The Kiss (40 page)

“I'm fine,” she said mechanically. There was nothing else she could say. But that afternoon, as she read to her son, there were little rivers of tears that kept sliding down her cheeks, and Teddy quietly patted her hand. He didn't know what to say to her. And when she hugged him when he went to bed that night, she choked on a sob.

“I'm sorry, Mommy,” he said gently, hugging her tight, and she nodded with a sad smile.

“So am I, sweetheart.”

All she could think of that night was Bill. She was devastated, more than she'd ever been in her entire life. He had taken away hope and laughter and love and comfort on dark days. She had no one to turn to now, and knew she never would again. She would die Gordon's prisoner, and she no longer cared. About anything. She would live to serve Teddy and Sophie, and somehow get through the rest of her days.

And in his room at the rehab facility, Bill lay in the dark. He hadn't moved since he'd called her. He hadn't slept all night. He just lay there and cried. But it was the right thing to do. Knowing and believing that was the only consolation he had.

Chapter 16

For Isabelle, the days were
endless after Bill left her life. There was no beginning, no end, no part of the day that offered any relief. She took care of Teddy as she always had, and now it was she who looked ill. She didn't eat, she didn't sleep, she said very little, although she tried to make an effort for Teddy. But she felt as though she'd been dropped down an abyss where there was no sunshine, no light. She longed to hear Bill's voice, but she didn't even know where he was anymore. She knew he had gone to Washington, and she wondered if Cynthia had gone with him. But wherever he was, he no longer belonged to her, and she knew now he never had. He had been a temporary gift in her life, and she was grateful for him. But the pain of losing him was so acute that she wondered daily if she'd survive. Losing Bill was much harder than surviving the bus. The impact this time was to her soul.

Even Gordon noticed it during the little time he spent in the house. He wondered if her obviously failing health was related to her accident, and when Sophie saw her when she returned from school, she
was terrified. Isabelle looked as though she were dying.

“Are you ill?” Gordon finally asked her one day over breakfast. He had actually spent the night in the house. He still didn't know that Isabelle was aware that he often slept out. But Isabelle had lost so much weight that her clothes hung on her more than they had after the accident.

“I haven't been feeling well. I'm having migraines,” she said to explain the gray color of her face. She could see it too, but she couldn't seem to eat or sleep anymore.

“It must be a recurrence of your injury,” he said, looking vaguely concerned. “I want you to call the doctor.” It was the first sign of interest he had shown for her in months. “I'm going away next week, and I think you should see about it before I leave.” She wondered if he was going away with Louise. She had long since realized that the previous summer when she was in the hospital with Bill, he had probably spent the entire time with Louise. Her absence had been a blessing for him, she was sure. And his failure to come back and visit her had had nothing to do with her, or Bill, or any anger about that, it had to do with his own involvement with Louise, and the time he wanted to spend with her, and could with Isabelle away. But she no longer cared about that. It was simply a fact of their life, and apparently had been for years.

“Where are you going?” she asked, trying to look interested, but she wasn't. In anything anymore. It was all she could do to take care of Teddy now, and
she was relieved that Sophie had come home for a few days.

“To see clients in the South of France.” She was sure the “client” was Louise, but of course she didn't ask. “I want you to call the doctor today,” he reminded her when he left, but she didn't. She knew what was wrong with her. Her heart was broken, it had nothing to do with the accident the year before. It had been exactly one year. It was hard to believe Bill was out of her life. And lately, she found herself wishing she had died during the accident. It would have been so much easier than what she was going through now. She wondered if the pain would ever stop, and doubted it. Each day was worse than the one before. She had nothing to look forward to, nothing to wish for, nothing to hope, nothing she believed in anymore, no faith that life would be kind to her. Bill had taken it all with him and left her nothing but memories and grief. And the worst of it was that she wasn't even angry at him. She just loved him, and knew she always would. She was like an animal who had lost its mate and was looking for a quiet place to die.

“Mommy, what's wrong?” Sophie asked in a worried voice when they met outside Teddy's room that afternoon.

