The Last Princess (53 page)

Jumping up from her chair, Lily cried, “How is Harry, Doctor? Tell me.”

Simon took her aside. “He came through the surgery fine, and is beginning to come out of the anesthetic. They’ll keep him in the recovery room for a little while, and then you’ll be able to see him.”

“Oh, thank God! What did they find?”

“Well, the tumor had invaded both lobes, so the surgeon went ahead and removed the entire left lung.” But his manner was hesitant, and Lily demanded quickly, “What else? What aren’t you telling me?”

Reluctantly, he admitted, “It appeared, I’m afraid, that there may have been some encroachment into the aorta. We’ll know more when we get the lab report.”

In conveying the doctor’s report to the rest of the family, Lily emphasized the positive. Harry had come through the surgery, that was the first hurdle. As for the rest, they would know more later.

Harry drifted in and out of consciousness for the rest of the day, opening his eyes only long enough to recognize the boys and Lily. Once, she was holding Cadeau. Harry tried to smile and say, “Hi, sweetheart.” But the stabbing pain in his left side and back was intolerable; it grew worse when he tried to speak. He didn’t know how many hours had passed when he finally came to consciousness and saw Nate Simon standing next to his bed.

“How are you feeling?”

With difficulty, Harry grunted, “How … do you think? As though I’ve … been hit by a Mack truck.”

“Glad you’re feeling a little feisty. That’s a good sign.”

“What’s … the verdict?”

Nate cleared his throat. He tried to put it gently. “We had to remove the whole lung, Harry. There was a large mass, as we saw on the X ray.”

“Was there … metastasis?”

“We don’t know for sure, but there were some signs. I’m sorry.”

“Am I … going to die?”

“It’s impossible to make that prediction, Harry.”

“Nate, don’t … give me that … bullshit!”

“All right. I’m recommending you for radiation therapy.”

Harry sank back against his pillow, dangerously near tears. He knew what that meant. It was one of the side effects of being a writer, to know a little about a lot of things. Radiation was a last-ditch measure; Nate might as well have advised him to get a price from the funeral home.

“What are the odds?”

“Harry, you know that there are no guarantees—”

“Weeks … months? What … are you saying?”

Nate hesitated. Then, almost under his breath, he said, “Months—maybe.”

“Forget it, Nate. I know about … radiation therapy. Sick … all the time, hair falls out. I won’t … put Lily through that.”

Nate had to admire Harry’s courage. Most patients couldn’t face the truth.

“It’s your decision—and I don’t know that I don’t agree with you.”

“The only thing … don’t tell Lily … how bad it is. I’ll tell her … myself.”

It was tougher than he thought to tell Lily the grim news—the cancer was a fast-growing cell type, there were already lesions on his liver and pancreas.

She clung to him, weeping. “There must be something they can do, Harry! Why won’t you have radiation?”

“Lily, dammit! There’s cancer all through my body! What good is it going to do to irradiate my liver when it’s in my bloodstream and my bones, and very possibly my other lung already?”

“But if it will give you any kind of chance—”

“It won’t,” he said flatly. “I’ve got to face it, Lily. I’m dying. And I’m going to ask you to just let me live out the rest of my life with you as if it were going to go on forever.”

“But Harry—” she cried, but he pressed a finger to her lips. She saw then that his face was wet with tears.

“Lily, please pretend—for my sake? Because if I have to face the thought of leaving you, I … I just can’t bear it.”

Harry returned home, and Lily refused to give up hope until she had spoken to Nate Simon herself. Nate only confirmed Harry’s words. The cancer was so widespread that radiation therapy would be a fruitless gesture—one which would make his last months needlessly agonizing.

Lily felt almost sick with grief. “Thank you, Doctor. Is there anything I can do for Harry?”

The best Nate Simon could tell her was, “Keep him happy.”

It seemed an impossible prescription, but she walked all the way home repeating fiercely to herself, “Keep him happy … keep him happy.” By the time she entered the apartment, she determined to be of good cheer.

“Hello, darling,” she greeted Harry. “Shall we go out to dinner, or eat in?”

