Sidney Sheldon - A Stranger in the Mirror

It was a black-tie affair, and the large banquet hall at the Carlton Hotel overflowed with guests. Jill was seated on the dais next to Toby. She noticed that he was not eating. “What’s the matter, darling?” she asked.

Toby shook his head. “Probably had too much sun today. I feel a little woozy.”

“Tomorrow I’m going to see that you rest.” Jill had scheduled interviews for Toby with Paris Match and the London Times in the morning, luncheon with a group of television reporters, followed by a cocktail party. She decided she would cancel the least important.

At the conclusion of dinner, the mayor of Cannes rose to his feet and introduced Toby. “ Mesdames, messieurs, et invités distingués c’est un grand privilège de vous présente un homme dont l’oeuvre a donné plaisir et bonheur au monde entier. J’ai l’honneur de lui présenter cette medaille spéciale, un signe de notre affection et de notre appréciation .” He held up a gold medal and ribbon and bowed to Toby. “Monsieur Toby Temple!” There was an enthusiastic burst of applause from the audience, as everyone in the great banquet hall rose to his feet in a standing ovation. Toby was seated in his chair, not moving.

“Get up,” Jill whispered.

Slowly, Toby rose, pale and unsteady. He stood there a moment, smiled, then started toward the microphone. Halfway there, he stumbled and fell to the floor, unconscious.

Toby Temple was flown to Paris in a French air force transport jet and rushed to the American Hospital, where he was put in the intensive-care ward. The finest specialists in France were summoned, while Jill sat in a private room at the hospital, waiting. For thirty-six hours she refused to eat or drink or take any of the phone calls that were flooding into the hospital from all over the world.

She sat alone, staring at the walls, neither seeing nor hearing the stir of activity around her. Her mind was focused on only one thing: Toby had to get well . Toby was her sun, and if the sun went out, the shadow would die. She could not allow that to happen.

It was five o’clock in the morning when Doctor Duclos, the chief of staff, entered the private room Jill had taken so she could be near Toby.

“Mrs. Temple—I am afraid there is no point in trying to soften the blow. Your husband has suffered a massive stroke. In all probability, he will never be able to walk or speak again.”

31

When they finally allowed Jill into Toby’s hospital room in Paris, she was shocked by his appearance. Overnight, Toby had become old and desiccated, as if all his vital fluids had drained out of him. He had lost partial use of both arms and legs, and though he was able to make grunting animal noises, he could not speak.

It was six weeks before the doctors would permit Toby to be moved. When Toby and Jill arrived back in California, they were mobbed at the airport by the press and television media and hundreds of well-wishers. Toby Temple’s illness had caused a major sensation. There were constant phone calls from friends inquiring about Toby’s health and progress. Television crews tried to get into the house to take pictures of him. There were messages from the President and senators, and thousands of letters and postcards from fans who loved Toby Temple and were praying for him.

But the invitations had stopped. No one was calling to find out how Jill felt, or whether she would like to attend a quiet dinner or take a drive or see a movie. Nobody in Hollywood cared a damn about Jill .

She had brought in Toby’s personal physician, Dr. Eli Kaplan, and he had summoned two top neurologists, one from UCLA Medical Center and the other from Johns Hopkins. Their diagnosis was exactly the same as that of Dr. Duclos, in Paris.

“It’s important to understand,” Dr. Kaplan told Jill, “that Toby’s mind is not impaired in any way. He can hear and understand everything you say, but his speech and motor functions are affected. He can’t respond.”

“Is—is he always going to be like this?”

Dr. Kaplan hesitated. “It’s impossible to be absolutely certain, of course, but in our opinion, his nervous system has been too badly damaged for therapy to have any appreciable effect.”

“But you don’t know for sure.”

“No…”

But Jill knew.

In addition to the three nurses who tended Toby round the clock, Jill arranged for a physiotherapist to come to the house every morning to work with Toby. The therapist carried Toby into the pool and held him in his arms, gently stretching the muscles and tendons, while Toby feebly tried to kick his legs and move his arms about in the warm water. There was no progress. On the fourth week, a speech therapist was brought in. She spent one hour every afternoon trying to help Toby learn to speak again, to form the sounds of words.

After two months, Jill could see no change. None at all. She sent for Dr. Kaplan.

“You’ve got to do something to help him,” she demanded. “You can’t leave him like this.”

He looked at her helplessly. “I’m sorry, Jill. I tried to tell you….”

Jill sat in the library, alone, long after Dr. Kaplan had gone. She could feel one of the bad headaches beginning, but there was no time to think of herself now. She went upstairs.

Toby was propped up in bed, staring at nothingness. As Jill walked up to him, Toby’s deep blue eyes lit up. They followed Jill, bright and alive, as she approached his bed and looked down at him. His lips moved and some unintelligible sound came out. Tears of frustration began to fill his eyes. Jill remembered Dr. Kaplan’s words, It’s important to understand that his mind is not impaired in any way .

Jill sat down on the edge of the bed. “Toby, I want you to listen to me. You’re going to get out of that bed. You’re going to walk and you’re going to talk.” The tears were running down the sides of his cheeks now. “You’re going to do it,” Jill said. “You’re going to do it for me.”

The following morning, Jill fired the nurses, the psysiotherapist and the speech therapist. As soon as he heard the news, Dr. Eli Kaplan hurried over to see Jill.

“I agree with you about the physiotherapist, Jill—but the nurses! Toby has to have someone with him twenty-four hours a—”

“I’ll be with him.”

He shook his head. “You have no idea what you’re letting yourself in for. One person can’t—”

“I’ll call you if I need you.”

She sent him away.

The ordeal began.

Jill was going to attempt to do what the doctors had assured her could not be done. The first time she picked Toby up and put him into his wheelchair, it frightened her to feel how weightless he was. She took him downstairs in the elevator that had been installed and began to work with him in the swimming pool, as she had seen the physiotherapist do. But what happened now was different. Where the therapist had been gentle and coaxing, Jill was stern and unrelenting. When Toby tried to speak, signifying that he was tired and could not bear any more, Jill said, “You’re not through. One more time. For me, Toby.”

And she would force him to do it one more time.

And yet again, until he sat mutely crying with exhaustion.

In the afternoon, Jill set to work to teach Toby to speak again. “Ooh…ooooooooh.”

“Ahaaahh…aaaaaaaaagh…”

“No! Oooooooooh. Round your lips, Toby. Make them obey you. Ooooooooh.”

“Aaaaaaaaaah…”

“No goddamn you! You’re going to speak! Now, say it—Oooooooooooh!”

And he would try again.

Jill would feed him each night, and then lie in his bed, holding him in her arms. She drew his useless hands slowly up and down her body, across her breasts and down the soft cleft between her legs. “Feel that, Toby,” she whispered. “That’s all yours, darling. It belongs to you. I want you. I want you to get well so we can make love again. I want you to fuck me, Toby.”