“Nothing, darling. I'm just tired.” She looked terrible, and everyone could see it. Sophie and Teddy's nurse Marthe had been talking about it that afternoon. Teddy said that she'd been looking ill ever since she got a call that a friend had died. But the others sensed that the cause of Isabelle's despair ran far deeper than
that, and they were all seriously afraid not only for her health, but her life.

When Gordon inquired that night, she said the doctor had said she was fine. She hadn't even bothered to call, and she knew Gordon wouldn't check to see if she had.

It crossed his mind that some very intense emotional pain must have been the cause of it, a failed love affair, a broken heart. A warning bell in his head made him think of Bill, and he rejected the idea just as fast. She wouldn't dare start that again, Gordon knew, after the warnings he'd given her. But he understood nothing about the force of her love for Bill, or who she really was.

The next day, Gordon left for the South of France, looking unconcerned. The number he left was the Hotel du Cap. He was planning to be away for three weeks, and Isabelle didn't question it. It was a relief to have him gone. She no longer had to make excuses to him for how ill she felt, or how bad she looked. It was far easier to be alone.

And when he returned three weeks later, he was shocked to find her looking worse. He looked healthy and tanned, and she looked as though she were suffering from a terminal disease. She and Teddy looked equally sick. Sophie cried when she talked to him about it. But he said that her mother had seen the doctor several weeks before, and he had declared her fit. He didn't want to know more than that, or face the possibility that he might have another invalid in the house.

Gordon left again in August, on a lengthy business
trip in Italy and Spain. Sophie had gone to Brittany for a few weeks, to visit friends. And Isabelle was content to be alone with Teddy. She was reading to him again and making an effort for him, in order not to worry him, but she couldn't imagine ever being herself again. It had been easier to get over the accident than to lose Bill. She woke every morning now thinking of him, and wishing she were dead.

And it was while Gordon and Sophie were gone that Teddy caught a nasty summer flu. It seemed like a head cold at first, and then went straight to his chest. He ran a high fever, and the doctor put him on antibiotics to make sure it wouldn't get worse. But the fever kept rising, and nothing Isabelle or the nurse did brought it down. By the third day, he could hardly breathe. Even the doctor was concerned by how unresponsive he was. And at the end of two more days, he had pneumonia. He was rapidly going from bad to worse. Five days after it started, the doctor put him in the hospital, and Isabelle stayed there with him. She thought about calling Gordon, but it seemed wrong to bother him. He was never involved in Teddy's miseries anyway. They always fell to her.

“Am I going to die?” Teddy asked her with huge glassy eyes in the hospital, as she stroked his head, and put cool cloths on his forehead and wrists. The nurses were grateful for her help.

“Of course not. But you have to get well now. This is a silly bug, and you've been sick long enough.” But he had a 107-degree fever that night. And Isabelle called Gordon the next day.

“I don't know what it is. It's some kind of virus. But
he's very sick.” She sounded even more exhausted than before, and looked worse.

“He's always sick,” Gordon said, sounding annoyed. He was in Tuscany, and it was hard for Isabelle to imagine what kind of business he had there. It was another vacation with Louise undoubtedly, but Isabelle no longer cared. “There's nothing I can do from here.”

“I just thought you'd want to know,” she said, wondering why she'd even bothered to call. It had been a courtesy, rather than a plea for help.

“Call me if he gets worse.” And then what would he do, Isabelle thought to herself. What if he dies, should I call then? Or would that be an imposition too? But she didn't say anything to him.

She waited two more days, and then called Sophie. Teddy was delirious by then, and Isabelle was panicked as she tried to talk to him. They were giving him intravenous antibiotics, but by then his lungs were failing, and the doctor was worried about his heart. She was suddenly terrified that this was the moment she had always feared. And unlike her father, Sophie came home that night from Brittany. The two women sat with him for hours, neither of them slept, and they each held one hand, standing on either side of his bed, as he dozed. He talked in his sleep at times, but very little of what he said made sense.

He looked peaceful finally the next morning when he woke. It was a hot, muggy day, and he was blazing to the touch, but he kept saying he was cold. It was nightfall before he spoke to them that day. The doctor
came and went, and the nurses checked on him, and late that night, the doctor told Isabelle that things didn't look good. He was getting worse.

“What do you mean?”

