Once in a Lifetime (6 page)

Barbara read their minds. "I'll stay." She tried to smile faintly, but the effort seemed enormous. "I'd like coffee." And then, almost with pain, "Thank you." A student nurse led her to a coffee machine placed conveniently near a blue vinyl couch that had seen several lifetimes of sorrow. The couch itself seemed depressing to her as she thought of people waiting here for loved ones to live or die, more often the latter. The nurse in blue stripes poured a cup of steaming black coffee and handed it to Barbara as the taller woman stood for a moment looking into the young girl's eyes. "Do you read her books?" Blushing, the young nurse nodded. And then she went away. And at three o'clock Liz Watkins came back, to do a double shift. Barbara was still there, looking frantic and exhausted. Liz checked the chart, and saw that there was no improvement.

Liz came to chat with Barbara after a while, and poured her a fresh cup of coffee. She wondered about Barbara then, guessed her to be about Daphne's age, and for an insane moment she wanted to ask Barbara what Daphne was really like, but she knew that to do so was to invite the secretary's hostility to rise again like an angry cloud around her.

"Is there any family who should be called?" It was all that she dared to ask.

Barbara hesitated for only a fraction of an instant and then shook her head. "No. No one." She wanted to say that Daphne was alone in the world, but that wasn't exactly true, and either way it was none of this woman's business.

"I understand that she's a widow."

Barbara looked surprised that she knew, but she nodded and took a sip of the hot coffee. It had come out on The Conroy Show once, but she had never discussed it again. She didn't want anyone to know it. Now she was known only as "Miss" Fields, and the implication was that she never had been married. At first it had felt to Daphne like a treason to Jeff, but in the long run she knew it was better. She couldn't bear to speak of him and Aimee. She only spoke of them to ... But Barbara forced the thought from her mind, panicking at what might happen to him now.

"There've been no calls from the press?" She looked up from her coffee, suddenly worried.

"None." Liz smiled reassuringly. "And I'll handle those. Don't worry. We won't let them near her."

For the first time Barbara smiled a small, genuine smile, and it was strange, for a fraction of an instant she looked almost pretty. "She hates publicity with a passion."

"That must be pretty rough. They must chase after her a lot."

"They do." Barbara smiled again. "But she's a genius at avoiding them when she wants to. On tour it can't be helped, but even then she's very adept at dodging inappropriate questions."

"Is she very shy?" Liz was so hungry for some piece of the real Daphne. She was the only celebrity she had actually longed to meet, and now here she was, so near, and yet Daphne was still a total enigma.

Barbara Jarvis was once again cautious, but not hostile. "In some ways, she is. In other ways, not at all. I think 'retiring' suits her better. She is very, very private. She's not afraid of people. She just keeps her distance. Except"--Barbara Jarvis looked distant and thoughtful for a moment--"except with the people she cares about and is close to. She's like an excited happy child with them." The image seemed to please both women, and Liz smiled as she stood up.

"I've always admired her through her books. I'm sorry to come to know her this way." Barbara nodded, her own smile faded, her eyes sad. She couldn't believe that the woman she had worshiped might be dying. And her sorrow showed in her eyes as she looked up at Liz Watkins. "I'll let you know as soon as you can go back in to see her."

"I'll wait here."

Liz nodded and hurried off. She had lost almost half an hour and she had ten thousand things to do. The day shift was the busiest of all, it was like working two shifts instead of one, and she still had to do her own shift that night. It was going to be a long, brutal day, for her, and Barbara Jarvis.

When the two women walked into Daphne's room again, Barbara saw her eyes open for a minute, and then flutter closed, as Barbara looked rapidly toward the head nurse who had brought her in. Barbara's face was filled with panic. But Liz was quiet and calm as she checked Daphne's pulse, and smiled as she nodded to Barbara.

"She's coming out of the sedation a little." And almost as she said it Daphne's eyes opened again and tried to focus on Barbara.

"Daphne?" She spoke softly to her employer and friend as Liz watched, and Daphne's eyes opened again with a blank look. "It's me ... Barbara ..." The eyes stayed opened this time and there was the faintest hint of a smile and then she seemed to drift back to sleep for a minute or two, and then she looked at Barbara again and seemed about to say something as Barbara bent near to hear her better.

"It must have ... been ... some ... party ... I have ... a hell of a headache...." Her voice drifted off as she smiled at her own joke. Tears filled Barbara's eyes, even as she laughed. She was suddenly filled with relief that Daphne was even talking, and she turned toward Liz with a victorious look as though her firstborn had spoken her first words, and Liz's own eyes felt damp, with fatigue and emotion. She reproached herself silently for growing soft, but there was a tenderness to the scene that touched her. These two women were a strange pair, the one so small and fair and the other so tall and dark, the one so strong through her words although so tiny, the other so powerfully built, and yet so obviously in awe of Daphne. Liz watched as Daphne made the effort to speak again. "What's new?" It was the merest whisper and Liz could barely hear her.

