That took the breath out of him. In that one sentence, I laid the guilt for the entire saga of sorrow that had beset our family at his two feet. There was no covering it up. I was holding him responsible. I was furious.
“With great power comes great responsibility, Worth. Only you’ve never gotten that part. You go out and wave your power wand and then step back and let others clean up the mess. I didn’t see you reaching a hand out to Hawk. I didn’t see you take Mark driving quietly, just the two of you. Oh no, instead, you make him feel insecure and inferior to his sister. She ribbed him about that for weeks. Children live up to what their parents expect from them. You were suspicious and cold about Hawk even from him being a little boy. You showed him no attention at all and when the result was that he ran wild, you, a licensed, well-known psychologist to the millionaires, sent him down the road to be ‘fixed’ by one of your colleagues. What sort of message did that send to him? I’ll tell you what. It said, ‘Don’t bother me with your problems. I’m too busy being Worthington LaViere, III and wearing the crown!’”
“How dare you… you… bitch!”
The space between us went silent. It filled, instead, with an acidic hatred that surpassed anything I’d ever felt before. My voice was low and even as I said, “Well, that’s a new low, even for you, Worth. It’s easier to call me unthinkable names, not even six hours out of our lovemaking bed than to accept responsibility for who you are. I may not be perfect, Worth, but at least I own it.”
I lunged out of my chair and went inside to the master stateroom. I locked myself inside and threw myself on the bed and sobbed. How could such a perfect night and morning erode into the hell in which I now found myself?
I heard Worth moving around, but he didn’t come near my stateroom. The boat was silent except for the props that spun us closer back to the dock. When we finally arrived, I slid out of the stateroom ahead of Worth, and the captain handed me off to the dock. I sprinted home to the condo and swept open the door to find a scene from hell awaiting me.
Dad was lying prone on the floor, and Marga was performing her version of CPR. Letty was pacing with a phone in her hand, and I heard phrases like, “on the floor,” “not conscious,” “we’re trying, but we don’t know what we’re doing,” and “hurry.” I fell onto my knees next to Dad and felt for his pulse. It was barely there, and he wasn’t breathing. Someone had slid a cushion beneath his head. I jerked it out and tipped his head backward, opening his mouth with my fingers. I gently pushed Marga back out of the way with one hand as I began mouth to mouth breathing. I alternated this with thumping and pressing on his chest in evenly-spaced rhythms. I hadn’t done anything like this in my life — but had seen it done one time at a motel pool by a lifeguard. I prayed I was doing it correctly.
Letty was letting someone in, and soon the room was full of emergency personnel. They pushed me to one side and took over, pulling out the paraphernalia for oxygen. One of them filled a large syringe and plunged it into his chest. I guessed it was adrenalin but was so traumatized that I barely recognized what was going on in the room.
A gurney materialized, and the wheels were locked into place. They loaded Dad atop it and wheeled quickly out of the condo, rushing down to the waiting ambulance via the elevator. I grabbed my purse and shouted at Marga. “Get your dad, he’s on the boat!” I ran behind the emergency techs, and the ambulance had already pulled away before I made it downstairs. I suddenly realized I had no car; we had only planned to stay a couple of weeks. I looked at a police officer who was calling in his report, and he popped open the door of his squad car. I wasted no time.
At the hospital ER, Dad was being worked on in one of the cardiac cubicles. They wouldn’t allow me in, so I sat in a family waiting room, shaking from stress and fear. One of the nurses came in and saw my condition and came back with a blanket and a mild sedative a doctor had given for me. I was huddling there when the door opened and Worth, Marga, Mark, and Letty materialized in the room. Despite our argument, Worth was calm and professional, yet surprisingly loving. He asked to speak to someone, using his doctor credentials and momentarily left the room. Marga and Mark sat on either side of me, their arms over my back, patting me.
The door opened, and Worth reappeared, his face pale. He was gently shaking his head, tears running down his face as he said, “Auggie, honey, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. He’s gone.”
At that point, any sounds that may have been in the room disappeared into a vacuum. I felt sucked into a sense of unreality. I couldn’t feel my legs and my mind began to process the tiny inconsequential; such as whether they had Dad’s insurance card and what we had planned for dinner. I thought of everything that meant nothing because the tsunami of pain that was descending over me was not survivable.
Images of Dad flooded me. I saw him lifting me atop my first pony and leading me around the soft grass next to the house, my mother watching and giving orders for my safety. I saw his face filled with pride when I handed him Ford and told him we had included his family in naming the baby. I remembered Dad’s patient solace and sitting in the woods when Mother became too much to take. That was all gone. There would be no more loving hugs, no words of wisdom. All that disappeared with his last breath — and I hadn’t even been there with him. Instead, I’d been fighting on a boat bobbing around on the water. My heart felt as though it was being crushed with the pain of it.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Auggie
Snowflakes fell with abandon on the opened grave next to Margaret. The bronze casket rested nearby on a dais, looking for all the world like a ship that was about to be launched into an endless sea. Despite the chill, hundreds of people stood about us, their accumulative bodies shielding me from the blustery wind that tossed leaves into that earthen hole. Worth’s arm was around me on one side. Mark and Marga were on the other.
Unbelievably, Hawk had come and had held me in his arms while I cried. It had taken the passing of the man I’d loved the longest, to bring another back to me.