“I'm worried about his heart. It can't stand so much strain. He's a very sick boy.” She knew that already, but she was frustrated that they couldn't seem to do anything for him.

And much to her horror, they spent another week that way, with Teddy seeming to hover between life and death. Both Sophie and Isabelle were beyond exhausted by then. They looked almost as bad as he did. And Isabelle was horrified that Gordon had never called to ask how Teddy was, after Isabelle's call to Tuscany nearly two weeks before. She imagined that he just assumed that Teddy had recovered. And as the third week began, Teddy slipped into unconsciousness. He had several seizures, and his pneumonia was worse. Isabelle couldn't imagine how he'd survived this long, and she just sat in the hall and cried, and then went back in the room to sit next to him. And that night she called Gordon again.

Just as she'd guessed, he had assumed that the child was fine, and was startled to hear how ill he still was.

“I didn't know if you'd want to come home.”

“Do you think I should?” He didn't sound enthused by the idea, but he did sound concerned. The situation was far worse than he'd expected it to be by then.

“That's up to you. He's very sick.” He hadn't regained
consciousness since the night before, and the doctor was no longer sure he would again. Gordon said to call him the next day.

Isabelle and Sophie sat with Teddy all that night, and at five in the morning, he opened his eyes and smiled at both of them. They both cried with relief and thought it was a good sign. But the nurse said his fever had gone higher during the night. It was close to 108. But he was talking to them. This time, when the doctor came, he shook his head. The boy's heart was giving out. It was the moment Isabelle had dreaded all his life, and now it had come. She looked devastated, and felt strangely calm, as she waited with her son for whatever hand Fate would deal them.

He was talking to her clearly now, and holding her hand. He looked at Sophie with an angelic smile. Isabelle kissed his cheek, and felt how hot and dry it was until it was bathed by her tears. She couldn't stop crying.

“I love you, my little one.” He had always been so loving to her, so patient and so sweet. He had had a lifetime of pain and never complained. And he didn't complain now. He just held her hand in his and drifted between sleep and waking. She had an uncontrollable urge to hang on to him, to keep him from the edge of the abyss where his soul was dancing. She couldn't bear the thought of losing him. But there was nothing she could do to stop what was happening to him.

He looked at her then and smiled. “I'm happy, Mommy,” he said quietly, and then turned to his sister,
“I love you, Sophie,” and then with the smallest of sighs, he was gone, as they each held his hands. It was peaceful and simple, the release of his soul from the body that had tormented him all his life, and Isabelle took him in her arms and held him as she cried. Sophie watched them and sobbed, and then Isabelle hugged Sophie. Teddy looked beautiful as he lay on the bed, and the two women hugged him and kissed him for a last time, and then walked quietly out of the room. It was a hot sunny day and Isabelle felt lost when she reached the street. She couldn't believe he had left them. It was unimaginable, unthinkable, unbearable. He had looked so sweet. She knew she would remember his last expression all her life. She stood in the street sobbing and hugging her daughter, as Sophie clung to her.

The two women hailed a cab and went home, and Isabelle broke into sobs when she saw his room. He had truly been like the Little Prince in Saint-Exupery's book, and now he was gone to his own world, a world he never should have left. But he had given her so much joy during his brief lifetime.

She made Sophie a cup of tea, and then called Gordon, and she sounded amazingly calm. He was stunned when he heard the news. He said he'd be home that night. He didn't cry or tell her he was sorry. He said almost nothing and hung up. And Isabelle thought of calling Bill, but she knew there was no point, he was no longer there for her, and he had never met the boy. She knew she had to let Bill go. She felt she no longer had a right to call him and intrude on his life.

She and Sophie went to the funeral home that afternoon and made arrangements for him. They picked a simple white casket, and Isabelle ordered flowers, lilies of the valley and white roses, and she knew no one would come to his funeral but them, and his nurses. He had never gone to school, had no friends, and Isabelle had led a secluded life for years. They were the only ones who had known and loved him. Isabelle couldn't imagine what she would do without him. He had been not only her life and her heart, but her job for years Isabelle was crying softly, and Sophie was inconsolable when they went home. And Gordon arrived from Rome late that night, looking somber and subdued.