Sharyn McCrumb - If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him…

“Casey?” I said, keeping my voice light. “This isn’t the fellow you went white-water rafting with, is it?”

Mother looked pleased. Her favorite sport lately has been shocking the children, meaning Bill and me. Big brother and I have tried to remain calm and behave like adults while our fiftyish mother went hurtling about on a killer river with a blond undergraduate named Troy. I have sweaters older than Troy. But with frozen smiles and careful attention to controlled breathing exercises, we managed not to get worked up over Mother’s little pregeriatric rebellion. It helped not to picture having a stepfather with an earring and light-up L.A. Gears. Now, sure enough, it appeared that Troy was history. Or at least he had been supplanted by Casey. Please, I thought to my fairy godmother, who has come to resemble Joan Rivers in my imaginings, don’t let him be the paperboy.

“So,” I said. “This is news. Tell me about Casey.”

Mother looked amused. “You’ll probably be relieved to hear that Casey is nothing like Troy. Much older, for one thing.”

“Really? Be still my heart. A senior, perhaps?”

“No, Elizabeth. Casey is an assistant professor in the English Department. In fact, we are about the same age. In fact, we have a great deal in common: bridge, a fondness for the big-band sound, and Frank Capra movies. It’s very pleasant.”

Pleasant, indeed, I thought. In fact, too good to be true. “I don’t suppose Dr. Casey is married, by any chance?” I said. I thought we might as well deal with the problems at once, because it has been decades since Mother had to deal with men, and I didn’t want her to be gulled by an aging philanderer like-well, like Dad.

“Married?” Mother raised her eyebrows and gave me a shocked expression-as if she had caught me wearing white shoes after Labor Day. “Certainly not, Elizabeth! As if I would consider such a thing. I do think you ought to have more faith in my character than that .”

I blushed, and busied myself with the fried rice. “You’re at a difficult age, Mother,” I muttered.

“I think you’d like Casey very much,” she said, ignoring me. “In fact, I was thinking of inviting you and Bill over to get acquainted.”

“Meeting the family?” I said faintly. “This does sound serious. Is it serious?”

After a moment’s pause, Mother said, offhandedly, “Well, dear, we’ve decided to live together.”

“What?” I dropped a chopstick. “Isn’t this a bit sudden? How long have you known this man?”

Mother giggled. “Casey isn’t a man, dear. She’s Dr. Phyllis Sturgill Casey. Everybody calls her Casey for short.”

I patted my chest, probably to restart my heart. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mother!” I said. “You scared the liver and lights out of me. Why didn’t you just tell me you were getting a roommate, instead of putting me through this romantic melodrama? Boy, did you have me going there! And all you wanted to tell me was that you have a nice middle-aged lady for a roommate. Thank heaven!”

“Well, I’m glad you approve,” Mother said briskly, giving me first choice of the fortune cookies. “Of course, your generation is much more broad-minded about these things than we ever were.”

“What things?” I said. The cookie crumbled in my fist.

The fortune said: THOSE CLOSE TO YOU OFTEN THE HARDEST PERSONS TO SEE.

PHILIP TODHUNTER LINGERED in agony all the rest of that day, alternately vomiting and lying in a stupor. After a three-hour vigil in which the patient showed no improvement, Dr. Humphreys insisted on calling in another physician, Royes Bell, to offer another opinion on what should be done. “I don’t mind telling you that the situation is very grave,” he told the anxious Lucy, “If we cannot discover what your husband has taken, I see no hope for his recovery.”

Lucy Todhunter raised her head and said in a firm, clear voice, “He has taken nothing. Only the breakfast pastry that I have given him. We all ate one this morning.”

“Yet no one else is ill,” murmured Humphreys. “Only Mr. Todhunter.”

Later, when Lucy went out of the room to fetch hot water and fresh towels, Dr. Humphreys left the side of his sleeping patient and began to search the room. He had abandoned this task, and was making notes of the symntoms, when Dr. Bell appeared, puffing from the exertion of the stairs. Elderly Royes Bell, who had seen hell on earth as a surgeon in the Army of Northern Virginia amputating limbs without morphia and watching soldiers die of fever for want of pennies’ worth of medicine, was a jovial man who kept his nightmares to himself. He was as round and solid as his name implied and he was revered by the townspeople, who had absolute faith in his expertise.

He shuffled over to the bed and put a hand on his colleague’s shoulder. “What do we have here, Humphreys?”

Richard Humphreys glanced at Lucy Todhunter lingering in the doorway. “Mrs. Todhunter, I wonder if we might have some coffee brought up for Dr. Bell and myself.” When she had gone, he said in a low voice, “This gastric attack is sudden and severe, but by all accounts the patient has eaten next to nothing. I may as well tell you at the outset that I broached the subject of poison with Mrs. Todhunter straight out. She denied it.”

“Well, she would,” said Bell with a grim smile. “Better get your facts first. Have you collected samples for testing?”

“Yes.”

“Then I suggest that we do what we can for this poor man-and leave the accusations until we know something. Have you questioned the patient?”

Humphreys nodded. “As best I could in his condition. I told him that he was on the point of death and that I must know what to treat him for. Whereupon, he looked at Mrs. Todhunter, and said, ‘Lucy, why did you do it!’ He has not spoken coherently since.”

Royes Bell pulled up a brocaded satin chair and lowered his bulk into it. He grasped Todhunter’s wrist and felt for a pulse. “So he thinks that his good lady poisoned him, does he?”

Dr. Humphreys hesitated. “He seemed urgent , but not angry. It isn’t the tone of voice that I should have used to a murderous spouse. Perhaps he was delirious, after all.”

Bell completed his examination of the patient. “Well, if the lady did poison him, Humphreys, I hope she wasn’t stingy with the dosage. I think the best we can wish this poor devil is that it be over quickly for him.”

Philip Todhunter lingered three more days, his stupor punctuated with retching and pain-racked delirium. Finally, at dawn on the fifth day of his illness, he slipped into a last, quiet sleep from which he never awakened. Lucy Todhunter was not present at the bedside when her husband passed away. Worn-out from nearly a week of ministering to the dying man, she had retired to her bedroom shortly after midnight for her first real sleep in days.

The doctors had taken turns keeping watch over Todhunter, although there had been little that they could do in the way of treatment. On the second day Humphreys had administered injections of brandy, since Todhunter was too weak to take it orally. This seemed to make the sick man rest easier, but it did not counteract his decline. He took no nourishment. At her cousin’s insistence, Lucy and the housekeeper applied mustard plasters to Philip’s chest-to no avail. For want of any other remedy, Humphreys administered nux vomica , a preparation of white arsenic and carbonate of potash, used in treating dyspepsia. This, too, had no effect. Death finally came when Todhunter’s body was too weakened by pain and vomiting to withstand further rigors. His heart simply gave out.