24 June 1959
"Your hands are freezing," Mattie said, catching both of Jean's hands between her own, rubbing them gently while she watched Jean with an anxious expression Jean didn't care for one little bit.
"I'm all right, Mattie," she said. It was a lie, and they both knew it; she'd been too weak to get out of bed for the last two days. Yesterday Lucien had dragged the IV and stand into her bedroom so he could administer her treatment right there at her bedside, rather than carry her to the surgery. After the way things had fallen apart between them, neither Jean nor Lucien could bear such proximity, and she was grateful for the sudden appearance of a previously undiscovered sense of practicality in him.
"Do you need anything?" Mattie asked earnestly. The table at Jean's bedside was already laden day with a fresh cup of tea, a tall glass of juice, three pieces of toast, and a biscuit, and the blankets that covered her were warm, and there was a fire burning cheerfully on the other side of the studio, and Mattie was with her; no, there was nothing else Jean needed, just now. Nothing that Mattie could bring to her, at any rate.
"I have everything I need right here," Jean said, and she turned her hand over within Mattie's grasp, and squeezed the girl's fingers gently. "I'm just tired."
Tired might have been the understatement of the century; it was nearly dinner time, and Jean's body was so exhausted, so weary, so completely drained that she hadn't been able to manage the short walk from her bed to the bathroom without Mattie to hold her up. Even now she could hardly keep her eyes open, nevermind that she'd slept for most of the day already. It was galling, finding herself incapable of completing even the simplest of tasks; perhaps someone else would have adjusted to their confinement by now, after so many difficult weeks, but Jean still found that the bonds of idleness chafed her.
"Tell me the news," Jean urged her companion then. "What's been happening while I've been sleeping?"
She hoped that Mattie might have some lighthearted chatter with which to distract her, might have stories of new engagements and broken promises and interesting patients and troublesome neighbors. It would be nice to laugh with Mattie about simple things, and forget, however briefly, the grief that troubled her own spirit. She had set Lucien free, sent him out into the world to find a woman who could be everything he needed her to be, to turn his sights away from Jean as she slowly faded, but there was no freedom for her in such release. When she closed her eyes she still saw his face, the hurt in his eyes, still felt the fleeting warmth of his kiss, and each time nearly wept with bitter disappointment. It would be easier to talk about other people's troubles than to face her own, but Mattie did not offer her a reprieve.
Instead her face took on a serious expression, and she leaned closer to Jean, perched on the edge of a chair at her bedside and whispering as if someone might overhear them, when there was no one else in the house at all save the pair of them.
"I'm worried about Lucien," Mattie confessed. "He isn't sleeping. And every bottle on the drinks cart in his study is empty."
That was the last thing Jean wanted to hear. It had taken him hard, she knew, her rejection of him, but Joy McDonald was still sniffing around, and she'd thought that by now he would have taken that lady up on her invitation, and forgotten the momentary madness that had pushed him to kiss Jean instead. Jean remained firmly convinced that whatever feelings he might harbor for her were more guilt than love, and she'd hoped Mrs. McDonald might help soothe his wounded pride. Apparently she'd been wrong; he'd been up all hours, and drinking himself blind, and that meant he was hurting, too, even as she was. She could not bear the thought of it; she could not carry his grief alongside her own.
"Have you talked to him about it?" Jean asked carefully. Of course she had not mentioned their falling out to Mattie, and she had no intention of doing so now. If Lucien had told her, though, Jean would need to straighten things out.
"He keeps insisting that everything is fine," Mattie answered, frustration plain in her voice. "But I know it isn't. He...he's worried about you, Jean. I keep catching him looking at the studio like he means to march right in here and say something to you but he never does. I think he's afraid."
Mattie was afraid, too; Jean could see it in her eyes. When Mattie had come to check on her this evening the bowl at her bedside had been full of sick, and Jean had been curled into a tight little ball, shivering despite the warmth of the room. She knew what she looked like, how dreadful this must all seem to Mattie's eyes, Mattie who was a nurse, Mattie who, like Lucien, took illness as a personal insult, and fought with everything she had to defeat it. There would be no victory over the malady that had laid Jean low, but it seemed no one else in her house was willing to accept that fact.
The news Mattie had brought was troubling to Jean; she could almost picture it, Lucien staring longingly at the doors that separated Jean's domain from the rest of the house, wanting to speak to her and yet holding himself back, for he had been told in no uncertain terms not to press his case. What more could he say to her that had not been said already? What good would it do them, anyway? Jean was glad he had not found the courage to visit her; the sight of his beseeching eyes would break her heart, she was certain of it.
"It will be all right, Mattie," Jean said, although she knew it wouldn't be, not really. "You two have nothing to worry about. Now. you tell me all about Edie's wedding, I want to hear everything."
"You gonna eat that, or are you just planning to sit there and stare at it all night?"
At the unexpected sound of Matthew's voice Lucien jumped in his chair, and very nearly spilled his teacup all down his waistcoat. As it was he was able to catch himself at the last moment, and took a steadying breath before he answered.
"It's not for me," he said.
It was a brown paper parcel from the bakery, two pain au chocolats, purchased for Jean, who had hardly eaten at all in the last two days. When she had just fallen ill, when they were still dancing awkwardly around one another, trying to determine where they stood, he had purchased the pastries for her often, and she had eaten them, even when she could stomach nothing else. He had hoped she'd eat them now, too, but he had just been seized by the terrible fear that she would not accept them at all, that she would think the gesture too familiar, would take it as a sign that Lucien was trying to revive some of their previous closeness despite the way she had so completely rejected him. The last thing he wanted to do was upset her, but he was worried, terribly worried, about how rapidly her condition seemed to be deteriorating, and he could think of nothing else to do that might help ease her suffering.
