“That you'll be better off,” he whispered to her, and she looked weepy again. “I'm just kidding. He said I could regain some of the use of my legs, with a lot of hard work. It's an interesting challenge. Who knows?

Maybe they'll manage a miracle, and get me walking.” He still wanted to believe that, although according to the doctor, it was by no means sure. “I start therapy and rehab in earnest in three weeks. They want to give everything a little more time to heal before they start.”

“You can come home for that,” she said softly. She was still feeling overwhelmed by his decision, and hoped he would relent in time.

“Maybe. We'll see,” he said noncommittally. He didn't want to say too much in front of the girls. “What about you? When are you going home? Have you thought about it?” Bill asked her, looking subdued. It had been a tough afternoon for him.

“The girls want to stay for the week. I thought I might take them to Paris in a few days, if you're okay, and then I can come back to see you.” She was still hoping he'd change his mind after everything he'd said, but his voice was firm. He had no regrets. He knew he was doing the right thing, for both of them.

“Don't,” he said gently. “I'll be fine. You should go back with the girls. I know you have plans to go to see your parents in Maine.” She had already decided not to come back to Europe again, and after Maine, she was going straight to the Hamptons. “I'll be back in the States soon.” There was a lot he had to do. If he went back, he had to find a rehab facility where he could stay for a while, and then he needed to find an apartment and move out of their house. But it was early days for all that yet. And first, they'd have to tell the girls what they'd decided. He wasn't looking forward to that, and he wanted to tell them with her, so the girls would understand that he and Cynthia would still be friends. That mattered a lot to him, and would to them eventually too. He was sure of it.

Cynthia and the girls went back to the hotel to have dinner, and he lay in his room quietly all night. He would have liked to see Isabelle again, but he didn't want to push his luck, in case Gordon was still in town, and he was tired anyway. It had been a big day. He had been told he would most probably never walk again, “might” have sex again eventually although not certainly, had seen Isabelle, locked horns with her husband, and told Cynthia he wanted a divorce. Except for the accident that had changed all their lives irreversibly, that was about as big as it got.





Chapter 7




Gordon Forrester left London for Paris early Monday morning. He called the hospital before he left, was told nothing had changed, and left for the airport. He was carrying with him all of Isabelle's belongings that she'd left in her hotel room. There was no point leaving her anything at the hospital, he decided. In the state she was in, she didn't need it. And as he flew over the English Channel, he knew nothing more than he had when he'd come. The doctors still had no idea if she'd live, or recover. Her internal organs seemed to be mending slowly, but there was considerable concern over her heart and lungs, and her liver would take a long time to heal. And the blow to her head, although less severe than the rest of the damage, was keeping her in a deep coma. They were sedating her to allow all her injuries to heal. But whether or not she would wake up, or die, or remain in a coma interminably, was a story yet to be told. There were still too many questions, to which no one had any answers. It was a hopeful sign that she was still alive five days after the accident, and certainly each day counted. But she was still in extremely critical condition. And Gordon knew, as he landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Roissy, that he could not put off telling the children any longer. He had waited from one day to the next, hoping for some improvement, but there had been none. And it seemed dangerous to him to wait any longer. Sophie was old enough to know the truth, that she might lose her mother, and whether he was ill or not, Teddy simply had to face it. Gordon was sure that Sophie would be of some comfort to him. He was going to wait until she returned from Portugal to tell Teddy, so that she could deal with her brother. It was not a scene Gordon was looking forward to, or the kind of situation he was good at. And particularly in this case, he had almost no relationship with his son.

As he put his bag and Isabelle's into a cab at Roissy, he thought of Bill Robinson again and their unpleasant encounter. He was still infuriated by the audacity and arrogance of Bill's question, about why he hated Isabelle. It was an outrageous suggestion, and he couldn't help wondering if that was what Isabelle had said. He didn't hate his wife. He had simply lost her in the chaos and abysmal years after Teddy's birth. He could no longer separate her in his mind from the horrors of the sickroom, and all that represented to him. In his eyes, she was no longer his wife, she was Teddy's nurse, and nothing more.

He wondered if perhaps in her mind, thinking that Gordon hated her justified the affair he suspected she'd had with Bill, or at the very least, the flirtation. If they had been to Annabel's together as the papers said, and the photograph indicated, clearly their alliance was not as innocent as Bill Robinson suggested.

Gordon still had a thousand questions in his mind about it, but unless Isabelle recovered, he knew he would never have the answers. Bill Robinson was certainly not going to tell him anything. It bothered Gordon in principle, but in truth he had not thought of her romantically or sexually in years.

Gordon had left instructions at the hospital desk when he left, that Bill was not to be allowed in her room again. The nurse had written it all down very formally, but Gordon had had the uneasy feeling that none of his wishes were going to be followed. They seemed to have an inordinate amount of sympathy for Bill, and none for Gordon. Not to mention a huge amount of respect and admiration for who he was. Bill Robinson was a very important man.

When Gordon left the airport, he went straight to the office and made several phone calls. He explained the situation to his secretary, which he had not done previously, and she did not mention to him that she had seen the photograph of Isabelle and Bill in the International Herald Tribune. She knew better. And at his request, that afternoon, she handed him Sophie's number in Portugal. Isabelle had left it with her when she left for London, just in case.

