The Kiss (22 page)

Chapter 8

Sophie thought a lot about
Bill on the way back to Paris, and she could understand why her mother had liked him. He seemed like such a decent man, and she felt so sorry for him. One of the nurses had told her he would never walk again. He seemed to be very philosophical about it, and he was devastated that Isabelle had gotten injured while she was out with him.

As they landed in Paris, Sophie's thoughts shifted to her mother and brother again. She felt torn now as to where she should be. She had decided to go home for a few days, and then she wanted to go back to London again to see her mother.

She took a cab from the airport, and the house was strangely quiet when she arrived. There was no sound in the house, and as she walked upstairs, she saw that it was dark in her father's rooms. And when she walked into Teddy's room, she was shocked by the condition he was in. He was running a high fever, seemed nearly delirious, and the doctor had just been there, Teddy's nurse explained. She said that if the fever didn't come down that night, the doctor would put Teddy in the hospital the next day. Just thinking
about it, after seeing her mother, was almost more than Sophie could bear.

“What happened?” Sophie sat down in a chair, looking drained, she felt as though she had grown up overnight. Teddy didn't even know she was there. He had been sedated, and was in a deep sleep.

“I think he's upset about your mother,” the nurse said in a whisper. “He hasn't slept properly in days. He won't eat, he won't drink.” She and the doctor had discussed starting him on an IV, but he had objected and cried so much when he heard them, that they had agreed to let it go another day, if he would promise to at least try to eat and drink. He looked as though he had lost weight to Sophie.

“Where's my father?” Sophie asked, running a hand through her hair, looking more than ever like Isabelle. She seemed to be resembling her more and more in the last few days.

“He's out for the evening,” the nurse said, without comment. She hadn't seen him since the previous day, but she didn't say that to Sophie. “How was your mother?” the nurse asked, looking worried.

“Still the same,” Sophie said, and thought about Bill. “No one knows what will happen. They said she could be in a coma for a long time, and still recover.” Sophie looked hopeful as she said it, but they had also told her that Isabelle could die at any time. All they could do was pray and wait. “I'm going to go back in a few days.” The nurse nodded, and then took Teddy's pulse again. It was fast and thready, and she frowned as she made a note for the doctor of what it had been. It seemed almost certain to her that they were going to
be obliged to hospitalize him. And Sophie agreed. It seemed safest for him.

Sophie waited up for her father that night, to discuss Teddy's condition with him, and she was surprised at midnight when he wasn't home. She asked the nurse if he knew Teddy was ill.

“I spoke to him this afternoon in his office,” she said without expression. “I'm sure he'll be home soon.” But at three o'clock, Sophie was still awake and he wasn't in. She had called the hospital in London earlier, to check on her mother, and there was nothing new there either. For a moment, she'd almost asked to speak to Bill, just to say hello, but she was embarrassed to call him, and hung up without asking for him.

Sophie woke up, still dressed and sitting in a chair in Teddy's room the next morning, just as she had seen her mother do so often when he was ill. She hadn't even intended to, she'd been waiting for her father, and finally fallen asleep. She thought he had probably been careful not to wake her, and didn't know she was waiting in Teddy's room.

The boy was awake as she left the room to find her father, and he looked a little better. The nurse said the fever had broken, but he still didn't seem at all well to Sophie. And as she walked down the hall to talk to her father, she was surprised to see that his doors were open, and when she looked in, there was no one there.

She turned to the maid with surprise. “Did my father sleep here last night, Josephine?” The woman shook her head and disappeared down the stairs. It was not an answer she thought appropriate to give his
daughter at her age. But Sophie could see for herself that he hadn't. The shades and curtains were drawn, the lights were off, and the room was undisturbed. No one had been in his bed. And for an instant, she panicked. What if something had happened to her father? They would be orphans, she suddenly realized. She couldn't imagine where he'd been. An hour later she called his office, and he sounded perfectly calm when he answered. He hadn't seen her since she left for London, and she was astonished he hadn't been home with Teddy. It seemed irresponsible to her.

