Part 41
Emily stood at the door.
"OK, come in," Zander said.
"Are you sure, dear?" Donna said. "You look a little tense."
"It's all right, Mom."
"I'm right outside," Donna said. She looked at Emily and went out.
Emily sat down.
"Do you feel all right?" she asked.
"Yes, now I do."
"I saw your dad and your uncle at Kelly's. Your dad said you were all right. What happened?"
"My uncle? The only one I have is in Florida. Mom would've told me if he was coming."
"Well, that's what I said he was then. I forget what they said, but they said he was a relative. Anyway, they were talking there, and I went over and asked your dad about what happened. My mom won't say anything about patients she's treating. Somebody at the country club told me you went to the hospital. I was afraid you got shot or something."
"No, nothing like that."
"What was it?"
"My heart has an out-of-whack rhythm."
"Oh, that's strange. I never thought of there being anything wrong with you."
"Thanks, I think."
"I wanted to tell you something," she said, nervously.
"A while back, you did."
"Well, I only wanted to tell you, I mean, I thought maybe since things had changed – well, see, I never had any other boyfriend. I just said that. I thought I wouldn't walk and so I thought the best thing for you was to let you go."
"I wondered if you might do that. But you knew you would be able to walk, that's what every doctor was saying when you left."
"It seemed like it was taking forever, and that they must be wrong. I know it was stupid to lose faith like that. But I was there month after month and nothing seemed to change. It finally started to, and then it all came back almost at once, but all the months at the beginning were really hopeless."
"Why not just tell me that?"
"You wouldn't feel free, and I'd be a burden, and I wouldn't like that."
"Oh, you wouldn't like that, so to hell with me and how much just dumping me for another guy would hurt."
"That's not how I meant it. I mean, I'm trying to explain. I did it because I love you and it was so you could have a good life."
"OK. Well, I have this heart thing, I'm not perfect, so I'll let you go, too."
"That's not how I meant it."
"Why not? Don't you do to others as you would have them do to you? It must be that you expected me to let you go if the same kind of thing happened to me."
She looked stunned.
"Well, Emily, it must be what you'd want in that case," Zander said. "Why would you have thought I was better off otherwise?"
She looked away.
"I'm tired of people who give me up for my own good," he went on. "I've had enough of that. I think I'll stick with the selfish ones from now on. The ones that need me."
"You don't understand," she said, tearfully. "Well, I won't talk more about it now. I don't want to stress you out."
"By all means, go away," he said. "I know that it's for my own good. I really appreciate how considerate you are."
Donna came in as Emily went out. She looked at Emily for a second. "Are you all right, dear?" she asked Zander. She went over and started arranging the blankets on the bed around him. He had been feeling so well he had been getting dressed and sitting on top of the bed or on a chair. But now Donna took a quilt Brenda had brought in and started fussing around him with it.
"I'm fine, Mom," was all he said. "Cut it out," he said, laughing. "I'm going to study European History for awhile, in fact. And it is not stressful. Well, maybe the beheading of Marie Antoinette is, a little. But I'll live."
Donna went to the windowsill and found the textbook, and then handed it to Zander, smiling. "Not too much," she said.
Later Donna saw that European History had put Zander to sleep. She took the book away as gently as she could. She went to the doorway and scanned the waiting room for the millionth time. The tall and imposing figure of Cam haunted every incoming hallway in her imagination, so she was afraid the real one could escape her.
She saw Brenda coming in with relief.
"European History, or the medication," she said, tilting her head toward Zander.
Brenda went in and put her back pack down on a chair. She kissed Zander on the forehead, then went back to Donna.
"It could be European History," Brenda said. "It can put me to sleep and I don't have any medication in my system."
"And yet the beheading of Marie Antoinette is so exciting," Donna said.
Brenda laughed, quietly. They stood in the doorway. "Marie Antoinette," Brenda said. "The mighty can fall. I wonder if that applies to Cam."
"Would that it did!"
"You know, I have to ask you something. If you don't mind."
"I don't."
"Were you ever really in love with him?"
"Probably not. My family and his family belonged to this upper class old money sort of society. You know a little of that?"
"Not so much. My father had money but it was his company. I don't think my grandfather was spectacularly rich. In fact, my father got wealthy by working his way up. I mean, he didn't have a fancy education. That's why it meant so much to him that my sister and I have one. When I didn't do well, it floored him. He'd roll over in his grave that I'm going to PCU. Now you might think it is admirable, because I started in my thirties. A reasonable person would. But to my father it would just be a low rent university of no standing, and way too late. He wanted us to graduate from Harvard. Julia managed to graduate from Princeton, so he was happy with her. But anyway I'm rattling along about me when I wanted to ask about you."
"No problem. I'd want to ask about you someday anyway. See, the marriage was perfect from the society point of view. His family and my family and our ages and his profession, his great future. And Cam is the type who wouldn't have a problem with marrying the right woman, like that, and the type, I'm sure you can already agree, who wouldn't have thought about how he hadn't fallen in love with me. I complained to my mother that I didn't love him, and she said that only happens in the movies, and that eventually you love your husband anyway. You have children and shared memories and a shared life, and that is what love is anyway."
"Had you ever been in love with someone else?"
"No, and it was really bad luck, since it helped Mother's arguments seem more persuasive. And other people said it was a teen-aged thing that didn't last. I hadn't happened to have had my teen-aged fling, and thought I should have it, I suppose, before settling down with Mr. Socially Desirable and right. So I never had much faith in any of it."
