The Kiss (38 page)

The one blessing, other than Bill, in her life, was the fact that Teddy had improved radically in the past two months. She didn't know if it was the weather, or just blind luck, but he seemed stronger and better than he had all year. He had even come downstairs to have dinner with her in the dining room several times. And in April, she drove him through the Bois de Boulogne for the first time in years. They stopped for an ice cream in the Jardin d'Acclimatation, and she was ecstatic when she called Bill. She hadn't done anything
like it since he was a very little boy. And she thanked God for the blessing he was in her life, when he turned fifteen on the first of May.

It was the following afternoon that Bill called, and began laying the groundwork for what he had convinced himself he had to do. He told her the first lie he ever had. He had thought about it long and hard. And however terrible it seemed, he knew he was doing it for her. He loved her enough to sacrifice himself for her. Teddy was better, Gordon had left her in peace for several months. He was almost never there. And Bill knew that there would never be a good time to do what he believed he had to do, but this seemed better than most. With a pounding heart, he called to tell her that he had fantastic news, and tried to make himself sound convincing. She knew him so well, he was afraid she'd know it wasn't true. But by some miracle she believed him when he told her he had walked that day, and that he had finally made the connection between his brain and his legs. She sounded astounded to hear what he said, and burst into tears, she was so happy for him, which made him feel even worse. But in his mind, there was nothing else he could do. He knew now that he had to let her go, for her sake, and to convince her that he was whole. She had Teddy to take care of, she didn't need the burden of Bill too. As he was, he felt he had nothing to offer her, no matter what eventually happened with Gordon. Bill would not do this to her. He refused to destroy her life and turn her into his nursemaid one day. Unlike Joe and Jane, Bill knew better. He could not let her pity him, rescue him, take care of him. If he wasn't able to walk,
he refused to stay in Isabelle's life. And what he had just told her, about having walked that day, was the first step toward setting her free. In his mind, it was all he had left to give. It was like freeing a beautiful bird.

They talked for a long time, and she asked him how he had felt when he took his first steps, if it had been terrifying or wonderful, and he elaborated endlessly on the theme. And every day after that, he solidified his story. He felt sick when he called her now, hated lying to her. He felt he had no choice, but it tainted all their phone calls, because he was lying to her. She was warm and wonderful and vulnerable and trusting, and he loved her so much. Enough not to stay in her life as he was. He saw himself now as a half person, or less, who had nothing to offer a woman anymore. Even if parts of him worked, there were others that did not, and never would. In effect, in his eyes, the prognosis the therapists had given him had destroyed what was left of his life, and what he shared with Isabelle.

And when Bill wasn't talking to her, he was setting up his future life in Washington. He was finally starting to make plans for when he left the rehab center. He had promised to take on the senatorial candidate at the end of June.

He had to get an apartment before that, and he wanted to spend time with the candidate and learn everything he could about him. And before he went back to work, there was Joe and Jane's wedding in June. She was having half a dozen bridesmaids, Olivia was the maid of honor, and they were planning to hold the reception at the house in Greenwich. They
were having three hundred guests in a tent on the front lawn. There was a lot going on, and Cynthia was going crazy making arrangements with caterers and florists, and going to fittings for the dresses with the girls.

Joe and Jane were beside themselves. They had signed up for married housing at NYU. She had gone to Minneapolis to meet his parents. And they were going to Italy for their honeymoon. As he listened to Joe when he went to therapy with him every day, Bill felt sicker and sicker about what he was about to do to Isabelle. But he had made his decision. He felt certain it was his only choice, and the right thing to do. For him, the decision had been made. All that was left to do was to tell her.

“Are you okay?” Joe asked him one afternoon as they headed back to their rooms. “You've been so quiet lately.” Joe was worried about him. He seemed strange. He knew Bill had hit a wall in his recovery, and was concerned about the effect it had had on him. They had all been there at some point, when they had to face reality and the truth.

