I’ll put the wallet in an envelope addressed to whoever’s name is in it and drop it in the mailbox later, Cally decided. That’s all I can do.
Cally reached Grand Central Station. As she had hoped, it was mobbed with people rushing in all directions to trains and subways, hurrying home for Christmas. She shouldered her way across the main terminal, finally making it down the steps to the entrance to the Lexington Avenue subway.
As she dropped a token in the slot and hurried for the express train to Fourteenth Street, she was unaware of the small boy who had slipped under a turnstile and was dogging her footsteps.
2
“God rest you merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay …” The familiar words seemed to taunt Catherine, reminding her of the forces that threatened the happily complacent life she had assumed would be hers forever. Her husband was in the hospital with leukemia. His enlarged spleen had been removed this morning as a precaution against it rupturing, and while it was too early to tell for sure, he seemed to be doing well. Still, she could not escape the fear that he was not going to live, and the thought of life without him was almost paralyzing.
Why didn’t I realize Tom was getting sick? she agonized. She remembered how only two weeks ago, when she’d asked him to take groceries from the car, he’d reached into the trunk for the heaviest bag, hesitated, then winced as he picked it up.
She’d laughed at him. “Play golf yesterday. Act like an old man today. Some athlete.”
“Where’s Brian?” Michael asked as he returned from dropping the dollar in the singer’s basket.