“Yes,” she whispered to him as her eyes closed again, and this time she opened them on her own. “I love you …” she whispered, and then said his name again, as though she were savoring the word.
“I think this is where we left off,” he said, smiling through his tears. It had been a lifetime and more since the night they'd kissed and been hit by the bus. “You've been gone too long, my love. I missed you so much.”
“Talk to me …” she said softly, with a smile, as Bill, the nurse, and the doctor laughed. He had been talking to her for three weeks, and for hours that night. It was as though he had known all along that he could bring her back. He had never given up, although recently he had gotten discouraged, but he had never stopped. “Like … to hear you … talk,” she said, as though she was immensely tired, which Bill realized she probably was. She had worked hard.
“I like to hear you talk. I've waited a long time to hear you talk to me. Where have you been, my love?” he said softly, still holding her hand.
“Gone,” she said, and smiled again, and then looked at him with a thousand questions in her eyes. She knew he had the answers she did not. “How long?”
“Three weeks,” he answered her honestly, and she looked surprised.
“So much?” She seemed to be struggling to find the words, but she was doing fine, and the doctor watching her thought so too.
“So much.” There was so much to tell her eventually, so much to share, but it was still too soon. She had just landed from a very distant place.
And then she thought of something and looked at him with worried eyes. “Teddy … and Sophie?”
“They're fine.” He hoped he wasn't lying to her, since he didn't have recent news, and he knew Teddy hadn't been well. But he was sure that once he knew his mother had come back, the boy's condition would improve. “Sophie was here. She came to visit you. She's a wonderful girl, and she looks exactly like you.” Isabelle smiled and closed her eyes, and when she opened them, there was another question in them. Bill knew what the question was, he could almost read her mind. “He was here.” She nodded, and then quickly winced.
“My head … hurts.”
“I'll bet it does.” That was easy to believe.
“Other … things … too.” The doctor was interested in hearing about that, and he asked her a few questions then, but he was enormously pleased, and suggested that they should both get some rest, they had had a big night. Isabelle looked worried by what the doctor said, as the orderlies came to take Bill away. “No … don't go….” She held his hand more tightly than she had been till then. And Bill looked at the doctor questioningly.
“Could I stay here?” There was a long pause while the doctor considered it. There was no real reason why they couldn't do that. They were adults, and friends, and the nurses could keep an eye on both of them. It seemed a suitable reward for what Bill had done for her that night, and there was something about it that felt right to him.
“I think that's a fine idea.” Bill wasn't on the monitors anymore, all he needed was his IV pole next to his bed, and pain medications if he asked for them, which he seldom did.
“I want you to sleep here,” Isabelle said, clinging to his hand, as Bill beamed at her. She was back, she was alive, she had come back to him. It was the happiest night of his life. They were both smiling as the nurses settled them. The doctor examined Isabelle carefully, and he was satisfied. He asked her a few more questions, and she talked to him about how her head felt. She said her body felt too small now, everything inside felt too tight, and he explained that she was feeling her internal injuries and would for a while. There was plenty of time to examine her further the next day. What they both needed now was rest.
The nurse turned off all but one small light, and another nurse came to help turn Bill onto his side. He was pleased because he could see her better that way. He didn't want to sleep, he just wanted to look at her all night, and see her face, touch her hand. She was still holding his hand, as they lay facing each other, and she looked like a child as she smiled at him. It struck him that she was the image of Sophie.
“You're so beautiful,” he whispered to her, “and I love you so much.” She'd been worth waiting for, for the past three weeks, and a lifetime before that.
“I missed you while I was gone,” she whispered to him.
“How do you know?” he whispered back, while the nurse smiled from the corner of the room.
“I just do.” They were like two children at a slumber party, whispering in the dark, as the doctor and the other nurse left the room. They were both smiling and exchanged a long look outside. They were a beautiful sight to see. None of them had expected Isabelle to survive.
The doctor called Paris that night to tell Gordon that his wife was no longer comatose, he felt he owed him that. But Gordon was out, and the doctor told the woman who answered the phone, Teddy's nurse, to tell Mr. Forrester that he'd called. He didn't want to leave any further message, and Bill and Isabelle would have been grateful to him if they'd known.
It felt as though they had always slept together, as they lay there facing each other. Isabelle tried to turn on her back once, but it hurt too much to move her head, so she turned back again toward Bill, and he was wide awake, watching her.
“What happened to you?” she asked, she had just noticed the enormous brace around his neck, she hadn't seen it before. There had been too much going on, but now she looked worried about him.
“I hurt my neck, and my back. I'll be fine,” he said, smiling at her. He would now. This was all he had wanted for three weeks.
“Are you sure?”
“I'm sure. I've never felt better in my life than I do right now.”
“Me too.” And then she looked at him pensively. “I don't remember anything … how did we get here?”
“That, my love, is a very long story we can talk about tomorrow. We got hit by a bus.” He wasn't going to tell her for a while that eleven people had died, and she had very nearly made it twelve. “The last thing I knew I was kissing you, and then I was here.”
