Honor Thyself (7 page)

The ride to the hospital took nearly an hour, as Jason fretted in the backseat, telling himself that the woman he was about to see probably wasn't Carole, and he'd wind up having breakfast at the Ritz, and run into her when she got back. He knew how independent she was now. She always had been, but she was even more so since Sean had died. He knew she traveled frequently to world conferences on women's rights, and had gone on several missions with groups from the UN. But he had no idea what she'd been doing in France. Whatever it was, he hoped it hadn't taken her anywhere near the tunnel at the time of the terrorist attack. With any luck at all, she had been somewhere else. But if so, what were her passport and handbag doing on her desk at the Ritz? Why had she gone out without them? If anything happened to her, no one would know who she was.

He knew how she loved her anonymity, and the ability to roam around freely without fans recognizing her. It was easier for her in Paris, but not much. Carole Barber was recognized everywhere in the world, which was the only thing that encouraged him to believe that the woman at the Pitié Salpêtrière hospital couldn't possibly be her. How could they not recognize that face? It was unthinkable unless something had rendered her unrecognizable. A thousand terrifying thoughts were running through his head, as the cab finally pulled up in front of the hospital. Jason paid the fare with a generous tip, and got out. He looked like exactly what he was, a distinguished American businessman. He was wearing a dark gray English suit, a navy blue cashmere topcoat, and an extremely expensive gold watch. He was still a handsome man at fifty-nine.

“Merci!” the cabdriver shouted at him from the window, giving him a thumbs-up for the good tip.
“Bonne chance!”
He wished him luck. The look on Jason Waterman's face told him he would need it. People didn't go from the airport straight to a hospital, particularly this one, unless something bad had happened. The driver could figure out that much. And Jason's eyes and worn face told him the rest. He looked like he needed a shave, a shower, and some rest. But not yet.

Jason strode into the hospital carrying his bag, hoping someone spoke enough English to help him out. The assistant manager at the Ritz had given him the name of the head of the trauma unit, and Jason stopped to speak to a young woman at the front desk, and showed her the slip of paper where he'd written her name. She answered in rapid French, and Jason let her know that he didn't understand, nor speak French. She pointed to the elevator behind her and held up three fingers as she said the words
“Troisième étage.”
Third floor. “
Réanimation
,” she added. It didn't sound good to him. It was the French term for ICU. Jason thanked her and walked to the elevator in long, quick strides. He wanted to get this over with. He was feeling extremely stressed and could feel his heart pound. There was no one in the elevator with him, and when he got out on three, he looked around, feeling lost. A sign pointed to “
Réanimation
.” He headed toward the sign, remembering that that was the word the girl had said downstairs, and he found himself at the front desk of a busy unit, with medical personnel scurrying everywhere, and lifeless-looking patients in cubicles all around the room. There were machines buzzing and whirring, beeps from monitors, people moaning, and a hospital smell that turned his stomach after the long flight.

“Does anyone here speak English?” he asked in a firm voice, while the woman he spoke to looked blank.
“Anglais. Parlez-vous anglais?”

“Engleesh… one minute…” She spoke a mixture of English and French, and went to find someone for him. A doctor in a white coat appeared, a woman in hospital pajamas with a shower cap on and a stethoscope around her neck. She was about Jason's age, and her English was good, which was a relief. He was suddenly afraid that no one would understand what he said, and worse yet, he wouldn't understand them.

“May I help you?” she asked in a clear voice. He asked for the woman who was the head of the trauma unit, and the doctor at hand said she wasn't there, but offered her assistance instead. Jason explained why he had come, and forgot to add the
ex
before the word
wife.

She looked him over carefully. He was well dressed, and looked like a respectable man. And he looked worried sick. Fearing that he must look more than a little crazed, he explained that he had just gotten off the flight from New York. But she seemed to understand. He explained that his wife had disappeared from her hotel, and he was afraid she might be their Jane Doe.

“How long ago?”

“I'm not sure. I was in New York. She arrived the day of the terrorist attack in the tunnel. No one has seen her since, and she hasn't gone back to the hotel.”

