Danielle Steel - The Kiss

They had brought him a Thermos of coffee, some cold drinks, and a sandwich. And he felt a lot better by the time they pulled out. It was a beautiful fall day, and the air was still warm.

It took them half an hour to get to the rehab hospital, it was a large sprawling place with manicured grounds on the outskirts of New York. It looked more like a country club than a hospital, but Bill was too tired to look around when they arrived. All he wanted was to get to bed. He signed in and noticed men and women in wheelchairs and on crutches all around. There were two teams playing basketball from wheelchairs, and people on gurneys watching as they cheered the teams on. The atmosphere seemed friendly and active, and people seemed to be full of energy for the most part. But it depressed Bill anyway. This was going to be his home for the next year, or at best nine months. He felt like a kid who had been sent away to school, and he was homesick for Isabelle and St. Thomas', and all the friendly familiar faces he had come to know there. He didn't even let himself think about his home in Connecticut. That was part of the distant past now. And when he was wheeled into his room, there were tears in his eyes. He had never in his entire life ever felt as vulnerable or as lonely.

“Is everything all right, Mr. Robinson?” All he could do was nod.

It looked like a standard room in a clean, respectable hotel. Despite the price, which was exorbitant, it wasn't luxurious, there were no frills, and few comforts. There was decent modern furniture, clean carpeting, a single hospital bed, like the one he'd slept in next to Isabelle, and a single poster of the South of France on the wall. It was a reproduction of a water-color that looked familiar to him, and he thought he recognized Saint-Tropez. He had his own bathroom, and the light in the room was good. There was a fax in the room, a hook-up for a computer, and his own phone. They told him he couldn't have a microwave in the room, not that he cared. They didn't say it, but they didn't want clients isolating and eating by themselves. They wanted him to eat in the cafeteria with everyone else, join the sports teams, use the social rooms, and make friends. It was all part of the process of rehabilitation that they had established for him. And socializing in his new circumstances was part of it. No matter who he was, or had been, or perhaps would be again, they wanted him to be an active part of their community while he was there.

Seeing the hook-ups in his room reminded him that he needed to call his secretary. His political pursuits had dwindled to almost nothing in the past two and a half months. He couldn't do what he needed to from his bed, and she'd had to cancel everything for him. There was no way he could introduce people to each other, plan campaigns, or shepherd his protégés through the process of running a successful campaign. For that, he needed to be hands on and very much on deck. And he realized again, as he looked around his room, that if he were even able to go back to it, that part of his life would have to lie dormant for another year.

There was a small refrigerator in his room filled with the same things as a minibar in a good hotel, sodas and snacks and chocolate bars, and he was pleased and surprised to find two half-bottles of wine. And as he popped open a Coke, after the nurses left, he took a sip and looked at his watch. He wanted to call Isabelle, but he was also afraid that Gordon might be home. But he was too lonely this time not to call. He was planning to hang up if Gordon answered the phone.

The phone answered on the second ring, and he heard her voice. It was eleven o'clock at night for her, but she sounded wide awake. Her familiar soft voice went instantly like a knife to his heart, as he longed for her.

“Is this a good time?” he asked immediately, and she laughed.

“For what, my love? Actually, it's a very good time, I just wish you were here. Gordon is in Munich for the night. How was the trip?”

“Painful,” he said honestly, without whining about it. “I'm in jail.” He looked around the room again, and although he knew it wasn't bad, as those things went it was top of the line, but it depressed him profoundly anyway. “I hate it here,” he said, sounding like a homesick kid calling from boarding school.

“Now come on, be a good sport. It'll do wonderful things for you,” she encouraged him, just as she would have Sophie when she went away to school. “You'll get used to it, and before you know it, you'll be all through. Maybe you'll only have to stay a few months.” She was trying to encourage him, but he sounded very down, and her heart went out to him. She wished there were something she could do for him, but at this distance, it was very hard. They both had to fight their battles on their own. And in many ways, his was much tougher than hers.

“What if I'm here for two years?” he asked, sounding like a kid again.

“That won't happen. I'll bet you're finished in no time. What kinds of people are at the center?” They had both been afraid it would be full of elderly people recovering from strokes, and he'd have little in common with them. But from the little he'd seen, most of the patients he'd observed on the way in looked young, even younger than he. Many of them were there as a result of skiing accidents, or disastrous dives into pools, car accidents, gymnastic tragedies. The people who were motivated to be there were, for the most part, young, with long, potentially productive lives ahead of them.

“They look okay, I guess.” He sighed, and looked out the window at the Olympic-size outdoor pool, and he could see a number of people swimming and wheelchairs parked all around. “I just don't want to be here. I want to go back to Washington and work, or be in Paris with you. I feel as though life is passing me by.” But neither of the places he wanted to be were possibilities for him. And what he feared most was that they never would be again. He would have to be able to sit for extended periods, to hold up for long hours, travel freely on his own, take care of himself, and have endurance, mobility, and clarity of mind, if he was to return to his career. And he was also afraid that there would be some psychological resistance to him now.

People's perceptions could be very strange, and maybe they would feel that if he was in a wheelchair and impaired in any way, he might not be able to run a successful campaign. It was hard to predict what strange turns people's prejudices would take. It was of quintessential importance to him, for an abundance of reasons, to get back on his feet and walk again.

In Isabelle's mind, as far as she was concerned, she didn't care if he never did, but she wanted that very much for him. But her love for him was going to be in no way affected by whether or not he walked again. She had told him as much, but it was an obsession with him. He refused to be dependent on anyone. Not Cynthia, not his children, not his co-workers or friends, and certainly not Isabelle. If he couldn't protect her, take care of her, stand up like a man next to her, and make love to her, then he had no intention of being in her life. There was a lot riding on his recovery, in his own mind, and although he hadn't spelled it out fully to her, Isabelle sensed that the stakes were high. All she could do now was be there on the phone and pray for him.

“How is Teddy?” he asked solicitously. “And how are you?”

“I'm fine. Sophie went back to school yesterday. Teddy is still very tired, and I'm worried about his heart. Sometimes I think he's getting worse, and then he has a good day and feels better. It's hard to say. But his spirits are good.” They had been ever since she'd gotten back, but her instincts told her that the doctor was right and Teddy was weaker than he'd been in a long time. He had lost considerable ground.