Once in a Lifetime Read Free Page B

Fields was a Mrs. Her voice was gentle and soothing, barely audible, as she spoke near Daphne's ear. It was a practiced voice of comfort. She could have said almost anything in that tone of voice, and it would have brought a sigh of relief, and the knowledge that one was safe with her.
    But Daphne looked frightened and troubled as her eyes struggled to focus on the nurse's face. "My husband ..." She remembered the familiar wail of the sirens from the night before.
    "He's fine, Mrs. Fields. Everything's fine."
    "He went to find ... the baby ... I couldn't ... I don't..." She didn't have the strength to go on then, as Elizabeth slowly stroked her hand.
    "You're all right... you're all right, Mrs. Fields ..." But as she said it she was thinking of Daphne's husband. He must have been frantic by then, wondering what had happened to Daphne. But why had she been alone at midnight on Madison Avenue, on Christmas Eve? She was desperately curious about this woman, about the people who populated her life. Were they like the people she wrote about in her books?
    Daphne fell back into her troubled, drugged sleep then, and Nurse Watkins went to sign out. But she couldn't resist telling the nurse who took over the station. "Do you know who's here?"
    "Let me guess. Santa Claus. Merry Christmas, by the way, Liz."
    "Same to you." Elizabeth Watkins smiled tiredly. It had been a long night. "Daphne Fields." She knew that the other nurse had also read several of her books.
    "For real?" Her colleague looked surprised. "How come?"
    "She was hit by a car last night."
    "Oh, Christ." The morning nurse winced. "How bad?"
    "Take a look at the chart." There was a large red sticker on it, to indicate that she was still critical. "She came up from surgery around four-thirty. She didn't come to until a few minutes ago. I told Jane to put it on the chart." The other nurse nodded and then looked at Liz.
    "What's she like?" And then she felt foolish as she asked it. In the condition Daphne was in, who could possibly tell? "Never mind." She smiled in embarrassment. "I've just always been intrigued by her."
    Liz Watkins admitted her fascination openly. "So have I."
    "Does she have a husband?"
    "Apparently. She asked for him as soon as she woke up."
    "Is he here?" Margaret McGowan, the nurse who had just taken over the station, looked intrigued.
    "Not yet. I don't think anyone knew who to call. There was nothing in her papers. I'll let them know downstairs. He must be worried sick."
    "That'll be a rotten shock for him on Christmas morning." Both women nodded soberly, and Liz Watkins signed out and left. But before leaving the hospital, she stopped at central registration and told them that Daphne Fields had a husband named Jeff.
    "That's not going to help us much."
    "Why not?"
    "Their number's not listed. At least there's nothing under Daphne Fields. We checked last night."
    'Try Jeff Fields." And out of simple curiosity, Liz Watkins decided to hang around for a few minutes to see what they came up with. The girl at the desk dialed information, but there was no listing for a Jeff Fields either. "Maybe Fields is a pen name."
    "That doesn't do much for us."
    "Now what?"
    "We wait. By now her family will be panicked most likely. Eventually they'll call the police and the hospitals. They'll find her. It's not as though she's just any Jane Doe. And we can call her publisher on Monday." The girl at central registration had recognized the name too. She looked at Liz curiously then. "What's she look like?"
    "A patient who's been hit by a car." For an instant Liz looked sad.
    "Is she going to make it?"
    Liz sighed. "I hope so."
    "Me too. Christ, she's the only writer I can ever read. I'll stop reading If she doesn't make it." The remark was meant to be amusing, but Liz was annoyed as she left central registration. It was as though the woman upstairs wasn't really human, just a name on the front of a book.
    As she walked out into the snow in the winter sunshine, she found