“I remember that too,” she smiled sleepily, as she yawned. He would have liked to kiss her again, but he couldn't move. He could only lie as he was, and all he could do was touch her face or her hand. “One of these days, I'd like to kiss you again,” she said dreamily, and Bill didn't respond. There was a long pause as he contemplated the possibility that, in his own eyes, he might no longer be a man. And he quietly held her hand. It was all he could offer her now. “I hope the children are all right,” she said, thinking about them, and unaware of Bill's terrors about his ability to perform.
“They will be when they hear about you,” he reassured her.
But for an instant, she looked sad, and tightened her hold on Bill's hand. “And then he'll come back again, won't he?” He didn't want to tell her that her husband hadn't been back to see her in two weeks. He didn't think it was his place, and he had come to hate the man, for everything he didn't do for her, and the ugly things he did.
“Let's not think about that now,” Bill whispered to her. “Why don't you close your eyes and try to sleep.” He wished he could stroke her hair.
“I thought you wanted me to wake up,” she teased. She was definitely going to be all right, after three weeks in a coma, and an accident she almost hadn't survived, she hadn't changed. Her spirit was still strong. In the end, that and his love were what had brought her back.
“Go back to sleep, you talk too much, you're going to wear yourself out.” He couldn't stop smiling as he looked at her. She seemed even more beautiful to him than she had before.
“I want to talk to you all night,” she grinned, and then remembered something else. “I want to go dancing with you again.” He smiled at her, he felt as though he were.
“We will one day.”
“And I want to go back to Harry's Bar.” She was making a wish list for him, and he smiled.
“Now?” he teased, happier than he'd ever be
en. He loved lying next to her and talking to her.
“All right. Tomorrow. And then Annabel's. We have to make up for lost time. I haven't been dancing in weeks,” she said with a contented sigh.
“You'd better behave yourself, or the doctors are going to put you to sleep again.”
“I just want to lie here with you.” And then she laughed softly in the darkened room. “Now we can say we've slept with each other, can't we?”
“You're very badly behaved for a woman who's been very sick for three weeks. I don't think you should be thinking about things like that,” he scolded her, and wished he could put his arms around her, but in his heart, he was. In his heart, she would always be his. She had become his that night, and whatever came now, he knew that would never change. She had walked through the darkness to come back to him, and whatever happened, wherever they went, he knew he would never lose her again.
“I walked into a very bright light with you … we were going somewhere, on a narrow path … and the children started calling us, and you made me turn back.” He felt as though he'd been struck by lightning when she said those words. He had had the same memory, precisely as she had just described, when he woke from unconsciousness himself.
“What was it like?”
“Very bright… and I was very tired … I sat down on a rock. I didn't want to come back, but you kept pulling me. You said we could go there another time…. I didn't want to, but I let you pull me back.” And he had again, that night. The first time he had brought her back from death, and the second time from the deep darkness where she slept endlessly. But what she was describing about the rock and the bright light was exactly what he had seen himself.
“Isabelle, I was there too.” He looked thunderstruck, and she didn't know why. “I had the same dream you did. Exactly the way you described.”
“I know, you were there,” it seemed normal to her, “I saw you, and I held your hand, and I came back with you.”
“Why?” He was searching his own memory, and he wanted to understand what had happened to them. He didn't think this was any ordinary thing. People talked of these experiences, but most people didn't share the same bright light in the same dream, the same rock, the same path, the same memory. He realized then that somewhere, in some deep, meaningful way, their souls had met and joined. In another life, they had met and become one.
“I came back because you told me to,” she said quietly. “But then I got lost again after that. I think I fell asleep next to the path.”
“You certainly did, and if you ever do that again, Isabelle, I'm going to be seriously angry at you. Don't you ever get lost on me again.”
“I won't,” she said, and kissed his fingers and hand. “Thank you for waiting for me, and for bringing me back.” She was getting sleepy then, and yawned several times, and before he could say anything more to her, she had fallen into a peaceful sleep holding his hand. And as he looked at her, he had a perfect memory of what she had described, their walking toward the bright light, with Isabelle just ahead of him on the path. It had taken all the strength he had to bring her back from that light, and tonight she had come back to him again. He wasn't sure what any of it meant, but he knew that something extraordinary had happened to them, and as he lay watching her sleep, he knew that in spite of everything that had occurred, he was a very lucky man.
Chapter 10
The doctor called Gordon Forrester at eight o'clock the next day to tell him the news, but the same voice told him he was out again. And he finally reached Gordon in his office at ten. He sounded startled to hear the news, and said he was very pleased. He asked if he could talk to her, but as yet she had no phone. The doctor said he would have one put in for her, and Gordon could call her in her room that afternoon.
“I'm sure the children will want to talk to her,” he said, looking distracted as he sat at his desk, thinking about her. He had already made his peace that she would never come out of the coma, and he was amazed to hear that she had. Although he was certainly relieved for her, it took a little readjustment on his part.
“How did it happen?” Gordon asked innocently, and there was a moment's pause at the doctor's end. He didn't want to tell him about Bill Robinson, he didn't think they'd want him to, and he was right.
