As she studied him, immobilized and helpless, a quartet of thoughts played in counterpoint in her mind: IhatethismanIlovethismanIhopehelivesIhopehedies. And then the fugue played more slowly. What will I do without him? Where will I go? Who will I be with? How can I manage my children, who think I'm the enemy? Oh God, help me please!

Yesterday she'd been so stunned by Mitch's great fall that she hadn't been able to listen to all the things Mark had to say about those pupils and clots and vessels. But now she leaned over to see for herself what state Mitch's pupils were in. His eyes were not open wide enough for her to get a good look. She didn't want to pry them open with that picture window exposing them so clearly to view from anyone passing in the hall, so she gave him a tight little smile.

"Honey, it's Cassie. The nurse says you're doing just fine," she said brightly, figuring that she'd just used up about four of her five minutes. Those fake signatures of hers burned in her gut and hampered her breathing. The I-hate-this-man theme came up loudly, drowning out the others.

"Mitch, honey. I don't have a charge account at Tiffany's, or Bergdorf Goodman. I don't have a Chase MasterCard. In fact, I don't have a single account with only my name on it. There's been some kind of mix-up." She said this very sweetly. He was in intensive care, after all.

His eyes remained at half-mast.

"You're doing fine," she said stoically. "Can you hear me? We have a few things to talk about."

Fugue: Why would he talk now if he never has before?

"Sweetheart, if you can hear me, squeeze my hand. We're going to get you out of this. Is it Marsha? She's certainly had her behaviors over the years. But steal in my name? Mitch, tell me who it is. Marsha, or Teddy? Teddy wouldn't… would he?"

She stroked his left hand with two fingers, trying to feel some tenderness for a man who'd kept a big secret like this. Maybe this was the reason he'd been so hard on Marsha. Cassie's heart beat like a jungle drum. But why would he cover up for her to her own mother? Mitch's nails were manicured. Hers were not. She'd never been that interested. But his hand was bloated. His face was empty, slack. His color was scary. The machine breathed noisily. Tentatively, she curled his fingers around hers. "Squeeze my fingers if you can hear me," she said. "Come on, honey. Help me out."

Nothing.

"Mitch, you're going to be okay. I know you are. We have to establish some kind of communication here. I want you to know I'm here for you all the way. I can't stay with you. They won't let me. But I'm with you. Show me you know I'm with you."

Nothing.

Tears filled her eyes because he was so out of it. She told herself that people sicker than this survived every day. They had total recoveries all the time. The miracle of modern medicine. Total.

Cassie blundered on. "Honey, can you wink? How about this. Wink once if you can hear me, and twice if you can't."

He didn't wink. He didn't move. Nothing. Maybe a little gurgle. But then again maybe not. His torso was thick. His stomach protruded even when he was lying down. He'd gotten so fat. He had a forest of black hair on his bare arms. A tube in one nostril drew out his stomach's gastric fluids. A tube in his other nostril suctioned mucus from his respiratory system. This was disgusting to observe. Cassie tried to assign some tenderness to the lump that was her husband. She searched her memory for loving moments when they'd been happy together, when he'd held her hand or kissed her or told her she was a good woman, after all. But those memories were curiously absent in recent history. She scoured her mind for them frantically the way she scoured for her wallet throughout the house when she knew it was mislaid but present there somewhere. She was sure the absence of recent happy memories was due to her present frame of mind and that down the road when she returned to look for them, they would be there in plenty.

Instead, the memories to which she had easy access were old scars, the two occasions she returned home from the hospital after giving birth to their two children when Mitch had looked at her with a perfectly straight face and asked her what she planned to serve him for lunch. She remembered his looks of disdain at gifts she gave him that weren't good enough, and the way he abruptly changed the subject when she asked where he'd been and what he'd done when they were apart. Recent inflicted injuries that had seemed like thoughtless slights, but not intentional hurts. She thought he'd become insensitive with success, not mean.

"Mitch, I know you're not in a coma. This is what you always do," she said, getting impatient now. The least he could do was wink. Other stroke victims could wink.

Whoosh, whoosh. Click, click. Not Mitch. He wasn't even going to try. He was holding out as usual. She tried another tack.

"Mitch, the kids were going through your files. Teddy says you're going to be audited. If you don't wake up, I'm going to have to deal with this myself." There, it was out. Guiltily, she sneaked a look out the window to see if anyone was watching. She was talking to him harshly, raising forbidden subjects. He was supposed to take it easy. He was supposed to feel it was safe to come back into the world.

A voice came up, loud and urgent. "Code, room six." Doctors and nurses rushed out. Lots of noise and urgency. Everyone converged on the room across the hall. After several intense minutes, the curtain was drawn and it was over. The second one in two days. Cassie was shocked. This was how they died.

"Oh God. Mitch, don't leave me." The words came out a cry from the heart if ever there was one. She dropped her chin to her chest and prayed. Save this man. Oh God, save him.

THE CODE YESTERDAY IN THE HOSPITAL had been for a toddler who'd fallen off his s wing five days ago. Compared with the tragedy of three dead children in two days, Cassie's problems with her own children seemed like nothing, a pseudo problem. What were they really doing that so annoyed her? Teddy had come home and appropriated his father's best sports shirts, his most colorful socks and boxer shorts from his father's closet as if he were already gone. And he was eating all his father's favorite foods from the kitchen shelves.

Teddy also couldn't stop humming George Michael's song "Freedom." On Saturday at the hospital he had spent all his time trying to locate and hang out with his surprising choice, Lorraine, a big-boned, overweight operating room nurse who wore polyester and had a Long Island accent. The Sales family did not have strong New York accents.

On the positive side, Teddy's having to locate this girl in the very large hospital required some social skills. He was too shy to call her on the phone, so his strategy had been to hang around in hopes of running into her. On Saturday night, after Lorraine finished up assisting the emergency repair of a ruptured spleen, Teddy ran into her and asked her out for pizza.

Cassie heard him return home just after midnight. On Sunday morning, he ducked out at ten-thirty, earlier than he'd ever gotten up in his life. He didn't arrive at the hospital to visit his father until three in the afternoon. By then she was steaming.

"Teddy, where were you?" she asked when he found her with all the other visitors in the head trauma lounge.

"I took Lorraine out to brunch," he said, grinning happily despite the family tragedy.

"Where?" Marsha asked curiously.

"International House of Pancakes."

She snorted with contempt at his sudden sinking to the lowest possible food denominator.

"Shut up. How's Daddy?"

"The same," Cassie told him, thinking that her son looked happy. After all the praying she'd done for her wonderful, terribly shy boy to meet a lovely girl, Lorraine was the thanks she got.