“I'm getting ready to go back to the real world. I have a lot of work to do right after the wedding,” Bill explained, but Joe had noticed that his future father-in-law had lost his interest in therapy almost completely in the last month. And he had finally stopped seeing Linda Harcourt in therapy sessions. He had nothing left to say, and no interest in her books. He had given up all hope of a life with Isabelle. Bill had agreed to stay at the rehab center for another month, but his heart no longer appeared to be in it in any way. He had already moved
on, in his head. He seemed distracted and quiet, and when he wasn't paying attention to the people around him, which was frequently now, he looked depressed, and was.

At the end of May, Bill ran into Helena on her way back from the dining hall, and she was crying. She was heading his way, and she almost ran him down as she sped past him in her chair.

“Hey, hit-and-run is a felony!” Bill shouted at her, and she slowed to a stop without turning to look at him and then put her face in her hands and started sobbing. He moved his wheelchair next to hers, and touched her shoulder. “Can I help?” She shook her head for a minute, and didn't answer. And then she looked at him with ravaged eyes. And as she took her hand away from her face, he could see that her ring was gone, the enormous diamond she'd been wearing since he met her nine months before. It was easy to guess what had happened. “Do you want to come talk for a while?” he offered, and she nodded. They went back to his room then, and he handed her a wad of tissues. And after she'd blown her nose, she thanked him with a teary smile.

“I'm sorry. I'm a mess,” she apologized. She was as beautiful as ever, even when she was crying. She was a spectacular-looking girl, regardless of the fact that she was in a wheelchair.

“Should I guess, or do you want to tell me?”

“It's Sergio. He called … things have been weird lately. He's been working in Milan, and he's been away a lot. We put the wedding off a few months ago, because he thought we needed more time…. Shit, Bill, we've been going out for six years … but we never got engaged
until after the accident. I think he just did it because he felt guilty that I fell when I was working for him. That day, he kept making me step back further and further, and then I fell backward down the stairs … and … he just told me he can't do it, that it's too hard, and I need too much attention. He says he needs someone in his life who's more independent. It's because of this,” she slapped the sides of her wheelchair, and started crying again, as Bill put an arm around her shoulders. The slurring of her speech had improved immeasurably in the past nine months, but the rest of her situation had not and never would. It was exactly what he was afraid of for Joe and Jane, and why he wanted to free Isabelle now before she came to hate him for all that he no longer was, or couldn't do.

“It probably scared him,” Bill said sensibly. Sergio was one of the most successful young photographers in the business, and he was only twenty-nine. But he could also have any model he wanted, even one not in a wheelchair. It would have been nice if he could have lived up to his promise to Helena, but if it was too much for him, Bill told her, it was better that he speak up now. “You know, if he can't do it, Helena, then he's done the right thing. You don't want him to walk out after you're married. If he's not the right guy, better you know now.” It was his theory with Isabelle too, although he knew she would never have walked out on him, but Bill thought she should. And if she didn't have the sense to do it, he did, for her sake. He had worked himself into a frenzy over it in the last weeks, and convinced himself he was right. What Sergio had just done to her confirmed everything he thought, that
“whole” people did not belong with people who were anything less than that. “Helena, believe me, one day you'll be glad this happened,” he said, and she started to cry harder. It didn't make any sense to her. She loved him, and thought he loved her too. She already had her wedding dress, the caterer, the photographer, the band. But marriage was a lot more than that, particularly in circumstances like theirs.

“Why would I be glad this happened?” What Bill was saying just didn't make sense to her.

“Because you don't want to be a burden to him. He'd only come to hate you that way.”

“I'm not a burden,” she said, looking incensed. “I'm no different than I was before the accident. I'm still the same person.” Joe and Jane would have applauded what she was saying, but Bill did not. He had exactly the opposite point of view.

“None of us are the same. We can't be. We have limitations. There are things we'll never do again,” Bill said quietly, thinking of Isabelle.

“Like what? Dance? Ski? Roller-skate? Who cares?” She blew her nose again.

“He does apparently, that's my point. At least he was honest, you have to admire him for that.”

“I don't admire him. He's a shit. I didn't do anything wrong for him to walk out on me.”

