Mrs. John Doe Read Free

as though she should be comforting him instead of the other way around. They’d been shown into his third-floor office, and now he’d brought them to a bank of elevators, one of which would take them down to the basement of the hospital.
    “A formality,” he explained in his mildly accented English as they descended. “Mr. Howard has already been here, but we require an immediate relative. Otherwise, I wouldn’t—”
    “It’s okay,” Nora said. “It’s quite all right. I—I want to see him.”
    The elevator opened into another corridor lined with offices, at the end of which was a large gray area with gray carpets, couches, and chairs. The waiting room, Nora thought with a shudder. An old woman and a middle-aged man sat together on a couch, probably a grieving wife and son, but otherwise the place was empty. Nora glanced at Bill Howard, who chose a seat across the room from the others and said, “I’ll be right here.” She nodded and handed him her shoulder bag, and Dr. Gupta led her over to another door. Nora braced herself when he opened it.
    It wasn’t as bad as she’d imagined it would be. Industrial tubes concealed in a false ceiling brightly lighted the big, long chamber, and the temperature dropped some fifteen degrees the moment they entered. The walls were lined with shiny metal stacked drawers above the green linoleum floor. She’d half expected to find the cast of
CSI
hunched over stainless steel tables with frightening-looking drains, burrowing rubber-gloved hands into gaping chest cavities. But no such horror was in evidence, only two silent young men in hospital blues awaiting the doctor’s instructions. The autopsy surgeries would be elsewhere, of course, down the hall or in a subbasement. She’d been watching too much television; this place was merely for storage. Storage of human beings. Her step faltered, and the doctor reached out to grasp her arm.
    “It’s okay,” she said again. “I’m okay. Let’s do this.”
    At a nod from the coroner, one of the orderlies went to a low drawer and pulled it open, then stepped back, discreetly out of the way. Dr. Gupta gently peeled back the white sheet, revealing the head and naked shoulders. Nora came forward to stand beside the drawer, staring down.
    She said, “Yes, this is my husband. This is Jeff.”
    His face was slack, calm, almost smiling. He was pale, with a bluish tinge to his waxen skin. She studied the features in repose, the closed eyelids, and the faint bruise on his right cheek by his ear. She glanced down the length of the sheet that covered most of him, wondering what it concealed. Should she ask? Did she really want to know? In the end, Dr. Gupta made the decision for her.
    “It was a heart attack,” he said quietly. “A sudden, massive myocardial infarction. It may comfort you to know that he was most likely, er, gone before the car struck the wall. That”—he pointed to the bruise—“was probably sustained when the air bag was deployed, but it didn’t develop, which indicates a postmor—er, well, otherwise, there is no visible damage.”
    She nodded again. A single tear made its way down her face, and she reached up to brush it away. She wondered what she should say at this point, but the doctor saved her the trouble once more.
    “I’ve called it an accident, officially. There won’t be any further legal activity, no inquest or anything like that. You’re free to take him home. One thing: He had heart and liver damage, and some of the scarring goes back years. Was he on medication for it?”
    She shook her head and told the truth. “This is the first I’m hearing about it.” Then she said, “I’m going to have him cremated. Can—can that be done here?”
    “Of course.”
    “I mean, now?”
    Dr. Gupta nodded. “Yes, we’ll see to it. If you’ll come back tomorrow afternoon, I’ll have everything ready.”
    “An urn?” she asked.
    “A box,” he said. “You may choose the final containment when