* * *

Norm shuffled in the door a little earlier than usual, a little grouchier than usual.

“Oh, good, you’re home before dinner. There’s something I have to show you. It’s about Seth and it’s important.”

“After dinner, Gwen,” he said. “I got some mean heartburn today.”

“When did that come on? What did you eat?”

“It was a couple hours after lunch. I didn’t eat bad. I just had Stu’s pulled-pork sandwich, which wasn’t as bad as usual. And I felt fine.”

“Is it food poisoning?”

“I don’t feel that kind of sick. It’s just heartburn.”

“I’ll get you an antacid.”

“I hate that shit,” he grumbled, sitting in his favorite chair.

“Do you like heartburn?” she asked, skittering off to the kitchen. She brought back the pink jar and a spoon, poured it, aimed it at his mouth.

“No,” he said, shaking his head.

“Yes,” she said, the spoon steady and unrelenting. “Do as I say. I have to show you a video on the computer. Seth is in it.”

He opened his mouth, swallowed and made a great many shudders and melodramatic faces. Gwen ignored him. When she returned after putting away the medicine Norm was even grumpier. “Put it on the TV,” he said.

“I can’t. It’s on the YouTube. Iris showed it to me and now I have to show it to you. Right now.”

“Jesus,” he grumbled, holding his belly as he got to his feet. “You just live to make my life difficult.”

“You live to make your own life difficult. If you’d ever go to the doctor you might find out how to stop having heartburn and headaches and all your other twitches and complaints.”

“I went to the doctor for that insurance.”

“Nineteen years ago!” she said.

“It wasn’t that long.”

“Sit down. I’m putting it on for you. Just make no more noise or complaints and watch this because this is our youngest son and it’s important.”

“He get an award or something?” Norm asked.

“Not that I know of,” Gwen said. “Surely not from you! Just watch.”

“I mean to tell you, that medicine shit does not work a bit!” he griped.

“I’ll go make you something to drink. You watch.”

He groaned, but he watched. Gwen went to the kitchen and made him a very watered-down brandy to settle his stomach, but she didn’t hurry back with it. In fact, she checked her watch and crept close to the door to her sewing room and listened to Seth’s voice on the computer. She could hear Norm make the occasional sound—murmur, grunt, groan. Only Norm would expect a spoonful of medicine to work in sixty seconds.

By the sound on the computer, the video was almost over. She wondered if it would reach Norm the way it had her. She’d had tears on her cheeks. She’d told Norm years ago that if he didn’t talk to his sons, let them know how much he treasured them, he’d live to regret it. But Norm didn’t listen to his wife.

Well, to be fair, he had listened to her a few times and actually surprised her. She got breast cancer and was pretty sick from the chemo and was frankly astonished at how concerned and doting Norm was. It wasn’t as though he did all that much talking, especially never betraying how he felt, but he was there. Every time she rolled over in bed he was awake asking her if she needed the bathroom, a drink of water, a painkiller, anything. That was one of those times she knew how much he really loved her. But when she passed the crisis he stopped being so attentive. Which was all right, she supposed. He’d given himself away.

She’d long ago accepted that they were never going to be the romantic couple they’d been so many years ago. She could live with that. He still kissed her good-night, turned over his paycheck, thanked her for breakfast and told her if dinner was good. That should probably be enough at their ages. But she hoped she died first. She thought Norm was going to be a pain in the ass to take care of and thought it unlikely he’d be able take real good care of her when she became a withering old woman.

“Gwen,” he said from the sewing room. She thought his voice sounded strangled with tears.

She rushed back to the kitchen, grabbed the diluted brandy and rushed back to the sewing room.

Norm was bent over in his chair, his hands on his chest, his face completely white. “Gwen, I can’t stand up,” he said in a strained whisper. “Call Seth.”

She bent over him for a closer look. “Norm! What is it?”

“It’s in my gut, my chest, my back—I can’t sit up. I gotta...I gotta see Seth before... I have to talk to Seth.”

He’d broken out in a sweat, his forehead completely damp. His hands were shaking. He pinched his eyes closed. “Oh, Norm! Are you having a heart attack?”

It took him a second to respond because his breath was short. “I might be,” he finally growled out.

Gwen ran to the kitchen and dialed 911. Then she ran back to the sewing room to be with her husband while he died.

Eighteen

Seth was standing outside the deputy’s office, talking with Steve Pritkus. Steve had just arrived for the night shift. Both their radios started chattering at the same time. Paramedics were en route to an address for a possible coronary.

Seth and Pritkus looked at each other suddenly. They both knew it was the Sileski address.

“Go, go, go,” Pritkus said. “I’ll see if Doc Grant is still in the office and bring him!”

Seth jumped in his squad car and ran the lights and siren the short drive to his parents’ house. He pulled in their drive, all the way up and onto the grass so he wouldn’t be blocking paramedics, and ran into the house.

“Mom? Dad?”

“In here, Seth,” Gwen called.

He followed her voice into the sewing room, finding Norm bent over in the chair, shaking, weak, white-faced, sweating. He got down on one knee. “Paramedics on the way, Dad, and we’re looking for Doc Grant. Don’t panic.”

“I ain’t,” Norm said weakly. “If I don’t make it, send your mother on a cruise.”

“You can send her on a cruise. Don’t talk now.” Seth held his father’s hand.

The next sound he heard was Iris, running into the house. “Oh, my God, Gwen, what is it? What’s wrong?”

“He’s having a heart attack,” she said.

“We don’t know that yet,” Seth said. “But we need medical.”

Right after that, Scott Grant showed up, a little less panicked but none the less moving at a pretty fast clip. He shooed Seth out of the way, got on one knee, immediately gave Norm an aspirin and took his blood pressure. He fished a small tablet out of a vial and instructed Norm to hold it under his tongue. He asked questions about the pain, looked in his eyes, ears, nose, taking his pulse and temperature, checking the blood pressure again, asked about the pain again.

“I did this,” Iris said, tears streaming. “This is my fault!”

“What are you talking about?” Seth asked.

“No, it wasn’t your fault,” Gwen said. “He came home from work with the pains and I gave him an antacid before he watched the movie.”