Regret Not a Moment (59 page)

“It varies from person to person,” said the woman. The nurse, highly recommended by Dr. Donatello, seemed both competent and maternal, which was reassuring to Devon’s family. “Why don’t you all take a few minutes and get something to eat. I’ll have them page you in the cafeteria if there’s any change.”

They hesitated, reluctant to leave Devon.

“Look, if it will make you feel more at ease, why doesn’t Mrs. Richmond stay here in case Mrs. Somerset-Smith wakes up,” the woman suggested, pragmatically realizing that the others would be able to rush back much more quickly than Laurel if indeed Devon did awaken.

Laurel nodded approvingly at the suggestion while John, Grace, and Francesca filed out of the room.

As they emerged into the hallway, John put his arm around Francesca and gave her a hug. “She’ll be fine, darling. The doctor said so.”

“But she has cancer!” cried Francesca.

“No, she
had
cancer. The doctor said he got everything. And he got it early. The lump was less than a centimeter and there were no lymph nodes involved. He thinks she’ll be fine.” The group moved down the hallway toward the elevator.

“How do you think she’ll feel when she wakes up and finds out that her… that they removed her…” Francesca couldn’t go on, so distraught was she at the notion of her mother’s operation.

“She’ll be terribly upset,” Grace predicted, “but she’s smart enough to realize that it had to be done.”

Francesca turned to John. “How did you feel when you woke up in the hospital and discovered they’d cut off your leg?”

“Francesca!” Grace chided, embarrassed by the bluntness of the question.

John chuckled. “It’s all right.” He pressed the button to summon the elevator. He decided to answer Francesca as bluntly as she had questioned him. “I was shattered, frankly. But I got over it. At first, I didn’t see how I could go on. It didn’t seem that life as an amputee was worth living. The reaction of my wife at the time didn’t help either. But after she left, your mother came to visit me, and she helped a lot.” The elevator came and the group stepped on. “And, as it turned out, I’ve gotten so used to my artificial leg that I hardly notice the difference. I’d rather be alive and missing a leg than dead with all my body parts intact. Your mother will feel the same way, once she gets over the initial shock.”

Francesca waited until they had emerged from the elevator before she spoke. Then she uttered the question that had been so desperately troubling her. “But how can she ever feel like a woman again?”

Grace looked helplessly at John, not knowing how to answer. She had asked herself the same question. Yes, she was grateful that Devon was alive, but she wondered how she herself would have felt had her breast been amputated—wondered if she would have been able simply to carry on as before. How would Philip react? She could not imagine ever having the desire for sex again, not if it meant exposing one’s scarred body to the scrutiny of another.

But John’s reaction was completely different. “As if that matters! Your mother’s womanhood has nothing to do with a particular part of her body, and I only hope she realizes that.”

“But how can she be as… as… attractive?” Francesca asked, tears in her eyes.

John turned and faced Francesca, his face darkening with anger. “How dare you suggest that your mother’s worth is tied to something so superficial! I don’t ever want to hear you suggest such a thing again! And especially not to her!”

Grace put a restraining hand on his arm. “John,” she said soothingly, “she’s trying to understand.”

John sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said, pulling Francesca to him and giving her a hug. Releasing her, he continued to walk slowly toward the cafeteria, a hand on each woman’s elbow. “Your mother has a beautiful face and figure, yes. But that’s not what holds a persons love,” he explained, his voice full of emotion.

Grace looked at John wisely. John caught her gaze and held it, a silent confession as clear as the written word.

They moved through the line in silence, passing by displays of food that did little to pique their appetites. All their selections fit on one yellow plastic tray. Francesca chose banana cream pie, Grace a tired-looking chefs salad, and John a ham and cheese sandwich. All three had small cups of coffee. They were not able to endure larger servings of the stale hospital brew, but needed the energy boost the drink would provide.

They chose a spot beside a window in the near-empty dining room. Sunshine lay in stripes of light on the industrial brown carpeting, reminding the group of the warm spring weather outside.

