First Sight (10 page)

“It’s not a very happy story to tell. I don’t think the marriage would have lasted anyway. You can’t make yourself be something you’re not. Mark kept us together, and when he was gone, Derek went back to the life he’d led before, and I didn’t know about. People had said things to me once in a while, but I never believed them. As it turned out, it was all true and they were right. Having Mark made it all worthwhile, even for a short time. I wouldn’t trade those years for anything. They were the best years of my life. Life is strange sometimes,” she said with a sigh, “it gives you challenges and gifts you don’t expect. Mark was a gift. A gift of pure joy. I’ll never regret a minute of his life, or even marrying Derek to have him. My life is just very different now.” She was very matter-of-fact as she said it. She accepted everything about her past, with all its regrets and sorrows. And in spite of that, she had gone on to make a decent life for herself, and those around her. And if she indulged herself with men like Zack from time to time, she did no one any harm, and they kept the demons of her past from haunting her too acutely.

Jean-Charles realized that she was a truly remarkable woman, and he had underestimated her at first. There was so much more to her than met the eye. She had the strength of a hundred people, and the heart of a thousand. And as they looked at each other in her hospital room, Timmie realized for the first time that she was holding his hand again. It was not a story one could tell without support, or to anyone but a friend, and now he was, in her mind as well as his. He had come into her life for a brief moment, to make a sudden episode of discomfort easier for her, but now when she left, she would take a piece of him with her, as one always did when one shared a part of oneself with someone else. She had opened her most secret places to him and shown her heart to him, as battered and bruised as it was. She often said that her heart was like an ancient Chinese crackle jar, full of cracks, but old and strong. He sensed that about her now, after hearing all that had happened to her. He had never respected anyone as much as he did her now. She was the most extraordinary woman he had ever met, and he respected her for all her courage, and lack of bitterness about the past. She seemed to view all of it as a gift no matter how great the losses or scars. There was something very beautiful about her and very proud. Even her scars touched him deeply now. There was nothing ugly or bitter about her.

“It’s a shame you never married again and had more children,” he said sadly. He was deeply moved for her, and aware of her many losses. In fact, she had lost everyone she had ever loved or cared about. Parents, son, husband. And survived it, even if scarred. She had only been thirty-six when her son died, and a year older when she got divorced. She had still had time then to start a new life, and had obviously chosen not to, for all the reasons she had shared with him for the past two hours. Jean-Charles wondered if she felt loving anyone again was just too risky. And perhaps for her it was. The time had flown, and hung in space now as they continued to hold hands. He felt close to her, closer than he ever thought he would, and yet he had no designs on her. He had no romantic feelings toward her. All he felt was a powerful bond from one human being to another, which was precisely what she felt for him.

“I don’t want more children or a husband,” she said calmly. “I never did after Mark died, and Derek left. He wanted another relationship, I didn’t. I just wanted to be alone to lick my wounds. And I did for a long time. The business kept me alive. The rest was just too hard.”

“And now?” Jean-Charles asked with curiosity. She had told him so much that he wasn’t afraid to ask her more about her life. “There’s no one in your life?”

She shrugged, and shook her head with a smile, remembering that Zack had never called her back. She had left him a message that morning about her surgery, and he hadn’t called her. She wasn’t even sure she cared if he did or not. There was no point counting on Zack. He would never deliver. He was too busy getting even for imagined slights and looking out for himself. There was no real malice to him, but no substance either. He was there for a good time, and had never pretended otherwise. “No one important,” she said in answer to Jean-Charles’s question. “People come and go in my life. I’ve made compromises I can live with, for short periods of time. I haven’t had a serious relationship since I was married. I don’t want one anymore. The price is too high, and I’m too old for that now,” she said with a shy smile, and the French doctor laughed.

“At forty-eight? You certainly are not. Women much older than you fall in love again and get married. Love has no age. My own mother was widowed at seventy-nine and married again at eighty-five. She has been married for two years now and adores her husband. She’s just as happy as she was with my father.” Timmie smiled at the idea of an eighty-five-year-old bride. There was something deliciously sweet about it.

