Part 3.3 – Kathy Talks
Kathy Spencer motioned to him to follow her from the room. "Well I like that," she huffed good-naturedly. "Blaming me for taking you away from her."
Perry gave a small laugh. "I've learned to have very good reasons for not carrying through on promises. Having her long-lost friend as a scapegoat is an opportunity I had to take advantage of. She won't get mad at you."
Kathy tucked her hand in his elbow and chuckled softly. "Still has a bit of temper, hmm?"
"It takes a lot for her to get angry, but when she does it's usually for very good reasons. But it's an infuriatingly calm, reasonable anger that brings me to my knees."
"I remember it well, Mr. Mason." The doctor guided him to a closed door behind the nurse's station. He opened it and stepped aside for her to enter. "A raised eyebrow from her would make our brothers cower in fear."
Inside the lounge Kathy indicated a comfortable chair in the corner. While he crossed the room and sank into it, she poured a cup of coffee and joined him. He accepted the cup with a fleeting smile of thanks and without bothering with cream and sugar, took a sip. It was hot and strong and precisely what he needed. The original cup of coffee promised him by Megan and re-promised by Louise forty hours ago had never materialized, so this was the first liquid he had consumed since dinner almost two days ago.
Kathy Spencer let him sip on the coffee in silence until he was halfway through before speaking. "Tell me how you know all about me and how Della came to be in my emergency room, Mr. Mason."
He leaned back in the chair and regarded her with bloodshot eyes and a slight smile. "Not until you stop calling me Mr. Mason."
"Only if you stop calling me Dr. Spencer," she countered. "All right, Perry, while we have this lounge to ourselves, tell me your story."
So an exhausted and scared Perry Mason began to talk. He told Kathy everything he knew about her and her family: the beautiful house at the Jersey shore; the close relationship she and Della had shared; the time they spent on the boardwalk and on those fantastic amusement piers; and all the talks between them and the boys on the upstairs porch, Della's favorite place of all. He told her what those summers had meant to Della, how the memory of them made her homesick sometimes and how it pained him to see her upset. He told her about accidentally finding an almost exact duplicate of her childhood home in Carmel, of buying it and having it restored as a surprise for Della's birthday. He told her of how hard Della worked, how she kept up with every step he took; how she worried for their clients and for him, how she kept him focused and championed him; how this last case and trial had seemed to affect her physically more than previous cases, so he had decided to bring her to the house a few months earlier than originally planned. He spoke of her utter and complete joy at discovering not only that the house was hers, but at how Martin had miraculously transformed the inside to resemble the Martin home she had loved so much. He admitted he'd known Della was getting sick, that he should have insisted more strenuously that she see their doctor before leaving L.A., but that he had bowed to her admirable, frustrating, infuriating stubbornness as he usually did in their relationship. He talked about the symptoms of her sickness, of how she would be fine, then gasping for breath, but that she always had a logical or humorous excuse for everything. Until he woke up and she was convulsing and she couldn't explain it away with a joke, and he didn't know what to do.
Kathy Spencer watched this big man, who loved her childhood friend sincerely and intensely, pour out his heart, rubbing one long-fingered hand over the other compulsively. She surmised the activity was a habit when he was concerned about something, and he was definitely concerned about Della. When he stopped talking, she leaned over and covered his hand with hers. Her eyes were moist.
"Perry, you couldn't have known she would get this sick. Pneumonia is a sneaky devil. It's an insidious, devastating, frightening illness. You did just about everything right by taking her away from the stress of her job and keeping her quiet when she was first getting sick. Then you recognized that her temperature had spiked and did what you could to lower it. You saved her life, Perry. There is nothing to blame yourself for."
He smiled ruefully at the doctor's belief that he had kept Della quiet. What would she say if he told her what he had allowed Della to do less than two hours before her convulsion?
Kathy picked up his coffee cup from the floor where he had set it after draining the last drop, stood and moved to the counter where a coffee urn sat. She refilled the cup and returned to her chair. He stared into the dark, steaming brew and wished he had a cigarette. But he didn't have any idea where his case might be. The case Della had given him, engraved with his initials and the word he thought of when he thought of her. Always.