In the weeks that followed, they resolutely avoided talking about Harry’s disease or his prognosis. They picked up their life where they’d left off, not dwelling on the future any more than they did the darker episodes of their past. Never once did Harry complain; he had simply made up his mind to cram a lifetime of happiness with Lily into the few short months that remained to him.

Harry relished every waking moment. It seemed that even dying had its compensations: His senses felt sharpened. He appreciated everything he saw or heard or smelled or ate.

It was Lily who had to struggle to keep from railing aloud at the cruelty of fate. For Harry’s sake she was able to keep up a courageous front. Gradually she came to a state of acceptance.

It was the moments which really counted, she told herself, not the years. Yesterday was a memory, tomorrow a promise. The only moment one ever really had was the here and now.

And so, between them, they created a sort of dream world, filled with a false serenity which ignored the disease that would soon take Harry from her.

They spent almost all of their time together, but one afternoon Lily went out alone for several hours, returning just in time for their usual five-o’clock martinis. There was an air of suppressed excitement about her as they settled down with their drinks.

Harry said, “Okay, I give up. What is it that you bought that you’re so excited about?”

“Do I seem excited?” she countered with a smile, taking a sip of her martini. Then, setting it down, she asked casually, “What are you doing about that novel you started last year, Harry? Are you working on it?”

Matter-of-factly he said, “No, I’ve decided to let it go for a while. I’d rather concentrate on the women in my life. Why do you ask?”

“Guess what I’ve done.”

“What?”

“Booked passage for you, me and Cadeau aboard the
Queen Mary
.”

“Really?”

She nodded.

“That’s wonderful! You know how I love the sea. Where are we headed, and for how long?”

“Around the world,” Lily told him. “We’ll be gone three months. I know that we had talked about going to the Bahamas at Christmas, but I think that an ocean cruise will be more relaxing.”

Three months … They let their thoughts lie unspoken. Harry took the brochure from Lily and began to pore over the pictures of the
Queen Mary’s
pool and the staterooms. Meanwhile, Lily flashed back to her conversation that morning with Nate Simon.

“He can’t make it, Lily,” the doctor had said flatly. “The metastases are appearing so fast, he probably won’t even survive three months.” He hesitated, then added more gently, “I’m sorry to have to be so blunt.”

“So what if he doesn’t survive?” Lily returned, her eyes very bright. “If he has to die, I want it to be in the midst of life and living, not in a darkened hospital room.”

Nate Simon weakened. “But he’s going to be in a lot of pain near the end, Lily. He really should be near a hospital.”

“How about if I hire a nurse? If he needs some painkiller, she can administer it. Can’t you see, Dr. Simon? This is something I have to do for Harry.”

“Okay,” he said. “You win. I can prescribe morphine and send it along with the nurse.”

Now Harry recognized Lily’s gesture as one of defiance against the odds. He loved her all the more dearly for it. God, he was the luckiest man in the world, he thought humbly. Lucky to have found such a woman, lucky to have won her heart, and triply lucky to have been given a second chance with her—however brief.

Ignoring the stabbing pain in his chest, he took Lily into his arms and kissed her, warmly and lingeringly.

I
N THE QUIET OF
the paneled Oak Room at the Plaza the next day, Lily broke the news to Ellis.

“Harry and I are leaving next week on a three-month cruise.”

Startled, Ellis asked, “Have you talked to the doctor about it, Lily? I hate to say this, but Harry is getting worse all the time.”

“I know, Ellis,” she said, her voice flat. “His appetite is gone, he’s thinner than ever, and in the morning he’s very weak, but maybe this will make him feel better. We’re taking along a nurse, and of course Françoise for Cadeau.”

Quietly Ellis reached out and covered her hand with his own. The kindness in that gesture completely disarmed her. Bursting into tears, she buried her face in her hands and wept. The months of keeping up the terrible pretense that nothing was wrong had been a desperate strain. Suddenly she couldn’t stop crying. After a few minutes Ellis said softly, “Lily, don’t cry, dear. It’s all right.”

Raising a tear-streaked face, Lily choked out, “Ellis, do you know how terrible it is to watch someone you love dying before your very eyes? I feel so helpless, so angry—and I can’t show any of it in front of Harry. He’s being so brave, and he’s doing it for me, Ellis!”