“You know,” John said thoughtfully, “I always believed that the expression ‘love is blind’ meant that lovers did not see each other’s faults. Of course, that’s how it’s always used and I’m certain that it is the intended meaning. But now that I’m older, I’ve added my own second interpretation of that saying.”

“Which is?” Grace put down her fork and gave John her full attention.

“That love blinds you to a person’s faults, yes, in the beginning. But as love becomes more familiar, it seems that couples forget the unique qualities that attracted them in the first place. So that couples who love each other, have been married for some years, begin to take for granted the very qualities they found so wondrous in the beginning. They fail to see those qualities as unique or exciting anymore.”

“You mean ‘familiarity breeds contempt,’ to use another proverb,” said Grace.

“I hate to be so cynical as to call it contempt; although, unfortunately, that seems to be how the sentiment often manifests itself.”

“What are you two talking about?” interjected Francesca.

The two adults looked at her in surprise—they had almost forgotten her presence—then back at each other with smiles of understanding.

“We’re talking about how foolishly people often behave toward the very ones they love most in the world,” Grace explained.

Francesca’s face maintained its puzzled expression. What did this have to do with her mother’s operation? She looked from her aunt to John. They seemed to understand each other perfectly. With a shrug, she took another bite of her pie.

John went on as though there had been no interruption. “Do we ever learn from our mistakes? Does anyone have the ability to keep a fresh view of the one he loves?” he asked Grace. It was not a rhetorical question. He sincerely hoped she would provide an answer. She had been married for almost forty years. Surely if anyone knew the secret of love’s longevity, it would be Grace.

“Civility and tolerance play the most important roles on a day-to-day basis, I suppose. That’s a rather prosaic answer to your poetic question, I’m afraid,” Grace said with a wry smile.

John leaned forward in his seat, looking intently at his former sister-in-law. “There must be more to it than that. Why am I now struck by the unique qualities I dismissed so cavalierly in 1940?”

Francesca’s ears perked up at this reference to the period surrounding John and Devon’s divorce. She took her last bite of pie and pushed the plate away, sitting back in her chair and following the dialogue as though she were a spectator at a tennis match.

“John, the answer is so simple, I’m surprised you should ask,” said Grace with an indulgent smile.

John and Francesca looked expectantly at Grace.

She was blunt. “You were both stubborn, self-centered, and immature. She was no saint. You weren’t either. And neither of you was generous enough of spirit to overlook the affronts you slung at each other. To be frank, you each clung to your viewpoints and refused to compromise.” Grace folded her arms and sat back in her seat. “Would you like to hear more?”

“No, thank you,” John said hastily, “I think I catch your general drift.”

“Sounds rocky!” Francesca commented, a sparkle in her eye. She had always been curious about her mother’s marriage to John, but neither party would discuss it in any detail. Certainly neither would divulge the reasons for the divorce. Her questions on the subject were either answered in the briefest possible manner or diverted entirely.

“Well, I have one more thing to say on the subject, though you may not want to hear it,” said Grace to John.

“Please continue, by all means,” he said with a mocking sweep of his hand.

“You seem to idealize that period of time. You seem to—pardon the expression—wallow in the romanticism of Foolish Youth letting True Love slip through his fingers. All that rot about yearning and missed opportunities.” Grace said, with a dismissive wave of her hand.

“You are a hopeless cynic!” John clucked, with a jokingly woeful shake of his head.

“Not at all. But I am a realist. I see things as they are, not as one would like them to be. Do you truly believe that if you’d given your marriage the old college try, you would still possess the treasure that is Devon?” she asked mockingly.

“Do you deny that patience and persistence in the face of disagreements are more likely roads to marital longevity than avoidance or confrontation?” asked John.

“Flexibility
is the quality that both of you lacked. And, unless you’re a martyr, flexibility cannot be unilateral. So stop flaying yourself for the disintegration of your marriage. It was the fault of both of you. But, there’s good news…”

“What?” Now it was John’s turn to look puzzled.

“I believe that the physical flexibility one loses as one ages may not actually be lost at all,” Grace said with a comically professorial attitude, “it just migrates elsewhere. So that one often gains in flexibility of will what one has lost in flexibility of body.” She sat back, looking pleased with herself.