"I should get back to Della," he said.
Kathy shook her head. "Dottie and Ruth need at least twenty minutes to take care of her properly. If she wakes up I can guarantee one of them will come get you. You have every nurse on this floor wrapped around your finger, Perry. All they talk about is how committed you are to Della."
His tired, red eyes looked at her with surprise. "I love her," he said, baldly honest. "We aren't married…but I couldn't be more committed to her if we were."
Kathy leaned forward and covered his hand with hers. "I know you are." She squeezed his hand then sat back again. "Perry, did Della tell you why we lost touch?"
Perry blew on the hot coffee and shook his head. "She rhapsodized about the house and the boardwalk, the rolling chairs and how you two spent all your time eating and window shopping. She said her family stopped visiting when her father became ill. I surmised her father's sickness and death caused the estrangement between your families."
"Our families aren't estranged, Perry," Kathy told him quietly. "Only Della is estranged from us. Her brothers are still in contact with me and my brother, and her mother talks to my mother at least once a week."
Perry sat in surprised silence for several seconds. "Why? Why would she talk about what you and your family meant to her if she caused the estrangement?"
Kathy's eyes pooled with tears once again. "Della didn't cause the estrangement. She merely maintains it. I imagine it makes things easier for her. Since this comes as a surprise to you, I'll assume she hasn't told you anything about her relationship with my oldest brother?"
"No, she hasn't. She just said that all of you kids were about the same age and mostly got along."
"That's true, as far as it goes. My brothers Gregg and Eric treated her like they treated me, and her brothers Jamie and Robbie treated me like they treated her – as their little sisters. Then the year Della and I turned seventeen, the last summer the Streets came to stay with us, something happened between Gregg and Della. Their relationship changed and they became very close, very serious. Della was just entering her senior year in high school and Gregg was headed into his junior year in college. They spent a lot of time alone on the upstairs porch talking, and one day Della admitted to me that they were in love."
Perry almost went slack-jawed in shock. Della had mentioned the names of men in her past over the years. He was certain 'Gregg' was not among those names.
"They made plans for their future on that porch, how they were going to get married after Della finished college, where they would live, about having a family – all the things young couples in love talk about. Even though Della was young, she was mature and responsible and knew exactly what she wanted. Both our families were ecstatic and at the end of the summer, before they went home, plans were made for us to spend Christmas with the Streets."
Kathy paused and wiped her eyes with shaking fingers. Perry patted his pockets in a fruitless attempt to locate a handkerchief to hide his shock at what she was telling him, but she waved off his efforts. He felt a traitorous stab of disappointment at Della for not telling him anything about Gregg. "I take it those plans fell through?"
Kathy sniffed. "Yes. We didn't spend Christmas with them. In early November Aunt Alice called and talked to my mother for a long time. Doctors had just given Uncle Jim only a year to live and you can imagine how devastated we all were. My parents talked it over with the Streets, and they decided it was better if we didn't go. Della and I were heartbroken. The adults had decided to give the Streets time to be with only one another. Gregg understood the decision, but he was beside himself with worry about Della, lonely for her, and she was pining madly for him. He couldn't afford to go alone, and she didn't think she could be so selfish to give up time with her father to be with Gregg. After Christmas he called her and vowed that no matter what he would be there for her graduation. My graduation was a week before hers and he promised to bring me along with him. Gregg worked two part-time jobs while taking a full load of classes and sold his car so he could keep that promise to her. Everything was better for a while because the three of us had her graduation to look forward to, even though Uncle Jim was getting sicker and sicker. Then in April, Gregg…Gregg was supposed to come home for spring break, but he changed his plans at the last minute because he couldn't wait until June to see Della. He decided to fly out to be with her for a few days, and then come home to see us…"
Kathy paused again and now tears were freely streaming down her face. Perry spied a box of tissues on the counter and got up to retrieve them. He handed them to her and laid his hand on her shoulder in sympathy. What she was struggling to tell him was clearly devastating to her, and had clearly devastated Della as well. He decided to save Kathy the pain of telling him what he already knew positively.
"Kathy, Gregg never made it to see Della, did he? And he never came home, either."
