The Kiss (17 page)

“Where are we going?” he asked, looking concerned, and then as the nurse smiled, he understood. The doctor had granted his wish, he was waiting for them in the hall, and he spoke to Bill as he rolled by.

“If you breathe a word of this, I'll put you back in a coma myself,” he said softly, and Bill laughed. “This is highly irregular.” But he thought it would do Bill good, and it wasn't likely to do Isabelle any harm. She would never even know he was there.

It took a little maneuvering, but they got his bed next to hers. He moved his eyes sharply to see her, and he could just see her head swathed in bandages out of
the corner of his eye. But if he moved his left arm as far as he could, he could touch her fingers with his hand. The two nurses assigned to her were watching what was happening, and the doctor had instructed them to turn a blind eye. It was obvious to all of them why Bill was there. He held her fingers in his hand for a few minutes, and then he spoke to her, totally impervious to whoever heard him in the room. Tears filled his eyes as he touched her hand.

“Hello, Isabelle … it's me … Bill…. You've got to wake up now. You've been asleep for long enough … you have to come back….” And then in a soft voice, “I love you…. Everything's going to be fine.” They let him stay a few more minutes, and then rolled him back. He was exhausted and pale when he got back to his own room. And as he lay there, thinking about her afterward, he suddenly remembered a dream he'd had, and wondered when it had been. They had both been walking toward a bright light, and just before they reached it, he had forced her to turn back, and she had been very annoyed. Their children had been there, and he had wanted to go back to them. But Isabelle had wanted to go on. And he wanted to tell her the same things now that he had then. She had to come back. He wanted her to wake up. And all he could think of was seeing her again. It panicked him thinking of Gordon trying to take her back to France. It was obvious even to Bill that she was in no condition to be moved. But at least the doctor had reassured him that they wouldn't let that happen. Bill was relieved for her sake, but he also liked knowing that she was nearby.

He drifted off to sleep that night thinking of Isabelle, and there was a smile on his face. Lying in his bed at Claridge's, Cynthia was also thinking of her. And in the room Isabelle had occupied only days before, Gordon Forrester was lying awake in his bed, and thinking of Bill. They all had a lot to ponder that night, and the only ones who knew the answers to their questions were Bill and Isabelle.

Chapter 6

The nurse was feeding Bill
when Cynthia arrived the next day. It was Sunday, four days after the accident, and he still looked utterly worn out. But they were both grateful that he was awake, and alive.

“How's it going, babe?” Cynthia asked, looking cheerful and fresh. It was warm outside, she was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, and a pair of sandals she had borrowed from one of the girls. Olivia and Jane were going to spend some time walking around London, and they wanted to go to a flea market. The hours Cynthia spent at the hospital were too long for them, and they were planning to come by later that afternoon.

“How do you feel?” Cynthia inquired as she approached his bed. Because of the angle of the brace on his neck, it was hard for him to see very far. And as she came into his field of vision, he smiled.

“I thought I'd play a couple of sets of tennis today,” he said. He sounded hoarse, but he was able to speak clearly now.

They had just shaved him for the first time, and he felt a little more human again, but he still had a long way to go. He had told the doctor that his vision was
blurred, which came as no surprise. The impact to his head had been considerable, and he was going to be feeling the effects of the coma for a while. A specialist was due in to examine his legs and his spine again, and the attending physician had told him they might want to operate, depending on what the specialist found. It was obvious to everyone by then that Bill's recovery was going to take a very long time. And the extent of that recovery hadn't been determined yet. Whether or not he would ever walk again still remained a question in everyone's mind. Bill was aware of it, but it was a subject he and Cynthia had avoided so far, although they both knew that given the damage to his spinal cord, there was a real possibility that he'd be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Cynthia was in no rush to discuss it with him, he had enough on his mind. But for the past four days, she had thought again and again about what it would be like to be married to him now. She had no idea if he would ever go back to work, or what his life would be like if he was forced to retire. She couldn't even imagine it, and neither could Bill when he tried. But it could have been far worse, they both knew. He could have been completely paralyzed. And they were both relieved to realize that he would eventually have full use of his upper body and arms. Although whether or not he could use his lower body was an open question that was terrifying him.