“Teddy has been sick,” she said with a tone of accusation, as though it was his fault, but he seemed unconcerned.

“I know. I spoke to Marthe yesterday afternoon. The doctor came to see him, and I spoke to him today.” He was not about to accept a hint of reproach from an eighteen-year-old girl.

“You didn't come home last night,” Sophie said tersely, and he almost laughed at the tone of her voice, but she was not amused.

“I'm well aware of that. I was with friends out of the city, it got late, and I thought it more prudent to stay there than drive home.”

Sophie assumed he'd been drinking, and given what had just happened to her mother, she had to agree with him about driving home when he was tired.

“I just spoke to London,” he said quietly, “there's no change.”

“Oh.” Sophie's spirits were further dampened by that news. But she was still upset that her father hadn't
come home the night before. If something terrible had happened to Teddy, they would have needed him there. And no one knew where he had been. But he wasn't the least apologetic, and Sophie suddenly found herself wondering if he stayed out all night regularly. She'd never been aware of it before. And she couldn't help asking herself if there were things about her parents she didn't know, particularly since she'd met Bill. It still seemed odd that she had never heard of her mother's friendship with him, and it occurred to her that she never ventured into her father's rooms at night or in the early morning. Maybe there were other times when he hadn't been there. He went out a great deal in the evenings for business, and her mother rarely went with him anymore. Sophie suddenly had a sense of her whole life unraveling, not just because of what had happened to Isabelle, but because of what it had exposed. Sophie had always thought her father was godlike, and now she was wondering if he had secrets of which she was unaware. Perhaps there were more reasons than just Teddy that had kept her mother at home, and her parents sleeping in separate rooms.

“Will you be home tonight?” she asked her father, sounding nervous, feeling more like his wife than his daughter, but she was feeling very insecure. There were too many frightening things going on.

“Yes, I will. I'll be out for dinner. But I'll be home before you go to bed,” he reassured her.

“If Teddy has to go to the hospital, I'll need you to be there,” Sophie explained.

“The doctor seems less worried. I think Teddy's just had a shock and he needs time to recover from it.”

“We all have,” Sophie said sadly. “When are you going back to London?”

“In a few days. There's nothing I can do there. They'll call us if there's any change.” But if she died, Sophie thought, no one would be with her, and if something happened to warn them of it, it would take them hours to get from Paris to London. Sophie wished she could just stay there, but she knew Teddy needed her too. And now that she realized that her father stayed out all night at times, she didn't feel she could leave. It was hard to know what was the right thing to do. Her father seemed far less troubled by it than she was.

Her father left for a meeting then, and Sophie spent the day with her brother, reading to him, telling him stories, and talking to him about their mother. She was doing the best she could, but they both knew she was no substitute for Isabelle. She felt like a zombie by the time her father came home after dinner. He seemed in good spirits, and sat down in the library to smoke a cigar. Sophie had heard him come in and found him there. She was surprised he hadn't come to find her upstairs. He had always been so pleasant to her and so interested that she was surprised by how distant he was being these days, particularly with her mother so ill. But suddenly, as she watched him, she wondered if his previous interest in her had been more show than real, and perhaps even to annoy Isabelle, and make her feel less important to him. Sophie had always been treated as his little darling, and he had been as cool and distant with his wife as he was now with Sophie.

“How was your day, Papa?” she asked cautiously.

Hers had been pretty grim, between worrying about her mother and caring for a sick boy.

“Long. How was yours?”

“I was with Teddy all day.” She expected him to ask more about it, but at the mention of her brother, her father looked instantly bored as he poured himself a glass of port.

“What else did you do?” he asked, focusing on his cigar, and it felt strange sitting there talking to him as though nothing had happened. Her mother was in a coma in a hospital in London, and her brother had been failing since he heard. And her father seemed astonishingly unconcerned. And as she looked at him, all she could think of was the look of devastation on Bill Robinson's face when he talked about her mother. She saw none of that in her father's eyes. He seemed distant and cool whenever he referred to her.