Kathy shook her head, and a sob escaped her lips. She pressed a handful of tissues to her face and took a deep breath. "No, he didn't. There was a…the plane…it crashed. Gregg…died."
"I'm so sorry, Kathy. So very, very sorry."
He patted her shoulder as she mopped at her face with sodden tissues. "Thank you. I've always told my parents that time heals, and it does, but you never forget. There was so much of Gregg in our house and in the town, so many memories, and my parents couldn't handle it. They sold the house within weeks of his death and moved us clear across the country for a fresh start."
He noticed she said nothing about Della, how Della had handled Gregg's death. "And Della? What happened between you and Della that caused you to lose touch?"
She blew her nose and took a deep, steadying breath. "After Gregg…after it happened, I called her and tried to talk to her, to tell her we were moving, but she wouldn't talk to me. Her mother said Della blamed herself. She felt that if she hadn't wanted to see Gregg so badly, he wouldn't have changed his plans and he wouldn't have…died. She crawled into herself in grief and wouldn't talk to anyone, especially me. A month after her graduation Jamie called to tell us Uncle Jim had died. Eric and I have kept touch with Jamie and Robbie – Christmas cards and birthday phone calls mostly – and our mothers have remained as close as you can over the telephone and with letters, but we vowed not to let Della know. She had to deal with her grief in her own way. If shutting us out of her life was what would heal her, then we had to respect that. After a while I stopped asking about her because…because as she moved on in life it made me angry that Gregg wasn't around to see her, to love her, to be alive. I missed him so much…and I missed Della. She was my best friend. I lost so much when Gregg died. We all lost so much."
A fresh salvo of tears erupted as Perry's hand on her shoulder tightened and he let her cry, hoping that no nurses would come upon Dr. Spencer in such a vulnerable condition. Abruptly she pushed his hand away and pulled another wad of tissues from the box to sop up the tears.
"Look at me, the tough doctor, weeping uncontrollably. Not very professional on my part."
Perry moved to stand at the window with his back to her. "I can't tell you how sorry I am about your loss. Not only for your brother, but for losing touch with Della as well. She's quite a remarkable young woman."
Kathy again blew her nose. "She always was. I was forever cooling my heels in her shadow."
"I can hardly believe that, Kathy. You are rather remarkable yourself. Not many women would follow the path you've taken."
"That's a very nice thing to say, Perry. Thank you."
He smiled at his haggard reflection in the window. "Only Della has ever thought I was nice. I can see how much alike you two are if you're bringing out the nice in me."
"She's always brought out the best in people. I'm glad she's found love again. I'll say it again: she's very lucky. And don't defer on that statement, Mr. Mason. Please accept it for what it's worth. She needs everything you can give her – strength, determination, encouragement. You have to help her fight. I sense that you are accustomed to fighting for what is important to you."
He turned to face her. "While this mutual admiration society is in session, let me say that your husband is a very lucky man."
Kathy stood and moved to stand in front of him. "I normally thrive on compliments, but right now everything is about Della. We're going to concentrate on her, and she's going to get well, Perry. I promise you I'm going to do everything that's humanly possible to make her better in record time. She still means a lot to me. I never forgot her and now, by some miracle or divine intervention, we've been given the chance to renew our friendship. You may think me crazy, because doctors are supposed to be scientific and pragmatic, not emotional and given to fantasy or mysticism, but I really think this was meant to be."
Perry placed his hands on her shoulders and looked steadily into her eyes. "I know you'll do everything you can to help her, Kathy. She's in the best hands possible, and I'm grateful. And as for thinking you're crazy, someday I'll tell you a story about miracles."
She impulsively hugged him. "I'll hold you to that, Perry." She stepped back and smiled tremulously. "I'm going back to check on Della. Dottie and Ruth should be just about finished. Please stay here while I get her vitals and – "
He shook his head emphatically, cutting off her words. "No, I've been gone too long as it is. She can sense when I'm there, I know it. Even when she was convulsing she was listening to me. She looked right at me and…" his voice became husky, filled with emotion he could no longer hide. "She looked at me with such fear and pain and…trust. She trusts me, and I can't let her down."
Kathy took his arm. "Come on, Trusty. Let's go find out how much she's improved."