“She did it on her own,” he said. It was all Gordon needed to know.
“Well done,” Gordon said as though talking about a golf tournament or a tennis match. In sharp contrast to Bill's tears of joy the night before, Gordon sounded dispassionate, as though he were talking about a distant friend. It was hard to believe she was his wife. But perhaps that explained her relationship with Bill. There were questions the doctor didn't want to ask, and after seeing them together the night before, he didn't need to now. He could see it all. He wondered how long it would be before Gordon came back to London to see her again. For Bill and Isabelle's sake, he hoped it wouldn't be too soon. He had fallen in love with them, it was impossible to resist a love like that, that had gone to the edge of death and beyond and back again. It was something the doctor knew few people ever shared, and it was infinitely precious when they did. “Tell her I'll call her this afternoon when I get home” was all Gordon said, and the doctor assured him he would.
The nurse passed the message on to Isabelle when they plugged in her phone. She was looking forward to talking to the children, but not to him.
“What are we going to do now?” she said to Bill that afternoon, as he sat in his bed in her room, and he kept her company while she ate her first lunch. They had brought her Jell-O and a bowl of very thin soup. It had been a long time since she'd seen food, and it had no appeal at all.
“What do you mean?” Bill asked. “You mean croquet or golf, or a stroll in the park?” He was teasing again, but this time she didn't smile.
“Gordon is going to want to take me back to Paris when I get well.” She wanted to see her children, of course, but she didn't want to leave Bill.
“I don't think that'll be for a while,” Bill said, trying to stay calm himself. “I don't think you can just hop out of bed and run out the door.” She still had a lot of healing to do internally, and they wanted to be careful about her head. The doctor had told her that morning that he expected her to be there for roughly another four weeks. It was about as long as they planned to keep Bill.
“And after that?” she asked him as the nurse fed her the soup. Her hands weren't strong enough to do it yet. She was amazingly weak, which surprised no one but Isabelle.
“We'll figure it out.” He hadn't told her yet that his legs were permanently compromised, and he wasn't sure he would ever walk again. He wanted to think about it. He wasn't sure she needed to know. Unless things had changed radically while she was comatose, he knew that she would go back to Gordon, to take care of her sick child. He could of course still call her, and see her from time to time, but he didn't want her pity, if he was in a wheelchair. All he wanted was her love. He was thinking now that if he could truly never walk again, perhaps he wouldn't see her after they left the hospital, and they would continue their relationship on the phone. He wasn't sure yet what he would do, or how often he could see her after she left. For the moment, she thought his situation was temporary, and he was inclined to keep it that way. She wouldn't worry about him, she couldn't pity him, and he also hadn't told her about his divorce. He didn't want her to think he was putting pressure on her. He fully understood that she had to go home to her family eventually. All he wanted was to enjoy the time they had.
She was in her room that afternoon, and so was Bill, when Gordon called. He told her that he was very relieved to know that she was getting well. He made it sound as though she were recovering from a sprained ankle, or a bad fall. In fact, he felt as though she had returned from the dead. By the time she woke up, he hadn't expected her to live, or to come out of the coma. He had begun to think of himself as a widower, and he had to mentally turn the clock back again, to resume his marriage to her. He sounded very st
range, and she correctly guessed that he was angry about Bill, and punishing her for it. He sounded awkward to her, but there was no awkwardness when she talked to Teddy and Sophie. Sophie cried when she heard her mother's voice, and all Teddy could do was gasp for air and sob. Isabelle thought he sounded terrible, and she asked Gordon about it when her children got off the phone. She was still crying from the overwhelming emotion of hearing them. She had been so worried about both of them.
“Teddy will be much better now,” Gordon said casually. Sophie had said she wanted to come to see her, but Gordon said her mother would be home soon enough. “How soon will they let you leave?” he asked matter-of-factly. There was no point in his going to see her, he said, if she was coming home.
“They said in about four weeks, depending on my liver, my head, and my heart.” They were hardly small things to contemplate, but Gordon didn't seem impressed. Now that she was out of the coma, he was dismissive of the rest.
“Four weeks sounds a bit long, doesn't it? I'm sure they'll let you go sooner if you ask.” He sounded faintly suspicious of her, and wondered if she was dragging her feet, because Bill was still there. Gordon was not going to tolerate that. “I'll talk to the doctor myself. You can get all the medical attention you need here.” She felt panicked when she got off the phone, and she told her doctor that Gordon was going to call to press him into sending her home.
“Is that what you want, Isabelle? We could probably transfer you to a hospital in Paris in a week or so. You're not ready to be at home yet.”
“I want to stay here,” she said, looking worried. They both knew why.
“I'll take care of it,” he said reassuringly. He was willing to do that for her and Bill, he liked them both. They'd been to hell and back, and her children could wait. But later, she admitted to Bill how worried she was about Teddy. He hadn't sounded well on the phone, and it was the one thing that made her feel she should try to go home sooner than planned. It drove her crazy knowing how badly he needed her and how long she'd been gone, although she knew he was in good hands. Bill was sympathetic, as always, when they spoke of it later on.
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