“That is almost two weeks,” she said, as though wondering why it had taken him so long to figure out that his wife had disappeared. It was too late to explain that they were divorced, since he had referred to her as his wife, and maybe it was better this way. He wasn't sure what kind of rights ex-husbands had in France as next of kin, probably none, like anywhere else.

“She was traveling, and this may not be her. I hope it's not. I flew over to see.” She seemed to approve of that and nodded at him, and then said something to the nurse at the desk, who pointed to a room with a closed door.

The doctor beckoned Jason to follow her, which he did. She opened the door to the room, and he couldn't see the patient in the bed. She was surrounded by machines, and there were two nurses standing next to her, blocking his view. He could hear the
whoosh
of the respirator and the
whir
of machines. There seemed to be a ton of apparatus in the room as the doctor led him in. He felt like an intruder suddenly, a medical voyeur. He was about to view someone who might not be anyone he knew. But he had to see her. He had to be sure she wasn't Carole. He owed this to her, and their kids, even if it seemed like a crazy thing to do. It did, even to him, like the far extremes of paranoia, or maybe just guilt. He walked behind the doctor, and saw a still figure lying there, with a respirator in her mouth, her nose taped shut, and her head tilted back. She was completely still, and her face was deathly pale. The bandage on her head looked huge, there was another on her face, and a cast on her arm, and at the angle he approached her, it was hard to see her face. He took another step forward to get a better look, and then caught his breath as tears filled his eyes. It was Carole.

His worst nightmare had just come true. He stepped up close to her, and touched the fingers sticking out of the cast, which were black and blue. Nothing moved. She was in another world, far from them, and looked as though she would never return. There were tears running down his cheeks as he stood and looked at her. The worst had happened. She was the unidentified victim from the tunnel bombing. The woman he had once loved and still did was fighting for her life in Paris, and had been there, alone, for almost two weeks, while none of them had any idea what had happened to her. Jason looked stricken as he turned to the doctor.

“It's her,” he whispered, as the nurses stared at him. It had been clear to all of them that he had identified her.

“I'm sorry,” the doctor said in a soft voice, and then gestured to him to follow her outside. “It is your wife?” she asked, no longer needing confirmation. His tears spoke for themselves. He looked destroyed. “We had no way to identify her,” the doctor explained. “She had no papers, nothing on her, nothing with a name.”

“I know. She left her bag and passport at the hotel. She does that sometimes, goes out without her purse.” She always had. She stuffed a ten-dollar bill in her pocket and went out. She had done it years before when they lived in New York, although he'd always told her to carry ID. This time the worst had happened, and no one knew who she was, which still seemed hard for him to believe. “She's an actress, a well-known movie star,” he said, although it didn't matter now. She was a woman with a major head injury in the ICU, nothing more. The doctor looked intrigued by what he'd said.

“She is a movie star?” She looked stunned.

“Carole Barber,” he said, knowing the impact it would have. The doctor looked instantly shocked.

“Carole Barber? We did not know.” She was visibly impressed.

“It would be nice if the press doesn't find out. My children don't know. I don't want them to hear about it like that. I want to at least call them first.”

“Of course,” the doctor said, realizing what was about to happen to them. They would have cared for her no differently than they had, but now, when word got out that she was there, they would be besieged by the press. It was going to make life difficult for them. It had been a lot easier while she was just a Jane Doe, a victim of the attack. Having one of America's biggest movie stars in their
réanimation
unit was going to make life hell for everyone. “It will be very hard to keep the press away, once they know,” she said, looking concerned. “Perhaps we can use her married name.”

“Waterman,” he supplied. “Carole Waterman.” Once upon a time that had been the truth. She had never taken Sean's name, which was Clarke. They could have used that too, and he realized that she might have preferred it. But what did it matter now? All that mattered was her life. “Is she… is she… will she be all right?” He couldn't say the words, and ask if she was going to die. But it looked like a strong possibility. Carole looked terrible to him, and nearly dead.

