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By Root 921 0

’s restaurant in Beverly Hills, which wasn’t far. But I still felt a little guilty about accepting their invitation. Later that day, Frank took his usual nap while I showered and changed for dinner. I remember I put on a white pantsuit and pink silk blouse. I went to his bedroom to say good night but found him sleepy and a little breathless. The doctors had recently changed the medication for his heart problems, but the new medicine only seemed to make him weaker. I made a mental note to call them the following morning to see if the dose could be altered. Frank’s television blared noisily in the corner, so I turned it down a notch. Kissing him gently on the forehead and squeezing his shoulder, I told him, “Good night, darling. Sleep warm.” I left him tucked up in his bed with a nurse close at hand and made sure Vine had all my numbers in case she needed to call me. Then I went out. Armand, or Ardie, as he was always known, picked me up, and as we drove down Sunset I couldn’t help but notice the moon that night, low and huge in the western sky like a peeled orange.

Ardie was older than Frank, but he had all his faculties and spoke warmly to me about the King Charles spaniel we’d recently given them. When we got to the restaurant, I took a seat and ordered a drink. As we were chatting, a waiter tapped me on the shoulder and told me I had a call. Putting down my glass with a hand that was surprisingly steady, I went to the front desk and lifted the receiver. I heard Vine’s voice and flinched. “You’d better come right away. The paramedics are here. They’re going to take Mr. S to the hospital.”

“What happened?” I asked, because less than an hour before he’d been fine.

I heard her hesitate before she said, “They can’t find a pulse.”

I don’t remember replacing the receiver or going back to where the others were eating dinner, but I do remember telling Ardie, “I have to go.”

“Okay,” said the man who’d known my husband for more than fifty years. “I’ll take you right after dinner.”

“No! I have to go now,” I told him. Ardie drove at about two miles an hour, so I said I’d take a cab, but he insisted, so I sat in the passenger seat willing him to go faster. By the time I got home, the ambulance had just left, and that’s when my fear began to kick in.

“But I always go with Frank!” I cried. “I have to mask the windows with foil!” I imagined him lying in the back, looking and feeling dreadful as photographers took their fill of shots. The thought made me sick to my stomach.

I asked one of our staff to drive me to the hospital immediately, and he must have broken every speed limit to get me there. Running in through the door of the ER, I hurried to the front desk and was directed to where Frank lay on a gurney in a cubicle behind a curtain. Three doctors were working on him. Feeling faint, I tried to blank out what they were doing and focus on my husband’s face instead. Gripping his hand, I told him, “Darling, you’ve beaten worse than this and you can beat this too. You’ve got to fight.” His lips were blue, but I saw them move, so leaning closer, I told him again, “You have to fight, Frank!”

He really tried to. He did. He must have clung to life for twenty minutes or more, although it seemed like considerably longer. I didn’t leave him for a second, his hand like a bag of bones in mine. Briefly, his eyes flickered open. They were watery but still the same dazzling blue as when he’d first pulled me into his arms and kissed me all those years earlier, stealing my heart. He looked at me for just a moment and opened his mouth to speak. Leaning closer, turning my head to hear, I heard him whisper the words “I can’t.”

Then his eyes closed forever, and that was it.

That was the end.

The doctors stepped back, and one placed a hand gently on my shoulder.

I shrugged it off and remained by Frank’s side, talking to him and stroking his forehead. “Come on, Frank,” I told him, “you can do this, darling. You can.”

I have no idea how long I stood there, willing him not to be dead, but finally the doctor pulled me away with the words “Barbara,