Judy’s eyes are huge over her martini glass. “Goodness, you must have been frightened out of your wits!”
“I was.” Nodding, I continue. “I kept calling through the line, trying to get someone to talk to me. Finally a man picked up the telephone. When I told him I was the one who had rung for help, he said it appeared that Lars had had a heart attack. I asked where they were taking him, and he told me they were on their way to Porter Hospital.
“I didn’t really think. I just grabbed a coat, called for a taxi—I didn’t have a car back then—and went outside. When I got to the emergency room at Porter, I gave Lars’s name and tried to get someone to tell me what was going on, but no one would. I didn’t know what else to do, so I sat down in the waiting room. No one else was there. After what felt like an eternity, a man and a woman came in. The woman said her brother had been brought in because he’d had a heart attack. She was taken into the treatment area. The man with her was about to follow, but I caught his arm.”
Lars’s eyes are bright. “Quite forward of her, I might add.”
“‘Forward’ had nothing to do with it,” I tell him sweetly. “I just wanted to know what had happened. I explained who I was, that I was the one who had called for help. The man introduced himself; he was Lars’s brother-in-law, Steven. He told me to wait while he went inside to see what was going on. So I sat down again and waited. I was about to give up when Steven came back out. ‘He’s stable and conscious,’ he told me. ‘He’d like to see you.’
“So I was permitted to see him. He was lying on a cot in a treatment room, attached to all sorts of machines and monitors. His sister was seated at his side. When I came in, she rose and took my hand. ‘Thank you,’ she said, tearing up. ‘You saved his life.’
“It was then that Lars opened his eyes . . .” And here I stare at him again, look into the deep blue. It’s difficult to take my gaze away. Finally, I turn back to Judy and Bill. “Our eyes met, and he reached forward to take my hand. ‘Thank you, Katharyn,’ he whispered. ‘Thank you.’”
I take a sip of wine, then smile delightedly around the table.
“And that,” Lars says heartily, “was pretty much that. She visited me daily until I was released. When I went home, my sister Linnea was my official nurse, but Katharyn was the one who truly brought me back to health. I quit smoking—we both did—and started to exercise regularly. I love to hike, so we did that a lot, especially before we had children. And we took up tennis together; we still play in a doubles league. Of course, I have to take it a bit easy—I mostly play net, and Katharyn handles the back of the court.” He chuckles. “Trust me, folks, you don’t want to mess with this lady’s backhand.”
I stare at him, wondering if I look as confused as I feel. I have not held a tennis racquet since gym class in high school. I cannot imagine myself being even remotely skilled at something as athletic as playing tennis.
Lars squeezes my shoulder. “Katharyn and I were inseparable from the day we met. We got married less than a year later, and we’ve been happy as larks ever since.”
“What an amazing story!” Judy exclaims. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard anything quite so romantic.”
Lars nods. “We ask each other all the time,” he says, “what if we had never met? What if we’d gotten off the telephone just a few minutes before we did? The answer is chillingly simple: if it hadn’t happened the way it did—why then, I would not have survived. We wouldn’t be here tonight.”
My hands are trembling. My whole body tenses at his words.
The dream continues. We enjoy a hearty spaghetti dinner and a bottle of Chianti. We get to hear how they met (not nearly as exciting; they were introduced via mutual friends in college), and then linger over coffee for all and cigarettes for them. As he’d mentioned, Lars does not smoke, and neither do I. He tells Bill and Judy that his doctors were ahead of their time in recognizing smoking’s role in heart troubles, so at their insistence, he gave it up following his heart attack, and I did the same.
It is then that I remember something: I did give up smoking in the fall of ’54. I could never explain to Frieda why I did it. At the time, it simply felt like something I had to do. Frieda says now that I must have had premonitions about the research they’re doing these days linking smoking to cancer, heart attacks, all sorts of ills. She says she wishes she’d had the foresight to quit with me when I did. But she, a two-pack-a-day smoker, has never even tried to give it up, and I doubt she ever will.
Outside the restaurant, we bid Judy and Bill good night and walk to our car. I am curious to see what we drive. It turns out that we have a late-model Cadillac, silver-blue with a white interior. The Cadillac is probably Lars’s, because unless it has been scrubbed clean that day, there are few signs that children ride in it all that often. Does that mean I have my own car, one in which I drive to the grocer’s, run errands, cart children around? Either that, or the children and I walk everywhere, which seems unlikely. I wonder vaguely what my car looks like. The thought amuses me. I do know how to drive—my father taught me when I was in high school—but never once in my life have I considered the notion of buying, much less driving regularly, a car of any sort.
“Nice night,” Lars remarks as he pulls out of the parking space. “What did you think?”
“They seemed to be enjoying themselves.”
He nods. “I hope so. It would be great to land Bill’s business.”
Impulsively, I take his hand. “You will,” I tell him. “I’m sure of it.”
He squeezes my hand back, just as we did under the table in the restaurant. “I’m so thankful that you believe in me. It means the world to me. You know that, don’t you?”
I hesitate, and then I reply, “Yes. I do know that.”
The Caddy glides smoothly onto University Boulevard. I take careful note of our route. We drive south on University, taking the underpass below the Valley Highway. Entering the more populated area around the DU campus, we pass Evans Avenue; if we were to take a right there and go west, we would be heading toward my neighborhood. Instead, we continue on University for another mile or two, then take a left on Dartmouth, near the very southern edge of town.
There is a lot of new construction out here. I don’t think the bus even runs this far south. It’s dark, of course, but I can tell how pretty it is, almost like being in the country. The streets are named after midwestern cities: Milwaukee, Detroit, St. Paul.