"Dad, why don't you just sit down and relax a little. I'll give you some chicken soup."

What? Mitch, home? Naah. In all the years of their marriage, Mitch had never returned home from a business trip early.

"I don't want fucking chicken soup. I want to go to bed." His voice sounded peevish and angry. Cassie's stomach knotted at the familiar sound of her husband grumbling.

"Why do you have to go upstairs this minute?" Marsha was wheedling. "Sit down, have a drink with me. Let's talk for a moment, catch up."

"I don't want my daughter drinking. Since when are you drinking?" He was whining.

"Dad, I'm twenty-five."

"I don't give a shit. You know how I hate drunks." This from the man who made his fortune on drinkers.

Cassie heard Marsha click her tongue some more. Both parents crazy as loons. "Have some orange juice then, Dad."

"I don't want orange juice. What's going on here? I bet you're up to something."

"Okay, okay. To tell you the truth, Mom isn't feeling well." Cassie sat there paralyzed, listening to Marsha trying to help her out.

"What's the matter with her?" Mitch asked irritably.

"She has the flu."

"Well, Marshmallow, I don't feel well either, and I've been on an airplane for ten hours. I need to go to my room and get in bed."

"She has a bad flu, Dad. I don't think you want to see her right now."

"You know what? I know you're up to something. I bet your mother isn't even here. What are you doing, having some kind of pot party? Some kind of cocaine orgy?"

"Oh Jesus, Daddy. Don't even go there. You know I don't do that stuff."

"I don't know that. I bet you do. With you I wouldn't be at all surprised. I foot the bills for everything around here and this is how you repay me. It makes me sick." He went on muttering, inaudibly now.

"Oh, Daddy, be reasonable." Marsha laughed.

"This is my fucking house. What are you talking about, reasonable? I can go anywhere I want."

Cassie couldn't hear anymore. They must have left the room. She sat on the bed dazed, waiting for the ax to fall. It was Friday afternoon. Mitch must have flown in from Rome. He was in a bad mood. He wanted to go to bed. What was she supposed to do, jump out the window?

She was thinking about jumping to avoid his anger when he strode into the room. He took one look at her, his mouth fell open just like in the movies, and he stopped dead a few feet from where she sat paralyzed on the bed in the aqua pajamas. He was a tall man, beefy from a lifetime of the very best wine and food the world had to offer. He had a full florid face, plush pillow lips that were the envy of women, and tense brown eyes that captured rather than saw. He had an eye for detail, and a full head of hair. The hair had been black but was steely now. He was proud of his hair and his taste. The man was always impeccable. At the moment he was wearing his travel uniform of Gucci loafers with tassels, a navy Ferragamo cashmere jacket with brass buttons, black silk turtleneck. There was a maroon and navy silk square in his jacket pocket.

"What the fucking hell is going on here?" he shouted.

"I-I-I-" Cassie's heart thundered. She couldn't say anything else. But then she was nearly always mute when he was around.

"She was in a car accident," Marsha said quickly.

Mitch took a step forward to get a better look.

"I had my face lifted," Cassie corrected quickly. She'd never been able to lie.

"What? Are you crazy?" His face changed. His eyes narrowed with fury. "Where'd you get those pajamas?" He glared at her. Then his full face took on an odd expression. He looked surprised, puzzled. "I feel funny," he said.

His fine tan paled to putty. "Something's wrong." It was the last thing he said.

Before she was aware of moving, Cassie was up, jumping to his aid. She touched his forehead. His skin was wet and cold. His eyes pierced her for a moment, demanding one last thing of her that she couldn't fulfill. Then she saw his powerful personality leech out of his body. His eyes lost their focus. He staggered. He reached out his hand for the bedpost, missed it, and pitched forward. His loafered feet stayed on the floor, but the rest of him toppled like a tree. His forehead smacked the bedside table as he went down.

"Daddy!" Marsha ran to him.

"Mitch," Cassie cried.

The two women tried desperately to revive him, but he wouldn't wake up. Frantically, Cassie called 911.

"MOM, PUT ON YOUR CLOTHES. Mom! Come on, Mom. Get up." Marsha pulled on her mothe r's arm. "I'll stay with Daddy until they come."

"OhymyGod! OhmyGod!" Cassie whimpered, listening to her husband try to breathe. Her forehead was pressed against the carpet at a lower level than it should be. She could feel the blood pulsing in her face. Her surgeon's warning about blood clots and hematomas flashed into her mind. She pushed it away. None of that mattered now.

"Maybe you should get some ammonia to wake him up. He's okay. It's a cut, right? It's a just a cut. He hit his head." Cassie kept trying to reassure them both.

"Mom!" Marsha spoke sharply. "Get up! I'll stay with him."

"Marsha, do you think he's drunk? Did he seem drunk when he came in?" Cassie couldn't put this thing together in her mind. Could Mitch have been that shocked by seeing her like this? No, it couldn't be. He just fell over all of a sudden, so he had to be drunk. That had to be it. Mitch had toppled like a tree several times in the last few years. She'd never told this to the children, or anyone else, but he'd been a big drinker for at least five or six years. Maybe more. Big.

She blamed all those Syrahs he'd been slurping up. The finicky Pinots, the grapes that make the headache wines. Oh, and the zinfandels-so rich, they tasted like jam. The gamays, low in tannin with a grapey taste: the grenaches light colored, high in alcohol and not so great as reds went. But the best were like raspberries. All these he'd guzzled, and the whites, too. Chardonnays, the great universal white with the oaky flavor. They called the taste oaky because of the oak barrels in which the wine aged. The reislings were dry, light bodied, and fresh, never oaky. The Cabernet Sauvignons, fairly tannic, rich and firm, with great depth. Oaky, she'd always liked the word. Oaky, oaky.

She tried to remember all the grape names Mitch had taught her when she was young. Wine had seemed so innocent then, so promising. Not a drug at all. Wait a minute, there were so many names she'd banished over the years. Some wines were place-names, like Bordeaux, like Rhone. Like Haut Medoc. But some were grape names, like Chardonnay, Cabernet, Merlot. The Loire valley. One side of the river or the other? Quick, which side of the river was which? She used to know it all. And the blends, sometimes nine grapes to a label, the Graves, the Pomerols. Mouton something or other… Those wines had stolen him from her.

"Oh God. Mitch, you idiot. You're drunk! You're supposed to swish and spit. But you always have to swallow, don't you. Shit you always swallowed, swallowed a lot." She chafed his hands. "Come on, baby. Wake up. I forgive you."

"Mom! EMS is coming, put on your clothes." Marsha couldn't budge her. "Come on, help me out, here," she pleaded. "You have to go to the hospital with him."

" Medoc," she whispered. Place-name, not a grape. La Grande Dame Champagne, Le Grand Cru of Perrier-Jouet, right? Nine grapes or only three? The one he'd planned for their son, Teddy's, wedding.

"Come on, Mitch. Come on, baby." Cassie couldn't get off her knees. Mitch was her other half, the man to whom she'd been faithful all her life. Practically the only lover she'd ever had, except for Matthew Howard. And look at what Matthew had become: owner of a cruise ship line! Tears flooded her swollen eyes. What had she done? He looked so pathetic, lying there in his Gucci loafers and cashmere jacket, his ruddy face blue as skim milk. Had she done this, felled the captain of their ship with a face-lift?