“I suppose I’ve had little opportunity to test that theory,” John mused.

Grace sniffed in derision. “Of course not, except in your career. As far as your personal life is concerned, you’ve been a playboy.”

John glanced uncomfortably at Francesca.

“Don’t worry about her. She’s old enough to hear the truth about her idol. Not that I expect it to dim the luster of your crown in her eyes,” Grace said, not unkindly. “Anyhow,” she continued, “I know the current situation holds great appeal to your chivalry. But before you get any romantic ideas in your head, I hope you’ll reflect very carefully about whether you believe you’ve both developed the qualities it takes to make a go of it.”

“I’m not sure I
need
as much flexibility as before. You see, I think the kind of life that I want now is much closer to that which Devon wants—has always wanted.”

“Are you talking about marrying Mom again?” Francesca clapped her hands in excitement.

John smiled at the young woman, gratified by her pleasure. “I haven’t discussed it with your mother.” Then he shot her a look of warning. “And I would appreciate it if you would keep this conversation to yourself for the time being.”

“I think it would be wonderful if the two of you got together again!” Francesca sighed.

Grace addressed John. “You and Devon may want the same things now. But if you remarry, rest assured that there will be occasions that test you.”

“That’s a given in any marriage, of course,” agreed John.

“It has been many years since either of you has had to account to a spouse for your decisions.”

“True enough,” John admitted. “But, I’ll tell you frankly, this episode has been unspeakably frightening. The thought of losing Devon…” John could not go on, so overcome was he by emotion.

Grace reached across the table and covered his hand with hers. “I understand,” she said gently.

A look of desperation crossed John’s face. “I don’t want to waste any more time. I’ve held back all these years. First there was Mason. Then I went off to Europe. Something always seemed to interfere. Now this… this has made me realize that to delay further could mean losing Devon forever. I’m not prepared to do that.”

“I sympathize,” Grace said, nodding, “but remember this: your loss of Devon would be far more irrevocable were you to divorce again than should you fail to remarry. What you have together now is incomplete, but it is good.”

“But it is incomplete,” John said firmly. “I may be over sixty-five, but I’m still too young not to act on my desires. And I’m too old to leave loose ends dangling in my life.”

Devon appeared to take the news of her operation well. She was stoic when she awakened to learn that her breast was gone.

During the weeks of her convalescence, when she spoke of the matter to friends and family, she said, “If it had to be done, it had to be done,” in a no-nonsense voice that firmly closed the door to further discussion.

She was out of bed and able to carry on business as usual three weeks after the operation. The apparent swiftness of her recovery hid the fact that she felt like a cripple. She had never before realized how important her physical beauty had been to her, and she was ashamed of such weakness. She despised herself for placing so much importance on something so superficial—she had thought her values were finer.

Yet she now understood that her beauty had always been a given, a basic component of her identity. She had grown up beautiful, had always been beautiful, had always been treated with the deference and admiration shown to classic beauties. At age fifty-seven, Devon still possessed a beauty that turned heads. Now, she felt it was a sham.

When a man she did not know looked at her with interest, Devon wondered what his reaction would be if he saw the vivid red scars that slashed her torso. What would he say if she were to undress and he were to see that the full roundness hinted at by the exquisitely cut frocks was in actuality a piece of man-made material hiding an ugly, flat surface. She felt betrayed by the body that had always served her so well. She felt like a freak. She vowed never to let anyone other than her doctors see her nude again. She could not even bear to look at her own body in the mirror.

John’s visits were the hardest to endure. There was no point in denying the fact that she loved him. How many times in the hospital had her drug-induced dreams carried her back to that terrible time in her youth when she had discovered that John Alexander had gone home to New York—perhaps never to return—without a word of good-bye to her. She would open her eyes, sweating profusely and near tears, and look around the room to discover John reassuringly posted beside her bed. Then how happy she would be! Until she remembered. She wasn’t twenty-five. She wasn’t at Evergreen. She was at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital, she had cancer, and her breast was gone!