"Not much. Last I heard you ran over a car. They tell me it was totaled." It was the kind of banter they exchanged every morning, but Daphne's eyes looked sad as she looked at Barbara.

"Me ... too ..."

"That's a lot of crap and you know it."

" ... tell ... me ... the truth ... how am I?"

"Tough as nails."

Daphne's eyes looked to the nurse she could see now as well, as though she wanted reassurance. "You're much better, Miss Fields. And you'll feel a great deal better tomorrow." Daphne nodded, like a small, obedient child, as though she believed it, and then suddenly her eyes seemed filled with worry. She sought Barbara again with her eyes and there was something very adamant in her face as she spoke again.

"Don't ... tell ... Andrew. ..." Barbara nodded. "I mean it. Or ... Matthew ..." Barbara's heart sank at the words. She had been afraid she would say that. But what if something happened? If she didn't "feel better tomorrow," as the nurse promised. "Swear ... to ... me ... !"

"I swear, I swear. But for chrissake, Daff ..."

"... no ..." She was obviously growing weaker, the eyes closed and then opened again, with curiosity this time. "Who ... hit ... me?" As though knowing would make a difference.

"Some jackass from Long Island. The police said he wasn't drunk. The guy claimed you didn't look where you were going."

She tried to nod but instantly winced, and it took her a moment to catch her breath as Liz watched and checked the time on her wrist. It was almost time to end the visit. But Daphne seemed determined to speak again. "... telling ... the truth ..." They waited but nothing more came, and then Barbara bent to ask, "Who is, love?"

The voice was soft and the eyes smiled again. "The ... jackass ... I ... didn't look ... I was thinking. ..." And then her eyes went to Barbara's. Only she knew how unbearable Christmas was for her, how painful it had been every year since Jeff and Aimee died in the fire on Christmas night. And this year she was alone, which was worse.

"I know." And now the memory of them had almost killed her, or was it that she didn't care anymore? A horrifying thought struck Barbara. Had she stepped in front of the car on purpose? But she wouldn't. Not Daphne ... not ... or had she? "It's all right, Daff."

"... don't let them ... make ... trouble ... for him.... Not his fault.... Tell ... them ... I said so. ..." She looked at Liz then as though to confirm it. She had been a witness. "I... don't... remember ... anything. ..."

"That's just as well."

And then she looked sad and tears filled her big blue eyes. "... except ... the sirens ... it sounded like ..." She closed her eyes and the tears slid slowly out of the corners of her eyes and onto her pillow as Barbara reached down and took her hand, tears in her own eyes.

"Don't. Daphne, don't. You have to get well now." And then, as though to pull Daphne back, "Think of Andrew."

Her eyes opened then, and she looked long and hard at Barbara as Liz pointed to her watch and nodded at Daphne.

"We're going to let you rest now, Miss Fields. Your friend can come back in to see you in a little while. Would you like anything more for the pain?" But she shook her head and seemed grateful to close her eyes again. She was asleep before they left the room, and after walking halfway down the hall side by side, Liz turned and looked at Barbara. "Is there anything we should know, Miss Jarvis?" Her eyes dug deep into Barbara's. "Sometimes information that may seem too personal makes a big difference in helping a patient." She wanted to add "helping a patient choose between living or dying," but she didn't. "She had some awful nightmares last night." There were a thousand questions in her voice and Barbara Jarvis nodded, but the walls went up instantly to protect Daphne.

"You already know that she's a widow." It was all that she would say and Liz nodded.

"I see." She left Barbara then and went back to her desk, and Barbara went back to the blue vinyl couch after pouring herself another cup of black coffee. She sat down with a sigh and she felt totally exhausted. And why the hell had she made her promise not to tell Andrew? He had a right to know that his mother was perhaps dying. And If she did, then what? Daphne had more than amply provided for him from the books in the past years, but he needed so much more than that. He needed Daphne and no one else ... and If she died ... Barbara shuddered, and looked out at the snow beginning to fall again outside. And she felt as bleak as the winter landscape.