"Everyone you knew said the same thing?"
"If they said anything about it. I suspected some people really had all that romance and flowers, and that those that didn't just didn't want to believe it, that they were missing out on what they couldn't just go and get. People in that social class don't like uncontrolled things. Everything has its rules and regulations."
"Yeah. So when you did fall in love, did you get to tell anyone they were wrong?"
"No," Donna laughed. "Not under those conditions. I was married and I had a child, and you put way too much into your child when you think there's no romance in the world. Only your children really justify your marriage. So something I had learned to devalue as much as romance couldn't compete with all that. What you believe can become fact. Romance doesn't last, but Peter will always be there. I don't want someone young like you to think that I was right, though. But I know you have a lot of spirit and would never get into that bind. Even if you had, you'd have up and left. I don't even think I did Peter much good in the long run, but then I was different. When you get to my age you'll realize how dumb you were in your twenties."
"I already think I might have been!"
"You were rebellious enough to stay out of getting married under pressure, and that says a lot for you. And your kids are going to benefit from it and they won't suffer like mine did."
"But you did do something right," Brenda insisted. "I don't go along with the idea you didn't do anything. Either your just being there restricted Cam in his worst ways, or your actions did more that you think they did. Probably both. They turned out OK. Even Zander," she added, grinning.
"I'm glad you think so," Donna said. "I begin to believe at my age now that it's worth more than a hundred degrees from Harvard. Or any career in medicine of whatever profession. Cam put that first. I guess he thought he had to for the kids' sake, but he could have been wrong."
"Something he can never admit, right?" Brenda smiled. "I can hardly believe he's Peter's father, but I'll take your word for it. I mean, it is really possible to have sex with that man?"
Donna laughed. Brenda started to giggle. Then Donna giggled. "My dear," she said, "it's better than talking to him."
Both of them would have exploded into laughter, except that they didn't want to wake up Zander. They ended up with their hands over their mouths, looking at each other with suppressed merriment.
David came up to them.
"I'm glad there's some fun around here," he said. They both straightened up.
"We were discussing Cam," Brenda said.
"If that can get you laughing, you must be in a really good mood," he said. "I just talked to him. He did say he won't sneak up on Zander."
"Really, that's good!" Donna said. "I was kind of expecting the opposite. He'd come back from Pine Valley with some list of the sins of David Hayward and come back and seek out Alexander to tell him those."
"It's a reasonable assumption," David said. "But maybe he means that list for you, or someone else?"
"Maybe Carly," Donna said. "Or even Dr. Quartermaine. Me, no, what I think is beneath contempt to him."
"Are you sure?" David asked her.
"It's strange," Brenda chimed in. "Because he thinks Zander's a criminal, he's not going to think your entire rap sheet will scare Zander away. Isn't it too white collar for that?"
"I guess," David said, almost laughing, "Carly, maybe, but when I talked to him he said Carly was married to a criminal."
"That's correct," Brenda said. "So it wouldn't scare Carly away, for that matter, if Zander's didn't, could yours?"
"He's arming himself with knowledge, for general purposes," Donna suggested. "In case it's useful. That's a Cam-like thing."
"OK," Brenda said.
"How is Zander?" David asked.
"A little stressed when the girl came by," Donna said. "Emily, is that her name?"
"So she did visit him," David said. "She came over to Cam and I when we were in that coffee shop. She wanted to know how he was."
"She was here a little while. Not very long. I stayed about here, and it never got heated or anything. She left, then he waved me away from fussing over him and started to study that history book."
"I hope she didn't put him down or anything," Brenda said. "Or try to get him feeling guilty. Little witch."
"I'll pull her away next time," Donna laughed.
Donna and Brenda had gone for a cup of coffee when Zander woke up.
"They'll be back soon," David told Zander.
"It's OK, everybody doesn't have to stay tethered to this room."
"Forget it. We're not leaving. So you survived a visit from Emily."
"Yeah, it was a surprise, too."
"She cares how you are."
"Yeah, maybe, I guess. Can I ask you about something?"
"Anything you want to."
"I don't know why, but I'm curious. I feel like I'm prying, though."
"Ask anyway."
"Thank you. I've just never seen anybody so similar to me. Even just physically."
"Did anyone ever think you looked like somebody in Cam's family?"
"No. It would be funny if they had. I always thought I was some kind of throwback, I guess. I don't look much like Mom either."
"I can see a little of your mom in you."
"Really? No one else ever said that. Anyway, you said you got divorced three times."
"That comes of putting work first. You won't do that."
"You think so?"
"Yeah. You have a little girl already, but you don't know what your career will be. You're devoted to her, and reading books on fatherhood and even trying to find out all you can about every type of father you have."
Zander laughed. "OK. I feel better about that. Still, I wanted to know one thing - what were their jobs, or what did they do? You don't have to tell me anything else."
"I'll tell you whatever you want to know. Doctor, Doctor and Police Chief."
"What I thought. Nobody low key."
"See, that comes of putting work first, too. I only knew other doctors."
Zander grinned. "So how do you explain the police chief?"
"I started out as a suspect in a case."
"Weird how my life turned out more similar to yours than to Dad's in spite of it all!"
"I don't want you to believe you're doomed to my failures, either," David said, smiling. "I'm not in jail, anyway."
"Oh, don't worry, I'll have my own," Zander said. "But staying out of jail is good."
"It's a start."
"Yeah," Zander laughed. "It's a start."