“That's all I did today, Papa. I stayed with Teddy. He's very upset.” Gordon nodded, and didn't answer her. He seemed to almost forget she was there, and then the phone rang. And he told whoever it was that he'd call back. Sophie's heart had nearly stopped when she heard it. Every time the phone rang now, she was terrified that it was a call from London to tell them the worst.

“You should go to bed,” Gordon said as he sipped his port, dismissing her. “You've had a long day.” It was obvious he didn't want to talk, and Sophie was hurt. She had never felt as alone in her life as she did now.

“When are you going back to London?” she asked quietly before she left.

“When I think I should,” he said tersely, frowning at her. She was annoying him. She had turned into her mother overnight.

“I want to go back with you,” she said, aware of the fact that he wasn't pleased with her, but for the moment, she didn't care.

“Your brother needs you here.”

“I want to see Mom again.” She sounded young and stubborn, and he wasn't amused.

“She won't even know you're there. I need you here. I can't worry about that boy and his nurses all day. They call me at the office all day long, I don't have time for that, Sophie. You need to take care of him.” He didn't ask her, he just told her what she had to do, and expected her to do as he said.

“‘ That boy’ is your son, Papa. And he needs you too, not just me or Mom. You never talk to him.” She was too tired to hold back anymore.

“He has nothing to say,” Gordon said harshly, pouring himself another glass of port. “And it's not up to you to tell me what to do.” It was a conversation Isabelle had had with him many times over the years, and she had given up long ago. For reasons of his own, based on past history among other things, Gordon was determined not to have a relationship with his son. And in her naïveté, Sophie could not change that. If Teddy had been healthy and strong and able to participate in things that interested his father, it would have been a different story. But as he was, as far as Gordon was concerned, the boy didn't exist and was of no interest to him. If anything, he was an irritant to him, although he felt sorry for him now. All
Teddy was was an annoyance and a burden to his father. And as far as Gordon was concerned, he was Isabelle's job, not his. And in her absence, he was Sophie's.

Just hearing the way her father spoke of him made Sophie sad as she went to her room. She and Teddy had talked about it over the years, and he always said things like that about their father, and she had argued about it with him. But now she saw it was true. Teddy said their father was mean and selfish and cold and hated him. And now she could see that Teddy knew a side of him she had never wanted to see. As far as Gordon was concerned, having a son like Teddy was no credit to him. He preferred to shut him away and forget him, just as he had his wife.

Sophie put her nightgown on in her own room, and then went back to Teddy's room. The nurse said he had a fever again, and Sophie climbed into his bed and cuddled up next to him. She felt as though they were two children who had lost their mother for the time being, and she had never felt as sad or as lonely in her life. And all she could hope, as her tears ran into her pillow, was that their mother would wake from her coma soon. She couldn't begin to imagine what their life would be like if she died.

Chapter 9

Things moved along at the
hospital in London. Physical therapists came to assess Bill and plan a rehabilitation program for him. They were turning him frequently in his bed to keep his circulation moving, and prevent pneumonia, but the days were boring for him. And once or twice a day he had his bed wheeled into Isabelle's room. The nurses had paid no attention to Gordon's instructions, and several of them hoped it would do her good to be visited by Bill. It did no harm in any case, and it raised Bill's spirits noticeably. He always felt better when he visited her. He missed their late-night talks terribly. And he lay in his hospital bed for hours, thinking about her just across the hall. He looked forward all day to the few minutes he could spend at her side.

His own injuries were starting to heal a little bit. His neck and spine still caused him a lot of pain, but he was able to move more than he could before, and he had some vague phantom sensations in his legs. But in spite of that, the prognosis for him had not changed. He was trying to keep his spirits up, and think about what he was going to do when he got back
to the States, but the changes he was facing now were unspeakably hard.