Ellis listened. His heart went out to her, even though all her thoughts still ran to Harry, never to him. There were times during this ordeal that he had allowed himself to wonder what would happen between them after Harry was gone. Would she turn to him? Over the years, he had sensed an undeniable spark of attraction between them. But it had never been nurtured, not even been recognized really, because Harry always came first.

Now, after his death, would Lily revere Harry all the more? Would no man ever rival him? Ellis lay awake at night wondering.

But none of these thoughts were in his mind at this moment. As he looked at her sorrowful face, he could not think of any advantage to be gained, but only of how he might help her through these grim events.

Taking her hand again, he said softly, “I understand how hard it is. You’ve been wonderfully strong for Harry. You’ve kept him going.”

“But I don’t
feel
strong, Ellis! I feel like breaking down and crying, all the time.”

“But the important thing is that you don’t. You keep going, and that makes it possible for Harry to keep going, too. Nothing’s changed in that respect, Lily. You’ve always been his greatest source of strength.”

Lily managed to smile. “Thank you for telling me that. I needed to hear it.”

Smiling into her eyes, he said again those words he’d said so many times throughout the years. “You are a princess, Lily dear. The last princess …”

The following week, as Lily and Harry stood at the rail of the Queen Mary, they could see their boys far below, standing on either side of Benjamin and Elise, with Randolph and Ellis not far behind.

“Look Harry,” Lily murmured. “It’s our whole family.” The only one missing was Melissa. There had been no way to get in touch with her before Harry’s surgery, but Ellis had tracked her down afterward. He had arranged for her to fly to see her father.

Françoise had taken the baby away for the day, but it had nevertheless been a brief, awkward visit. Lily could think of little to say to her daughter, much as she still loved her dearly.

When Melissa had seen Harry, she had done nothing but weep and cry over and over, “It can’t be true, Daddy—you can’t be dying!” in her tactless way, while he tried to soothe her. “The doctors don’t know everything, Melissa. We’ll see.”

Drew and Randy had taken Melissa out to dinner afterward before putting her on the plane back to Paris, but the evening had turned out to be something of a fiasco. The three of them were so different in personality and temperament and had been separated for so long in their respective schools that they felt like strangers to one another.

Melissa started off the argument by repeating for the third time, “I’m just so sad about poor Daddy.”

Drew had had it. Throwing down his menu, he blazed, “Oh, Melissa, shut up! That’s bullshit! What did you ever care about our father?”

“I did care about Daddy—I do!”

Drew guffawed. “Sure. That’s why you haven’t been back to America in so long—because you love Mom and Dad so much!”

“But—” Melissa stopped. She had been about to say, “But that’s because of the baby.” But was that the reason she stayed away? The honest truth was that when she was in France with Jean-Paul, she hardly ever thought about her parents. They were part of another world—one that was dull and confining. All that mattered to her was Jean-Paul and the thrill of being part of his life. He was perfect, she thought, ignoring the memory of the fights, the acrimony, the time she had discovered him with a young blonde skier.

Even so, she tried to defend herself. “I love them as much as you do! Look at how terribly you upset Dad, dropping out of Harvard and going to live like a bum in the Village!”

“I’ve already told Dad that I’m going back next term,” Drew informed her. “I’ve applied and been readmitted. The
Post
has given me some valuable experience. I plan to major in journalism. And incidentally, you’re a fine one to talk about the way I live. I’ve seen pictures of you and that skier. When is he going to marry you, or are you content to simply be his whore?”

Melissa’s eyes filled with tears. Childishly, she wailed, “Randy, Drew’s being mean to me.”

Randy shrugged. “Look, Melissa, I don’t know what this big scene is about. What does it matter to you what we think? You have your own life, we have ours, Mom and Dad have theirs. It’s ridiculous to pretend that we’re much of a family.”

“You always were cold, Randy,” accused Melissa in a trembling voice. “I know you don’t love Dad. You never did.”

Again, Randy shrugged. “He never cared too much for me, either. Let’s face it, the only one he really took an interest in was Jeremy, and then only because he was his firstborn son.” A trace of bitterness had crept into his voice at the memory of the old hurt. “Frankly, Randolph means more to me than the rest of you put together. He’s the only one who really cared for me all these years.”