“How are the girls?” he asked as Cynthia pulled up a chair and sat down. She could see that he was anxious and tense.

“They're fine, they're going to a flea market today.

They said they'd come to see you after that.” Both girls were immensely relieved that their father had survived. And Cynthia had encouraged them to go out for a change of scene.

“They should go home this week, Cyn. There's nothing for them to do here.”

“We were coming to Europe anyway in a couple of weeks. I don't think they'd want to leave you now.” His wife smiled at him, and for a moment he avoided her eyes. “Maybe I'll take them to Paris for a few days, if you feel better in a couple of weeks. You'll be coming home soon anyway.” But she wasn't as sure of that as she wanted him to think. The doctor had warned her that Bill would be hospitalized for months, and she had asked about flying him to the States in an air ambulance, but all his doctors agreed it was far too soon for him to be moved.

“I don't know when I'll be able to go home, Cyn. And they can't sit here all summer waiting for me. Neither can you.”

“I've got nothing better to do,” she said easily, and he smiled.

“Things must have changed a lot then in the last few weeks. You never stop, Cyn. Aren't you in some tennis tournament, or going somewhere, or giving a party for someone? You're going to go crazy if you just sit around here, watching me.”

“I'm not leaving you here, Bill,” she said quietly. “I'll send the girls back eventually, unless they want to go somewhere on their own. ‘For better or worse,’ remember that part? I do. I'm not going home and leaving you all alone.”

“I'm a big boy,” he said, looking unusually serious, and she saw something ominous in his eyes. It worried her, she was trying to keep things light, but she couldn't stop him from what he wanted to say to her. “I was going to talk to you about that. The ‘better or worse’ thing, I mean. We've had a lot of the ‘worse’ in recent years. It's my fault, I was gone all the time, and I've been so caught up in politics for so long, I haven't been around much for you and the girls.” He felt guilty about it, and had for a long time, but they had established a pattern of distance between them, and eventually it became impossible to turn things around.

“We got used to it. No one blames you for it. I have a life, I have things to do. I'm not complaining about our marriage, Bill.” She looked serious as she spoke to him. The nurse had left them alone when they started to talk.

“You should be complaining, Cyn. You should have complained a long time ago, and so should I. We don't have a marriage anymore. We haven't in years. We don't do the same things, have the same friends. I don't even know what you're doing most of the time, and lately I even forget to tell you where I am. To be honest, I'm not even sure you care. I'm surprised you came over here. I figured by now you'd be just as happy if I got lost one of these days.”

He wasn't feeling sorry for himself, it was all true, and he didn't mention to her that he knew about her many affairs in recent years, although they had talked about the one he had had years before. Cynthia had been furious over it, and said it had humiliated her. But he had been a gentleman and never pointed out to
her that her brief flings with her tennis instructors and golf pros and the husbands of her friends had humiliated him for years. Fidelity was no longer an aspect of the marriage she offered him. At first it had been her revenge for feeling rejected by him when he became obsessed by politics, and at times he thought it was a way of getting attention from him, but it had been the wrong way to go. Eventually, he had just detached and forced himself not to care anymore. He didn't say anything to her when he did, because it was easier to close his eyes to what was happening, but he was certainly aware of it, and eventually it had killed his love for her. What he had once felt for her, thirty years before, had been dead for a long time. All that was left was friendship, and he was grateful that she was there with him, but he wasn't in love with her, and that was no longer enough for him. He had realized it during the hours he had spent with Isabelle days before.

“That's a mean thing to say,” Cynthia said, looking hurt. “How could you think I wouldn't come over here after you had an accident? You must think I have absolutely no heart at all.”

“No, baby, I know you have a heart,” he smiled sadly at her, “it just hasn't been mine in a very long time. I wish it had been, and sometimes I wish it still were, but it hasn't been, and I think we have to face that now. I was going to talk to you about it when I got home.”