Sophie was staying at a rented house with friends in Sintra, she was out, so all Gordon could do was leave a message for her. She called him back at six o'clock, just as he was about to leave the office. He took a sharp breath as he picked up the phone, and braced himself for what he had to tell her.

“How was London?” she asked cheerfully. “Did you and Mom have fun?”

“How did you know I went to London?” He had told virtually no one, except Teddy and his nurse.

“I called home over the weekend, and talked to Teddy. Didn't he tell you?”

“I haven't seen him yet. I came straight to the office from the airport this morning,” Gordon said coolly. He was stalling, groping for words.

“I'll call home then. I have to ask Mom something.”

“She can't talk to you,” he said cryptically, dreading this moment. It was a nightmare from which he could not wake. Instead he had to pull his children into it with him.

“Why not? Is she out?”

“No, your mother is in London.”

“That's funny. She stayed?” It was unlike her mother to leave Teddy at all, let alone for six days. Sophie knew her mother had gone to London on Tuesday. “When is she coming back?” She sounded confused.

“We don't know yet.” He took a final breath then and dove in. “Sophie, your mother had an accident.” There was dead silence at the other end of the phone, as she waited, and her heart was pounding. Something about the way he said it was terrifying. “A very serious accident. I think you should come home.”

“What happened? Is she all right?” She was so breathless, she could hardly squeeze out the words.

“She was in a car that was in an accident with a bus.” There was no avoiding the truth now. “She's in a coma. They don't know what's going to happen. She has very serious internal injuries. She may not survive. I'm sorry to tell you on the phone. But I want you to make arrangements to come back to Paris as soon as possible.” In spite of his feelings for Sophie, and allegedly for Isabelle, he sounded as though he were planning a business meeting. Gordon was doing everything he could not to feel his daughter's pain. It was an indulgence he could not allow himself.

“Oh my God … oh my God …” Sophie sounded on the verge of hysterics, which was unlike her. She was normally cool and calm and sensible and relatively unemotional, like her father. But what he had just said to her exceeded her worst nightmares. All her life she had been preparing to lose her brother, but never her mother, whom she loved more than she'd ever wanted to admit to herself. This had been the farthest thing from her mind when her father called her. “Oh my God, Daddy, do you think she'll die?” He could hear that Sophie was crying, and for a moment, he didn't know what to say.

“It's possible,” he said, looking uncomfortable as he sat in his office staring into space. He was thinking back to when his own mother had died, and doing all he could to push the memories away. “It's a hopeful sign that she's still alive, but she's in very critical condition, and there's been no improvement,” he said honestly as Sophie cried harder, and could not stop sobbing while he waited, and he could think of nothing to say to reassure her. He didn't want to lie to her and hold out false hopes, and the truth was that Isabelle could die at any moment. Sophie had to face that, as would Teddy.

And then she thought of something with a ripple of fear. “Does Teddy know?” He had sounded fine on the weekend, and he had never lied to her before. Sophie couldn't imagine Teddy keeping that kind of secret from her, or sounding as cheerful as he had when she called.

“No, he doesn't know. I want to wait and tell him when you get home. I think you should get off the phone now and make the arrangements. Can someone there help you?”

“I don't know,” she said, sounding disoriented. “I want to go to London to see Mommy.” She sounded like a five-year-old, and suddenly felt like an orphan.

“I want you to come home first,” he said firmly. He wanted her with him when he told Teddy. He did not intend to shoulder that burden alone.

“All right,” she said, still crying uncontrollably.

“Call me when you know when you're arriving. I'll have someone pick you up.” It never dawned on him to do it himself, even under these circumstances. Being distant and aloof was so natural to him that he found it impossible to break through his walls, even for his daughter, but she had always known that about him. They all did, although she was the closest to him.

“I'll try to come home tonight,” she said, sounding distracted. She was two hours from Lisbon, but she might be able to catch a late flight out, if she hurried. Otherwise, she'd have to wait till the next morning.

They hung up a moment later, and Gordon had his driver take him back to the house. It was the first he had seen of Teddy in four days, and the boy seemed in good spirits, but he asked for his mother the moment he saw Gordon in the doorway of his room.

“Where's Mom? Is she downstairs?” His eyes filled with light as he said her name.

“No, she's not,” Gordon said vaguely, trying to stall him by looking austere. “I think Sophie's coming back from Portugal tonight.”

“She is?” The boy looked surprised, but the diversion had worked, for an instant. “Mommy said Sophie would be gone for two weeks. Why is she coming back early?” She hadn't mentioned it on the phone on Saturday, and instinctively he sensed something. And then, like a dog returning to a bone, he asked the same question again. “Where's Mom?” Gordon didn't dare tell him she was still in London, he'd know something was wrong. Teddy was too bright and sensitive to fool for long. All Gordon could hope was that Sophie would be home soon to help him tell the boy.

“I'll see you in a little while,” Gordon said, without answering him. “I have to make some calls.” And with that, he left Teddy's room and disappeared. But it was obvious that his son was worried. Gordon looked grim as he strode down the hall to his own room.

“Where's my mother?” Gordon heard him ask the nurse, as he closed the door. It was going to be a long night until Sophie got home. He decided to solve the problem by staying downstairs, in the library, and was stunned an hour later, when he looked up and saw Teddy walk slowly into the room. He had insisted on coming downstairs himself, and the nurse had been unable to stop him. He looked agitated and very pale.