Daphne had told her nothing about him for the first year that she worked for her. Nothing at all. She was a successful author, apparently single, working harder than anyone Barbara had ever known, with almost no personal life, but even that hadn't seemed surprising. How could she have had time for that, putting out two major books a year? She couldn't and she didn't. But it was on Christmas Eve when Barbara had worked late that she suddenly found her in her office, sobbing. It was then that she had told her about Jeff ... and Aimee ... and Andrew.... Andrew, the child she had conceived the night of the fatal fire ... the baby who had come nine months later, when she was so alone, with no family, no husband, no friends she would see because they all reminded her of Jeff, and his birth had been so different from Aimee's. Aimee who had been born with Jeff holding her hand, with a great gust of a cry, and her parents looking on with tears of joy intermingled with victorious laughter. Andrew had taken thirty-eight hours to come, a breech birth, with the umbilical cord threatening his every breath, until both he and his mother were finally, mercifully, released by an emergency Caesarean. The doctor had reported that he made a strange, muted little sound when he first emerged, and he had been almost blue as they worked fiercely to save both him and Daphne. And when the anesthetic had worn off, she had been too sick to see him, or hold him. But Barbara still remembered the look in Daphne's eyes when she spoke of the first moment she had held him. He had lain in her arms, put there by a nurse, and suddenly nothing hurt, nothing mattered in the world, except that baby, who lay staring up at her with a determined little stare, looking exactly like Jeffrey. She had named him Andrew Jeffrey Fields. She had wanted to name him after his father, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. It would have brought too many painful memories back each time she called him "Jeff," so instead she named him Andrew. It was a name they had chosen for a boy when she had been pregnant with Aimee. And she had told Barbara too of her shock and joy when she had discovered six weeks after the fire that she was pregnant. It was the only thing that had kept her going during those lonely nightmarish months, the only thing that had kept her from wanting to die too. And she hadn't, she had lived, as had Andrew, despite his traumatic arrival. He had been a beautiful, rosy-cheeked, happy baby. And he had Daphne's cornflower-blue eyes, but he continued to look exactly like his father.

She had rented a tiny apartment for the two of them, and she had filled the nursery with pictures of Jeffrey, so that one day he would know what his father had looked like, and in a small silver frame was a photograph of his sister. It wasn't until he was three months old that Daphne suspected that there was something different about Andrew. He was the most good-natured child she had ever seen. He was fat and healthy, but one day she dropped a whole stack of dishes as he lay peacefully in a basket on the kitchen table, and he hadn't even started. She had clapped her hands at his ear after that, and he had just smiled at her. She had felt a whisper of terror run through her. She couldn't face calling the doctor, but on their next visit she had casually asked some questions, and he had instantly known what she suspected. Her worst fears had proven true. Andrew was deaf from birth. He made odd little sounds from time to time, but they couldn't know until later if he was mute as well. It was impossible to know if it had been as a result of the shocks she had sustained right after his conception, or from the medication she'd been given in the hospital for her own burns and injuries from the fire. She had been in the hospital for over a month, heavily medicated, no one had even suspected that she was pregnant. But whatever the reason for his hearing loss, it was permanent and it was total.

Daphne came to love him with a fierce, protective zeal and determination. By day she spent every waking moment with him, setting her alarm for five thirty every morning, so she could be sure to be awake before he was, ready for what the day would bring him and to assist him with each difficult moment. And they were many. At first she was obsessed with the potential hazards that constantly lay in wait for him. In time she grew accustomed to anticipating the constant dangers of warnings he couldn't hear, car horns he was never aware of, growling dogs and pans of sizzling bacon. But the stress she was under was constant. And yet there were endless precious moments, times when tears of tenderness and relief flowed down her cheeks as she shared her life with her baby. He was the happiest, sunniest child imaginable, but again and again she had to face the fact that his life would never be normal. Eventually, everything in her life stopped except her activities with Andrew. There were no friends she saw, no movies she went to. She devoted every single moment of the day to Andrew, afraid to leave him with anyone else, terrified that they wouldn't understand as well as she the dangers and frustrations that confronted him. She took every burden of his life onto her own shoulders, and each night she fell into bed exhausted, drained by what the effort had cost her. There were times too when her own frustrations in dealing with a deaf child almost overwhelmed her, when the urge to shout at him for what he could not do or hear made her clench her teeth and her fists so that she wouldn't slap him. It was not Andrew she wanted to hit, but the cruelty of fate that had deafened her beloved child. She labored under a silent but leaden mantle of guilt, secretly feeling that it was her fault, that she should have been able to prevent it. She hadn't been able to keep Jeff and Aimee from dying in the fire, and now she couldn't keep this final brutal reality from Andrew. She was helpless to change it for him. She read every book she could find about children who were deaf from birth, and she took him to every specialist in New York, but there was nothing they could do for Andrew, or Daphne. She faced the reality of it almost with fury, like an enemy to be fought. She had lost so much, and now Andrew had too. The unfairness of it burned within her like a silent rage, and at night she would have nightmares about the fire and awake screaming.