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me. I couldn’t bear it.

Chapter 13
    I’ M DR. O’NEILL,”I said, and I pushed my way past a tall, burly Boulder policeman stationed on the familiar, whitewashed porch.
     “I’m Barb and Frank’s friend. She called me.”
    “Yes, ma’am. She’s inside. You can go right in,” he said, doffing his visored cap.
    I barely noticed the sprawling ranch house or Frank’s beloved Xeriscaped landscaping. Instead of lush green lawns, hundreds
     of small, colorful plants dotted the yard. Frank had planned everything with water conservation in mind. That’s the way he
     was. Always thinking about other people, thinking ahead.
    I was numb, and at least partly in denial. The McDonoughs were the couple that David and I were closest to when he worked
     at the hospital. They had rushed to our house the night David was shot. Barb and Carole and my friend Gillian Puris stayed
     the night with me. Now here I was in Boulder under similar circumstances.
    A woman burst from the front screen door of the house as I was hurrying up the stairs. It wasn’t Barb McDonough.
    “Oh, God, Gillian,” I whispered. Gillian is my best friend in the world. The two of us hugged on the porch. We were both crying,
     holding on to each other, trying to understand this tragedy. I was so glad she was here.
    “How could he drown?” I muttered.
    “Oh, God, Frannie, I don’t know how it happened. Frank’s neck was broken. He must have tried a shallow dive. Are you okay?
     No, of course you’re not. Neither is poor Barb. This is so bad, so awful.”
    I cried on my friend’s shoulder. She cried on mine.
    Gillian is a research doctor at Boulder Community and she’s a crackerjack. She’s so good she can afford to be a rebel “with
     a cause,” always up against the hospital bureaucrats, the admin jackals and jackasses. She’s a widow, too, with a small child,
     Michael, whom I absolutely adore.
    She wore hospital scrubs and a lab coat with her ID badge still pinned to the lapel. She’d come straight from work. What a
     long, terrible day for her. For all of us.
    “I have to see Barb,” I said to Gillian. “Where is she, Gil?”
    “Come on. I’ll show the way. Hold on to me. I’ll hold you.”
    Gillian and I entered the familiar house, now uncharacteristically dark and quiet and somber. We found Barb in the kitchen
     with another close friend, Gilda Haranzo. Gilda is a pediatric nurse at the hospital. She’s part of our group.
    “Oh, Barb, I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I whispered. Words never seem to work at times like these.
    The two of us fell hard into each other’s arms. “I didn’t understand about David. Oh, Frannie, I didn’t understand,” Barb
     sobbed hard against my chest. “I should have been better for you back then.”
    “You were great. I love you. I love you so much.” It was the truth, and it was why this terrible moment hurt so badly. I could
     feel Barb’s loss as if it were my own.
    Then all four of us were hugging and consoling one another as best as we could. It seemed only yesterday that we all had husbands
     and would get together for barbecues, swimming games, charity gigs, or just to talk for hours.
    Barb finally pulled away and yanked open a cabinet door over the sink. She took out a bottle of Crown Royal. She cracked the
     label and poured four large glasses of whiskey.
    I looked out the kitchen window and saw a few people from Boulder Community standing in the backyard, out near the pool. Rich
     Pollett, Boulder’s chief counsel, was present. He’d been a good friend of Frank’s, a fly-fishing partner.
    Then I saw Henrich Kroner, president of the hospital,
Rick
to his friends. Henrich was an elitist snob who thought his narrow focus in life made him special, and didn’t realize it
     made him very ordinary. It struck me as odd that Henrich of all people would be here, other than that the McDonough house
     was so close to the hospital. But then again, everybody loved Frank.
    I had a sudden and painful