“Maybe when I’m eighty-five,” she said with a wry laugh, still holding his hand. “I think I’ll wait till then. I’m probably still too young to try again. I think I might wait till I have Alzheimer’s, and then I won’t remember what to be scared about. Right now, my memory is still too good. It would scare me to death.” And in her case, with good reason. She had lost too much in her life, and been injured by too many people too many times.

“You’re missing something,” Jean-Charles said gently. “A great deal, in fact. You’re missing love in your life, Timmie, because you’re frightened. I don’t blame you. But existing without love, if I’m guessing correctly, is a hard, lonely life.” And led to the kind of panic he had witnessed the night before, where she was totally dependent on a stranger.

“It is hard,” she acknowledged, “but it’s safe. I have nothing to lose now.” To him, it seemed a sad statement, particularly for a woman as wonderful as she.

They both remembered the name she had given on her next-of-kin form. Her assistant’s name, and not a man or a husband, or even a boyfriend. She had no relatives or siblings. Having to list her next of kin always underlined to her where her life was, but it was a reality she had long since accepted. She knew it wasn’t going to change. And providence put the people she needed on her path, just as Jean-Charles had been there for her when her appendix ruptured. Now they were becoming friends. She was aware that he admired her a lot, and she also saw something sad in his eyes. She wasn’t sure if it was sadness for her life or his own, and she didn’t want to ask. Confidences like the ones she had shared had to be given as a gift. You couldn’t pry them out of anyone. They had to be freely given, and she could see that he wasn’t ready to do that about his own life, and maybe never would. She had chosen to share her history with him, but she could sense that, like her, there was a part of him that was closed off.

“How did you manage not to become bitter?” he asked quietly. “You have so much reason to be.” Yet he could sense that there was no rancor in her at all, against anyone. She had let it all go years before. He somehow suspected that she had never been bitter, perhaps devastated or sad. But she held none of it against anyone, not her parents for dying, or her ex-husband for leaving, or the doctors who had been unable to save her child. She was unlike anyone he had ever known, and he wished he could be more like her. In his case, he carried resentment for a long time, and regrets about the past. They saddened him deeply from time to time. She was an inspiration to him, and he knew he would long remember all that they had shared that afternoon. It was growing dark when he finally let go of her hand. They had sat and talked for hours. The nurses had peeked in to see how she was, and discreetly left. She was in good hands, and they didn’t want to interrupt. They could see it was a serious conversation. Both Timmie and her doctor had looked intent as they talked, and now he saw that she looked tired.

“I’ve exhausted you,” he said apologetically, feeling guilty for staying so long. But she was a fascinating woman, and the insights he had gained into her would never be forgotten. He knew he would always remember her with profound respect and admiration whenever he heard her name. And he hoped to see her again sometime when she came back to Paris. It suddenly seemed like a great gift of providence that he had met her at all. If her friend in New York hadn’t given her his name, she never would have, and would have had to call the hotel doctor, whom she knew nothing about.

“It was good to talk to you,” she said with a quiet smile, laying her head back on her pillow for the first time in hours. “I never talk about those things anymore.” She had gone to therapists for years after her son’s death and the demise of her marriage, and eventually she and her therapist had decided the work was done. It was as good as it was going to get. The rest she just had to live with and accept. The past was what it was. “It meant a lot to me to tell you about it. Sometimes we think we know who people are, and how they got there, but we really don’t. You never know what people have been through, or how far they’ve come,” she said wisely, as he nodded agreement.

“You’ve come far, Timmie,” he said soberly. Farther than anyone he’d known. They had formed a bond the night before when he had been there for her. It was something she would never forget either. He had been right there for her, as few people ever were. And she sensed from talking to him that he was a man one could trust. “When are you going to let me go home?” she asked as he stood up. She had nothing and no one to rush home for, but she didn’t like being in the hospital either.