Cynthia looked at him in pained silence for a long time, with tears in her eyes. She couldn't believe he was saying this to her. It was ironic, just as she had realized that she was still in love with him, or maybe in
love with him again, he was telling her that he didn't love her anymore, and that it was over. She wasn't even sure what he was telling her. But so far, the preamble didn't sound encouraging.

“Is this about Isabelle Forrester?” she asked, trying to sound calm. “You're in love with her, aren't you?” This was no time to hide behind words. She wondered if he'd been planning to marry her. It wasn't like Bill to just go off and have affairs, he had only done that once, and never again, as far as she knew. And the affair with the congressman's wife had gotten very serious before he ended it. He had put a stop to it because he knew that if he stayed involved with her, he would have left Cynthia and the girls.

“This isn't about Isabelle,” he said, honest with her. He had to be, for all their sakes. “It's about me. I don't know why we've stayed married this long. Habit, I guess. Or laziness, or some illusion that things would get better, or a willingness to settle, or maybe because the kids were young. But is this the way you want to live? Married to a guy you never see? We never talk anymore, we have no common ground at all except the girls. You have your own life, and I have mine. You deserve a lot better than that, and so do I.” It was true, Cynthia knew, but they were words she didn't want to hear.

“We could still make it work, if we wanted to. I realized once this happened to you, that I still love you. I'm the one who's been stupid for all these years,” and they both knew how and why, she didn't need to spell it out for him. “I think at first I was angry that you had so much fun, and such a big part of your life that
didn't include me. So I decided to have some fun too. I did it in all the wrong ways, and I wound up feeling like shit, about myself, and about you. But that could change. I see now how much we still have, how much we love each other.” The tears that were brimming in her eyes suddenly spilled onto her cheeks, and she leaned over and touched his hand. “I was terrified when I thought I'd lose you. I love you, Bill. Don't give up on us now. It's too soon.”

If he could have, he would have shaken his head, but his eyes said the same thing. “It's too late, Cyn. There's nothing left, all we really have are the girls and the fact that we're good friends. That's why you're here. I'd do the same for you. You're not losing me, Cyn. You can't. That's why I want to end it now, so it stays that way. If we hang on, if we keep doing this, we'll wind up hating each other eventually, and I don't want that to happen, for us, or the girls. If we give it up now, we'll always be friends.”

“I'm your wife.” She was fighting for her life now, but she wasn't winning with him, she could see that too. “I don't want to just be your friend.”

“It's better than the alternative. One of these days, you're going to get involved with the wrong guy, maybe one of my friends, or someone I care about, and I'm going to get seriously pissed off at you and him. It won't be pretty between us after that.” He was also amazed that she hadn't caused some real scandals for him, but at least she'd been careful about that.

“I won't do that anymore.” She cried and blew her nose, it was humiliating to have him speak so openly of her indiscretions to her. It was embarrassing to hear
that he had known about them all along, she had always told herself that he never knew. And she liked to tell herself that he was probably doing the same thing. But he was too serious for that, too loyal, and too deep, and she knew she should have realized it then. It was why he probably was in love with Isabelle. Because he was a profoundly decent man, and what he felt was far more dangerous. When he loved someone, it was the real thing. “I won't have any more affairs. I'll stop. I swear. I'm not involved with anyone now.” She had broken off her last liaison only four weeks before, after three months, with a man she'd met at their country club. He had a wife and three kids, and he drank too much. He'd been great in bed, in spite of it, but she was afraid he would talk about their affair when he was drunk. And she didn't want to risk the embarrassment he might cause.

“You'll do it again. We both know you will. And maybe you're right. We're both lonely as hell. We're a million miles apart, even when we're together. That's not what either of us wants, or what we deserve.” As he spoke to her, he thought of Isabelle again. He was haunted by worry about her in the daytime, and dreams, where he wandered aimlessly, looking for her, all night long.