“No. You just had rotten luck. We all did. That's why we're here.”

“Are you telling me no one will ever love us because we're like this? Because if you are, I think you're wrong, and that's a rotten thing to say. What about Joe and Jane? Look at them.”

“You're old enough to be smarter than they are.” She was twenty-eight, and she wanted a life and a husband and kids. “I still think they're making a mistake, and one day they'll pay for it. Maybe one day Jane will do what Sergio just did. And then what? By then they'll have a couple of kids, and they'll screw up everyone's lives.”

“Is that what you think? That no one will ever stay with us or want us? That's bullshit, and you know it. Or at least I hope you do. We have a right to the same things everyone else does.”

“Maybe not,” he said, looking grim. “Or at least I don't. I can only speak for myself. But I don't feel like I have a right to inflict this,” he waved at their wheelchairs, “on someone else. It wouldn't be fair.” They both knew he was speaking of Isabelle, and Helena looked even more upset.

“Have you talked to the shrink here lately, Bill?” she asked, suddenly more concerned about him than about herself. “I think you need to, because I think your attitude stinks. I think Sergio is an asshole, and maybe you're right, maybe I'm better off than if he walks out on me later, but I don't think it should have anything to do with this,” she waved at his wheelchair the way he had, “I think it should have to do with whether or not he loves me, and what kind of wife he thinks I'm going to be. Maybe he thinks I'm not good enough for him.”

“That's my point,” Bill said smugly, and Helena looked angry at Bill.

“No, it isn't, Bill. You're confused. You think we lost our right to be loved the day we wound up in a
wheelchair. I don't believe that, and I never will. There are too many good people out there who won't give a damn if we're standing up or sitting down. I don't like being like this either. I'd much rather be running around under my own steam, and wearing high heels. But I'm not. So fucking what? Are you telling me you wouldn't love a woman in a wheelchair? Are you that small? I don't think you are.” She looked pointedly at him.

“Maybe not,” he said, dodging her question, but knowing in spite of himself that there was some truth to what she was saying. Because if it were Isabelle who'd wound up in the wheelchair, he would have loved her just the same, maybe more. But that wasn't his point. “I guess I'm just saying that some people aren't big enough to do this. And even if they are, you have to take a good look and figure out if that's what you want to do to them. Do you really want to subject them to that, or do you love them enough to give them up?” He was talking about himself, and Helena was looking confused.

“Why don't they just put us all out on an iceberg somewhere? That might solve the problem. Then we wouldn't be a problem for anyone, they wouldn't have to be decent human beings, or have any compassion, or even grow up. You know what? I admire the hell out of Jane and Joe for what they're doing. They believe in each other, and they're right. They love each other, and that's worth everything. The rest of it, the chair, or the crutches, or no chair or no crutches, it doesn't mean a damn thing. At least not to me. I don't care if the guy I marry is deaf, dumb, and blind, if he's
a good person, and we love each other, and he's a decent human being, then that's good enough for me. This wheelchair wouldn't mean shit to me if someone else were in it instead of me.”

“Good. Then marry me,” Bill teased her, and she sat back in her chair and smiled through her tears.

“You'd be a huge pain in the ass,” she laughed at him. “And your outlook stinks. I still think you should talk to the shrink before you leave, or you're going to do some really stupid stuff.” She was one of Linda Harcourt's patients too, and had done well with her, because she wanted to.

“Like what?” He looked defensive. He liked her, she was a very bright girl, and they had become good friends.

“Like walk out on people who love you, because you think you're a burden to them. Why don't you let them figure that out, instead of deciding for them? You have no right to control what they think, or make decisions for them.”

“Maybe I know better. If you love someone, you want to protect them from themselves.”

“You can't protect people,” Helena said clearly. She had done a lot of work on herself and faced a lot of things, more so than Bill. He had spent all his time lifting weights, and had eventually avoided the shrink. Helena could see that. “People have a right to make their own choices. You can't take that away from them, just like they can't take that away from us. It's a question of respect.”