The War of the Roses

Watching them in what she could only characterize as their splendor, Ann could not escape the comparison with her own shabby family, locked in the prison of their tiny wood-frame house in Johnstown. More like Dogpatch, she thought, where the big treat was snaring Polish sausages with a bent fork from a big jug and swilling down six-packs.

The rich cassoulet melted in her mouth as the movie in her mind froze into a single ghastly frame. In it, her mother's swollen body squirmed like jelly in a torn, flowered housecoat as she reclined on a sprung, worn couch in front of the television set, gun-muzzle curlers poised to shoot out Laverne and Shirley, while her father, his beer belly hanging over his belt like jelly mold, added cigar-ash dust to the frayed carpet from which sprouted his Archie Bunker chair.

Suddenly, as if to start the reel moving again, she tapped her wineglass with a silver spoon, the tinkling crystal forcing the silence.

'I can't tell you how much . ..' The words stuck in her throat and she had to clear it and begin again. 'I can't tell you how much it has meant to me to be here with you. You cannot imagine ...' She stumbled again, the images of her past life too vivid for the rush of words. Her gaze washed over each face, even Oliver's, which, surprisingly, she viewed without the earlier shame. 'It's been the most wonderful time of my life. The way you've taken me in and become, for me, my family.' She swallowed hard to hold down a ball of phlegm. 'Such a happy family . ..' She shook her head, too overcome to continue, then searched with her lips to find the rim of the glass, which she tipped, sipping the wine.

What a happy house, she thought, wondering how she had had the good luck to find them.

3

Oliver felt the first stab of pain just as Mr. Larabee finished talking, a familiarization lecture, really, outlining the company's special problem with the Federal Trade Commission. He had been taking notes on a lined yellow legal pad and now the pencil made jiggling swirls as if it were writing independently. They were sitting around a conference table in the chairman's office in Manhattan and he'd already had more cups of coffee before lunch than was his custom.

At first he tried to dismiss the pain, but when he began to break into a cold sweat, a charge of panic gripped him and he put down his pencil and tried to cover up his discomfort with a cough. Then the chairman began to direct his remarks to Oliver, and the words sounded muffled, incoherent, and far away. He tried to humor the pain away, hoping to extract a laugh from the abysmal predicament. It was everybody's dread to be struck down suddenly in the middle of some important event. Bladder and bowels would void. There would be vomiting and, worst of all, he would be inconveniencing everybody around him, all of whom couldn't care less. And there was the perennial joke about clean underwear just in case, but that usually applied to women.

'You feel all right, Rose?' the chairman asked.

Oliver managed a nod but knew it was unconvincing. Someone poured him a glass of water from a silver pitcher, but he couldn't get it down.

'This is ridiculous,' he whispered.

He was led to a leather couch, and he lay down and managed to open his collar and loosen his tie.

'I'm sure it will pass,' he croaked. That, too, seemed unconvincing. The stabs of pain were becoming an onslaught behind his breastbone.

'His color stinks,' someone said. He felt a hand on his forehead.

'Cold as ice.'

He heard someone say 'ambulance,' and realized suddenly that his sensory powers were becoming numb. His heart seemed ready to break out of his rib cage. His mind raced back and forth in time and memory and he wondered if he was the proverbial drowning man watching his life pass across his mind like a film in quadruple time.

'This is stupid,' he heard himself say, knowing that the words had not been spoken.

'You'll be fine,' Larabee said unctuously. Oliver had detested the man immediately and resented his concern.

I'm only forty, he thought as panic turned to pity, directed inward. He prayed he wouldn't soil his pants, remembering old admonitions from his childhood. There they were, the first signs. What galled him, too, was the lack of planning, and he wondered if he had paid all his insurance premiums. If you died at forty, your family would get a million, the insurance man had assured him, and Oliver had snickered at that, choosing term instead of whole life.

How can I die? he thought. My parents are still living. My grandparents on both sides died in their eighties. Then he counted all the people he would be letting down and that only increased his panic and he wondered if he would soon lose consciousness.

He lost track of time as he lay there. Someone covered him with a blanket but he still felt icy.

'You'll be fine,' the chairman said, his jowly face flushed with either concern or annoyance.