Sundays at Tiffany's - James Patterson [60]
“Vivienne,” he said. Then, to the nurse, “I’m family. Can we have a minute?”
The nurse smiled at him and stood up. “I’ll be right outside. You know she had a stroke.”
Vivienne opened her eyes and looked at him. Then her eyes closed again for a second or two, as if she were trying to figure something out. He spoke gently. “Vivienne, I’m here to help you. I’m Michael.”
Her eyes opened, their deep blue unfaded. “Michael?” she asked in the softest voice he’d ever heard from her. “Jane’s Michael?”
“Yes, Jane’s Michael.” He took her hand. “I wish you could see how wonderful you look,” he said. “You look the way you always want to look. Beautiful.”
“There’s a mirror in my purse,” she said.
Michael went and got it and showed Vivienne how she looked. He’d never seen her like this, so vulnerable, the child in her allowed to show.
“I’ve been better. And worse, I suppose. Doesn’t really matter now, does it?”
“Of course it does,” said Michael. “Looking well is the best revenge.”
She smiled then and put a hand on top of his. “Where is my daughter? Is Jane here?” she asked. “I can’t go until I see my Jane-Sweetie.”
Seventy-five
WHAT IF I HADN’T MANAGED to answer the phone finally, and heard a sobbing, nearly incoherent MaryLouise tell me to get over to New York Hospital as fast as I could? After I hung up, it was almost as if I were outside my own body. I still felt awful, but I was less nauseated. Only a bit shaky and weak. I put on fresh clothes, and then it was as if I were watching someone who looked like me hurry to the lobby of her building and tell Martin the doorman to “please get me a cab.”
But it was me who bolted from the cab in front of New York Hospital and who ran to the information desk and was told that Vivienne Margaux was in room 703.
MaryLouise was waiting by the closed door. She kissed my cheek and shook her head back and forth. Karl Friedkin was down the hall. His head was bowed, but I could see that his eyes were full of pain. “Karl was with her when it happened,” said MaryLouise.
The door to my mother’s room opened just then, and a woman in a white coat asked me if I was Jane. She introduced herself as my mother’s neurologist. “Your mother had a stroke,” she explained gently. “It happened last night at the theater. She’s been asking for you.”
I nodded and tried not to cry, tried to be brave, the way Vivienne would want me to be. But as I walked into the hospital room, I was suddenly shaking all over.
There was Mother, looking very pale, and very small, and not anything like herself.
And next to her, holding her hand, was Michael.
Seventy-six
MICHAEL LOOKED AT ME and gave the slightest nod and then an understanding half smile. “Hi,” he whispered. “Trade places with me.” He stood, and I took over the bedside chair beside Vivienne.
“Hi, Mother. It’s Jane. I’m here.”
My mother’s head turned and her eyes met mine. She was breathing heavily. I thought she was trying to talk but couldn’t, which had never happened to her before. She had no makeup on, no perfect hairstyle. She wore a regular hospital gown, and that was when I knew how bad it was. If she’d been even a fraction of her usual self, she would have fought them over wearing that gown.
Also, she seemed glad to see me.
I moved closer. “What, Mother? What is it?”
She spoke finally, and her voice was soft and gentle. “I was tough on you, Jane-Sweetie. I know that,” she said. Then my mother started to cry. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. It’s all okay,” I told her.
“But I did it so you’d be strong. I did it so you wouldn’t have to be like me. So cold and hard and conniving. So Vivienne Margaux. What a terrible thing that would have been.”
“Please don’t talk. Just hold my hand, Mom.”
She smiled. “I like it when you call me Mom.”
She’d always told me that she hated it.
She took my hand, squeezed it. “Thank God, Jane-Sweetie, you’re not the least bit like me. You’re just as smart. So you’ll be even