“I don’t know yet. Not for a while. Perhaps in a week. I’ll let you go back to the hotel before that, and see how you feel. Are you going straight back to Los Angeles from here?”

She shook her head. “I was supposed to go to New York. I have meetings there next week, and one this Friday night.”

“I’m not sure you’ll feel up to it. You may be fit to travel in a week, but if I were you, I would go home and rest, at least for another week. You did have surgery, after all.” She nodded.

She had been thinking of telling Jade and David to have the meetings without her. They could always bring her up to speed when she got home. The most important thing had been the ready to wear show, and she had done that. The rest didn’t seem to matter quite as much to her now, and he could see that in her eyes. She wasn’t fighting him to leave, which he had expected of her. She had turned out to be so much different than he thought at first. He had expected her to be spoiled, difficult, demanding, and overbearing, as witnessed by her success. Instead, she was anything but. She was warm, kind, strong, intelligent, reasonable, compassionate, and gentle. She didn’t seem to have a mean bone in her body. And he liked her a lot. “Do you need anything before I go? More pain medication?” he offered, and she shook her head.

“I rarely take anything. This isn’t so bad. I’ve been through worse.” After talking to her all afternoon, he knew she had. She hadn’t taken medication when Mark died either. Hiding from reality and her feelings about it was not her style. She faced things head-on. She always had.

“Call me on my cell phone if you need anything,” he reminded her, and she smiled. He patted her shoulder, and she smiled at him again before he left. And after he did, she lay in bed and thought about him for a long time. She hadn’t spoken to anyone like that in years, and never as honestly as she had to him, maybe in her entire life. She felt completely comfortable with him, and trusted him as she hadn’t anyone in years. The crisis of the night before had knocked down barriers between them that might never have otherwise disappeared, and now they were gone.

And as he left the hospital, Jean-Charles thought of her in precisely the same way. She was one of those rare women to whom one could say anything, confide everything, and whom he would have liked to share his secrets with as well. For now, she had shared hers, and he wondered if he would share his with her one day. She had bared her soul to him that afternoon, and her history, however painful. He could see that parts of it were still raw for her, and perhaps always would be. Other parts had healed over time, although there were deep scars on her heart, and even her soul. He felt as though he had met one of the rare beings of his lifetime. And she was feeling the same thing, amazed at all she had confided in him. It had seemed completely natural to do so.

She had no regrets about sharing any of it with him. It occurred to her after he left her room that once upon a time it would have been nice to have a man like him to share her life with. She’d never had that. She and Derek had shared their interest in her business, and a child, and little else. They had never had a lot in common, except work. She had realized later how little she knew him, and how much less he knew her. Someone like Jean-Charles Vernier seemed more like an equal partner, a worthy opponent probably, an ally, and someone one could count on. But as always with men like that, Timmie reminded herself, he was also married. As Jade said, the good ones always were. She thought of it, as she drifted off to sleep that night, in the American Hospital, and remembered that she still had not heard from Zack. It was disappointing, as always with him, but no surprise. Disappointment was a way of life with men like him. Timmie had grown used to it over the years. She had been through so much in her life that disappointment seemed like a small thing. She had survived so much worse. And at the other end of the spectrum were men like Jean-Charles. Extraordinary, admirable, worthy of respect and trust. And for one reason or another, unattainable and out of reach. Most of the time, like Jean-Charles, they belonged to someone else. But she had been grateful to talk to him all afternoon. She had sensed that he was a kindred spirit. That in itself was so rare that even talking to him was enough. She had no need for more.

Chapter 4

For the next two days Timmie continued to recover well. She looked and felt better every day, and Jean-Charles came by twice a day to check on her. Usually, before and after his own office hours. On Friday, he came to see her for the third time that day, on his way home from a dinner party that he claimed had been deadly boring. He stuck his head into her room, wearing a dark pin-striped suit, and was pleased to find her awake. He looked as handsome and elegant as the first time she saw him.