the Senator's Wife (2008) by Miller Sue

Author:Miller, Sue [Sue, Miller,]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2010-12-19T00:41:33.625000+00:00

Chapter NINE

Delia, Early May 1994

Is this Mrs. Naughton?" The voice at the other end of the line was female, distinctly American, older.

Delia had just come in. She was standing at the desk in the entry-way to her apartment in Paris. It was raining out, and she was damp-she hadn't had time to change her clothes. "It is," she said.

"Ah. This is . . . well, you don't know me, but I'm a friend of Tom's, of your husband. I'm Alison Miller."

Delia didn't know the name. Her throat seemed to have dried up. She heard her voice as a croak. "Yes?"

"It's about Tom. I'm afraid . . ." And then she said in a rush, "Oh, he's alive. I'm sorry. I should have started with that. He is alive."

Delia sat down, hard, so hard that she nearly dropped the phone.

"But he's had a stroke," the woman was saying, this Alison person. "He's here, in Washington, in the hospital."

Delia was supposed to talk, she was supposed to say something. "But he's ... he is, all right?"

"Well, no. He's in intensive care. They don't know, I guess, no one seems to know, if he's all right. I guess ... it seems that it's not easy to tell right away how bad these things are."

"He's had a stroke?" It was as though Delia's brain was catching up, a half minute behind what this woman was saying.

"Yes. They're doing all they can, but they can't say, yet, how he'll be."

"But, is he conscious?" She was seeing Tom, or she was trying to see him, and this seemed important to her, to know this, as a way of imagining what had happened to him.

"Sort of. He seems, almost not conscious. Perhaps. I don't know, he's in a kind of shock." Her voice rose at the end of the sentence. When Delia didn't say anything, she said again, "I don't know."

Delia was too confused for the moment to respond. She could hear the drumming of the rain on the balcony, the hum of the refrigerator from her kitchen. Her umbrella was dripping slowly onto the floor next to her in the foyer. She'd need to wipe that up.

After a few seconds, Alison Miller's voice continued. "I think-well, they think too-that someone needs to be here who can . . . someone from the family. With the power to make decisions."

"Well. yes. One of the children would ... do the children know?"

"No. I . . . No, I didn't. That would be ... I just thought to call you."

Delia cleared her throat. "I'm sorry," she said. "Would you tell me your name once more?"

"I'm Alison Miller. I'm a friend of Tom's."

"And you took him to the hospital?"

"I called the ambulance, yes, and came in with him."

Delia was beginning to make sense, a kind of sense, of all this, though she wasn't certain what was being asked of her. "Do you know ... I mean, had Tom made any arrangement? In case of such an event?"

"Arrangement?" Now Alison Miller sounded confused.

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