The Last Chance (34 page)

How terrible for Lawrence, who had loved Rachel so. Margot wondered if any man would ever love her that much. Rachel was the only one of them who had truly been loved by a man.… Margot saw him in the first row, with Kerry beside him and some people she thought were his relatives or Rachel’s. He had not wanted anyone to come to see him during the past few days except the immediate family. Lawrence, who had always been so sociable, so surrounded by friends and business acquaintances, had been suddenly overwhelmed by the knowledge that Rachel was his best friend and it was all meaningless without her. Margot knew that eventually he would go back to his social life, because it was his habit, but she knew how little it would help.

She looked at Kerry as if he was a stranger. Had it been only a little less than a year ago when she thought of him as her last chance? What an odd idea. She knew that her real last chance was a good psychiatrist. Life, since Rachel’s death, had been revealed to Margot as what it was, a moment-to-moment thing, fragile, valuable. It was not an endless sentence, as she had thought. It was a gift. She had the right to throw it away if she wished, but why should she do such a stupid thing? Perhaps she had years left, perhaps only hours. She would never really be sure again. But at least she should try to do the best with what she had.

Ellen, with Margot on her left and Hank sitting stolidly on her right, was crying. She was wearing a dark veil so no one could see the bandage on her cheek and wonder, and people thought she was in deep mourning. She was crying as much for herself as for Rachel. She had almost died. If Jill had been stronger, if her aim had been better … Ellen had never realized Jill had a temper. Such a sweet girl, a little withdrawn and secretive, but never tears, never tantrums. Too sweet, perhaps. Jill’s burst of temper had been an accident. The woman who had killed Rachel had chosen her accidentally too, and had been taken away to Bellevue to await whatever the law did to insane murderers. She had lived somewhere in Queens, and the neighbors had said she seemed like such a nice, quiet woman. Who knew what kind of insanity went on in this city? Not that Jill was by any stretch of the imagination crazy, but she had problems: she was obviously terrified of boys and of sex, and she was anorexic. For some reason, ever since the accident when she had lashed out at Ellen, Jill had been eating almost normally. But she wasn’t a happy girl, Ellen realized that now, and it was more than she herself could handle. That was why she had asked Martin Wilson for the name of a good psychiatrist.

Dr. Martin Wilson … Ellen stopped crying. He had taken such good care of her in the hospital that she had told him, kidding, that he had the same initials as Marcus Welby. She knew right away that he was interested in her. She had seen the signs too many times not to know. And she was interested in him too. Of course he had a wife and children. He had married a girl who had helped put him through medical school twenty years ago and hadn’t kept up with him since; Ellen knew the signs. He had spent an inordinate amount of time at Ellen’s bedside, worrying about her. Jill even seemed to like him and hadn’t noticed that his interest in her mother was more than professional. Jill had liked the psychiatrist too, a nice young man whom Martin had brought to the hospital to meet her. Jill had agreed to go into group therapy with some other young kids the doctor treated. Ellen wasn’t sure she liked the idea of group therapy; suppose the first boy Jill got a crush on was some maladjusted kid from the group? But Martin assured her it would be good for Jill and would cost less than individual therapy. Group therapy was the new thing for kids. Who was she, Ellen-approaching-menopause-Rennie, to make judgments on new methods of psychotherapy? She had enough problems of her own just coping with being forty and trying to realize that while it wasn’t the bloom of twenty it wasn’t sixty-five either.

Poor Rachel, so young, so beautiful, so happy. Such an insane, meaningless accident. Why was life so full of accidents? There was nothing sure you could believe in. Ellen glanced at Hank sitting by her side, silent, somber, staring straight ahead. Well, she thought, it’s nice that I have good old Hank.

Nikki had been unable to cry ever since she had found Rachel’s body, and she couldn’t cry now either. Her heart felt crushed in a vise, and sometimes when she was alone she threw up until she felt she had been turned inside out, but the tears waited. She was numb. All the frantic activity, the organizing, the holding together of those weaker than she was, had been automatic. It was her nature to be both a mother and an executive. She hardly listened to the sermon. The minister hadn’t even known Rachel; he’d asked Lawrence what were the best things about her. Perhaps it was better to let a professional take care of such things as eulogies, Nikki thought. She didn’t expect Lawrence to ask her. The things that she felt were most extraordinary and beautiful about Rachel were not things she wanted to share with a mob like this. And what a mob! The world had turned out, as if Rachel’s funeral were the Academy Awards. She was sure some of them had appeared so they would be seen. They were from Rachel’s old life. And hiding in the back row, almost timidly, was Andy, Rachel’s little school friend, wearing a tie for the first time in respect for the dead. Rachel, Nikki thought, would have told him to take it off and be comfortable.

Nikki thought how much both she and Rachel had changed during the year just past. She thought of herself … the decisions she had made that had seemed so scary were not really scary at all because they were things she could control. But the mindless, pointless, wasteful violence that came from outside was the really frightening thing. The final decision in Rachel’s life had come from a stranger.

We have no control, Nikki thought. What can I control, with all my struggles and determination? I can control the things
inside
my life. Enjoy my life, my work, my family, my friends, my loves, my pleasures, my moments, and try not to think about the other.

But how can I not?

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Copyright © 1976 by Rona Jaffe

ISBN: 978-1-5040-0837-2

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