Matthew stared at him for a moment, curiosity in his gaze before he sighed and settled himself behind his desk.
"You going to tell me what's going on?" Matthew asked, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest.
"I'm having a cup of tea and reviewing the autopsy report. Surely that's not a crime."
"Blake, you wrote that bloody report, and everybody else has gone home for dinner. What's this really about?"
The truth was that Lucien simply did not want to go home. He did not want to sit at the table with Mattie, eating the leftovers of whatever the church ladies had brought while they made strained attempts at conversation and tried not to stare at the empty chair where Jean should have been. He did not want to see the studio doors closed, when for so many weeks they had been left open, a silent invitation that had since been revoked. He did not want to lie down in his bed alone, and curse himself for having been a fool, for having pushed Jean when she needed patience, and ruining everything between them in the process. He did not want to wake in the morning and lie there wondering whether Jean would still be breathing when Mattie went to deliver her morning tea.
"Really, Matthew, everything is-"
"How is Jean? Really?"
Lucien stared at him for a moment, aghast and miserable. That was the question everybody asked him, these days; news of Jean's illness had spread through town like wildfire, and everywhere he went people asked after her, some of them genuinely concerned about her well-being and some of them just eager for gossip. The baker had even slipped an extra pastry into Lucien's parcel, knowing full well who that treat was meant for and trying in his own way to extend his good wishes. It was not courtesy or curiosity that compelled Matthew to ask such a question just now, however, and Lucien knew it; Matthew had seen to the root of Lucien's problems - and the reason for his unwillingness to leave the station - at once.
"Not well," Lucien confessed at last. Usually when people asked after Jean he lied through his teeth, said that while chemotherapy was never easy she was responding to the treatment and he was confident in her eventual recovery. Matthew deserved better than that from him, Lucien thought; Matthew deserved the truth. "She can't get out of bed, and she's hardly eating. I'm beginning to wonder if she might be better off in hospital after all. I'm beginning to think I've made a right mess of things."
"You did the best you could with what you had," Matthew said calmly. "Jean would have been bloody miserable in hospital, and you know it. You've made her as comfortable as you could and you've given her the best possible care. What I want to know is why you're here, and not home looking after her."
"I…" Lucien started to protest, but the words wouldn't come. On the one hand, he rather agreed with Matthew; there was no place he wanted to be more than at home, at Jean's side, helping her through her current distress. But…
"She doesn't want me there."
"Like hell she doesn't."
"Matthew-"
"You're scared, Lucien. No sense lying about it, I can see it on your face. How do you think she feels?"
Matthew's mother had died of cancer, Lucien recalled. His father had been a gambler with a heavy hand, prone to drink and prone to lashing out when the cards weren't in his favor. His mother had been a sweet woman, but she'd been sick, too, and hadn't been able to keep the old man in check. Maybe Matthew wasn't a doctor, but he knew a thing or two about illness, and a thing or two about fear. In his heart Lucien knew Matthew was right; however terrified Lucien might have been at the thought of losing Jean, surely she was more frightened still. His hiding out here like a coward would do her no good, but he feared the sight of his face wouldn't help her, either.
"You spend too long in this job, you learn a thing or two about how people react to fear. Fight or flight, Lucien. Some of them lash out, try to beat whatever's scaring them with their fists or shout at it until it goes away. Some of them just run away from it. Either way, you lose. The only way to beat fear is to face it. You have to stop mindlessly reacting, and act with purpose."
"Do you know, Matthew, if this law enforcement business doesn't work out you may have a future in psychiatry," Lucien said dryly.
"Go home, Blake," Matthew answered.
"Yes, sir," Lucien said. Perhaps there was a grain of truth to what Matthew had told him; perhaps Jean was only, in her own way, running away from her fears, and perhaps Lucien was doing the same. Perhaps they ought to face them, together. He left his teacup on the edge of Matthew's desk just to antagonize him, and snatched up his parcel before making his way out into the evening.
It would be cruel, he thought as he drove, to try once more to tell Jean of his feelings, to try to kiss her, touch her, when she had called a halt to such intimacies between them. But she was still his patient, and it was still his duty to care for her, and perhaps if he did in time she would come to see that his devotion would not wax and wane with her illness. Perhaps they could be friends, at least; that would please him, very much.
When he arrived home he found Mattie nowhere in sight, though there was a plate set out on the table for him, covered with a dishcloth. He left it where it was and went straight to the studio, still clutching the parcel of pastries in his hands. Shaking ever so slightly from nerves he knocked upon the doors, but hearing no answer he slowly slid them open, and stepped inside.
The fire had burned down to embers, but one of the lamps by the bed was still burning brightly. He made his way there, and found Jean fast asleep, curled on her side. There was an undrunk cup of tea on the table, and a plate of cold toast and biscuits; she'd still not eaten. Lucien frowned for a moment, taking in the sight of her, pale and small beneath a mountain of blankets. Christ, what an almighty mess this was, but she was still, beautiful. Always beautiful, was Jean, no matter how dire the circumstances had grown, and she was still breathing, deep and even as she slept.
As quietly as he could Lucien set his parcel down on the table, and gathered up the old dishes before switching off the lamp. Jean would sleep easier in darkness, and perhaps come morning she'd be feeling well enough to eat the present he had brought for her.
I'll try again tomorrow, he told himself as he picked his way carefully out of the studio in the dark. It was all that he could do. Try.