“We don't know. Brain injuries are very hard to predict. She is doing better than she was, and the brain scans are good. The swelling is going down. But we cannot tell how damaged she will be until she wakes up. If she continues to do well, we will take her off the respirator soon. Then she must breathe for herself, and she must awaken from the coma. Until then, we cannot know how much damage there is, or the long-term effects. She will need re-education, but we are not there yet. We are a long way from it. She is still in danger. The risk of infection, complications, and her brain could swell again. She suffered a very serious blow to her head. She was very lucky not to be more badly burned, and her arm will heal. Her head is our greatest concern.” He couldn't even imagine telling the kids, but they had to know. Chloe had to come from London, and Anthony from New York. They had a right to see their mother, and he knew they'd want to be with her. And what if she died? He couldn't stand thinking about it, as he met the doctor's eyes again.

“Should she be anywhere else? Is there anything else that can be done?”

The doctor looked offended. “We have done it all, even before we knew who she was. That means nothing to us. Now we must wait. Time will tell us what we need to know, if she survives.” She wanted to remind him that her survival was not a sure thing yet. It was only fair to him.

“Did she have surgery?”

The doctor shook her head again. “No. We decided it was wiser not to traumatize her further, and the swelling came down on its own. We took a conservative approach, which I think was best for her.” Jason nodded, relieved. At least they hadn't cut into her brain. It gave him hope that she'd be herself again one day. It was all they could hope for now, and if not, they'd face that when the time came, as they would her death, if that happened. It was an overwhelming thought.

“What are you planning to do now?” he asked, wanting to take action. It wasn't his style to just sit around.

“Wait. There's nothing else we can do. We will know more in the coming days.” He nodded, looking around him at how grim the hospital was. He had heard of the American Hospital of Paris, and wondered if they could get her transferred there, but the assistant manager at the hotel had already told him that this was the best place for her to be, if it was indeed her. Their trauma unit was excellent, and she would get the best possible medical care for a case as serious as this apparently was.

“I'm going to go to the hotel and call my children, and then I'll come back this afternoon. If anything happens, you can reach me at the Ritz.” He gave her his international cell phone number as well, and they put it on Carole's chart with his name. She had a name now even if it wasn't really hers. Carole Waterman. She had a husband and children. But she also had a famous identity that was bound to leak out. The doctor said she would only tell the head of the trauma unit who Carole really was, but they both knew that it was only a matter of time before the press found out. They always did, with things like this. It was amazing no one had recognized her so far. But if someone talked, the press would arrive in swarms, and life would be hell for all of them.

“We'll do our best to keep it quiet,” she assured him.

“So will I. I'll be back this afternoon … and … thank you … for everything you've done so far.” They had kept her alive. That was something. He couldn't even imagine what it would have been like to see her in a Paris morgue and identify her body. It had come close to that, from everything the doctor said. She had been lucky after all. “May I see her again?” he asked, and this time he went to the room alone. The nurses were still there, and stepped aside so he could approach her bed. He stood looking down at her, and this time touched her cheek. The tubes from the respirator covered her face, and he saw the bandage on her cheek and wondered how bad the damage was. The slight burn beside it was already healing, and her arm was covered in salve. “I love you, Carole,” he whispered. “You're going to be all right. I love you. Chloe and Anthony love you. You need to wake up soon.” There was no sign of life from the bed, and the nurses looked discreetly away. It was hard for them to watch, there was so much pain in his eyes. He bent to kiss her cheek then, and remembered the familiar softness of her face. Even all these years later, that hadn't changed. Her hair was fanned out behind her on the bed under the bandage. One of the nurses had brushed it for her, and commented on how beautiful it was, like pale yellow silk.

Seeing her brought back so many memories, all of them good. The bad ones were forgotten now, and had been for a long time. For him anyway. He and Carole never talked about the past when they spoke. They only referred to the kids, or their current lives. He had been very kind to her when Sean died, he felt sorry for her. It was a tough break for her. She had married a man five years younger than she was, and he had died a young man. Jason had come out for the funeral, and been very supportive to her and the kids. And now here she was, fighting for her own life, two years after Sean had died. Life was strange, and cruel at times. But she was still alive. She had a chance. It was the best news he could give their children. He dreaded telling them. “I'll be back later,” he whispered to Carole as he kissed her again, and the respirator breathed rhythmically for her. “I love you, Carole. You're going to get well,” he said with a decisive look, and then walked out of the room, fighting back tears. He had to be strong, for her, and for Anthony and Chloe. No matter how he felt.