a classic now, right up there with In Cold Blood, the book was still in print and still earning royalties.

“How do you feel about that?” he had asked.

Diana shrugged. “It means I’m over,” she said. “Washed up. Finished. I’m going to go down to Pima College and sign up for a pottery class.”

Brandon got it. He and Diana had lived their married lives in a world that was half Anglo and half Indian. Rita Antone, Diana’s housekeeper and nanny, had brought the Tohono O’odham people, traditions, and belief systems into their home right along with her beautifully crafted baskets. Some of those beliefs had to do with aging. Among the Desert People there came a time when old women were only good for making pots or baskets, and weaving baskets had never been Diana’s long suit.

For the past several days, while Brandon had been grappling with the financial fallout from all this, Diana had gone into Tucson and signed up for a pottery-making class at Pima Community College.

The idea that she would simply turn her back on the problem had jolted him. It wasn’t like her just to give up like that. That was a wake-up call for him, that things had progressed further than he’d been willing to admit.

Financially they’d be fine. Their house was fully paid for. Thank God, their kids were both through school. Yes, the economic downturn had hurt them, but much of the money they had set aside over the years was still there. Pam was still hoping to find an acceptable ghostwriter who might allow them to finagle the deal to keep a portion of the advance and of the royalties. That idea, however, was contingent on Diana’s being willing to go out on the road to promote the book as though it were her own.

At first hearing that idea had sounded like a good deal, but Brandon wondered if it would work. By the time the pub date rolled around, would Diana be in any condition to deal with the rigors of a national tour or go out and do signings and interviews? Especially interviews.

Geet’s eyes blinked open. He looked around in dismay for a moment, then focused on Brandon.