Summer’s End

happy to notice the gloom in the backseat, and when he stopped at the address, his eyes met Deanna’s with a lure and a smile. She didn’t notice. She simply handed him the money and got out. The driver only shrugged and drove away as she plodded toward the door. It had not gone unnoticed that her mother-in-law had not been at the hospital all evening. The nurse said she had been with Pilar for two hours in the morning. Two hours? That was all? And left her in that appalling condition all alone? It proved everything Deanna had always thought. Madame Duras had no heart.

She rang the doorbell with two quick, sharp jabs, and the heavy wooden outer door swung open before her. She stepped over the high threshold and closed the door behind her, making her way quickly to the tiny elegant cage. She always felt as though there ought to be a canary in that elevator and not people, but today her thoughts were far from flip as she pressed the button for the seventh floor. It was the penthouse; Madame Duras owned the entire floor.

A faceless maid in a uniform was waiting at the door, when Deanna stepped out. “Oui, madame?” She looked Deanna over with displeasure, if not disdain.

“Je suis Madame Duras.” Deanna’s accent had never been worse, and she didn’t give a damn.

“Ah, bon. Madame is waiting in the salon.” How sweet. Pouring tea? Deanna felt her teeth grind as she marched behind the maid toward the living room. Nothing was unusual, nothing was out of place. No one would have believed that Madame Edouard Duras’s granddaughter lay, possibly dying, in a hospital two miles away. Everything appeared to be in perfect order, including Madame Duras, as the maid escorted Deanna into the room. Her mother-in-law was wearing dark green silk and an impeccable coiffure, her step was firm as she walked toward Deanna with an extended hand. Only her eyes betrayed her concern. She shook hands with Deanna and kissed her on both cheeks looking with dismay at the expression on her daughter-in-law’s face.

“You’ve just come?” Her eyes glanced immediate dismissal to the maid, who instantly fled.

“No. I’ve been with Pilar all evening. And I’ve yet to see the doctor.” Deanna pulled off her jacket and almost fell into a chair.

“You look very tired.” The older woman watched her with a face set in stone. Only the wily, old eyes suggested that someone did indeed live behind the granite of her face.

“Whether or not I’m tired is beside the point. Who the hell is this Kirschmann and where is he?”

“He is a surgeon and he is known all over France. He was with Pilar until late this afternoon, and he will see her again in a few hours. Deanna”- she hesitated, then said more gently-“there is simply nothing more he can do. At least not for the moment.”

“Why not?”

“Now we must wait. She must get her strength. She must… live.” Her expression showed pain at the word, and Deanna ran a hand across her eyes. “Would you like something to eat?”

Deanna shook her head. “Just a shower and a little rest. And” -she looked up with an expression of agony in her face- “I’m sorry to just march in like this. I haven’t said any of the appropriate things like ‘good to see you,’ ‘how are you,’ but Mamie, I’m sorry, I just can’t.”

“I understand.”

Did she? Deanna wondered. But what did it matter now if she did or not.

“I do think you should eat, my dear,” Madame Duras was saying. “You look very pale.”

She felt very pale too, but she simply wasn’t hungry. She couldn’t have eaten, no matter what. Not tonight. Not after seeing Pilar limp and broken in that bed, asking for Doggie, and too weak to hold her mother’s hand.

“I’ll just shower and change and get back. It’s liable to be a long night. By the way, have you heard from Marc?” Her brows knit as she asked. Her mother-in-law nodded.

“He’ll be here in an hour.”

An hour… One hour. After more than two months, Deanna felt nothing inside except what she felt for Pilar.

“He’s coming in from Athens. He’s very upset.”

“As well he might be.” Deanna looked his mother straight in the eye. “He bought her the motorcycle. I begged him not to.”

Madame Duras instantly bridled. “Deanna, he cannot be blamed. I’m sure he feels quite badly enough.”

“I’m sure he does.” She looked away, then stood up. “He’ll be landing in an hour?”

“Yes. Will you go to meet him?”

Deanna started to say no, but something inside her wavered. She was thinking of Pilar, and how the child looked… how it would be for Marc walking in, as she had, and seeing her for the first time. It seemed cruel to let him walk into that alone. Pilar was his baby, his treasure, his child. She was also Deanna’s, but to Marc, Pilar was almost a goddess. She couldn’t let him face it as she had. She had to meet him at the plane.

“Do you have his flight number?” His mother nodded. “Then I’ll go. I’ll just wash my face. I won’t bother to change. Can you call a taxi?”

“Certainly.” The elder Madame Duras looked pleased. “I’ll be more than happy to. Fleurette will make a sandwich for you.” Fleurette, little flower. The name of the immensely rotund cook Madame Duras employed had always struck Deanna funny, but not tonight. Nothing was funny anymore. She nodded curtly at her mother-in-law and hurried down the hall. She was just about to turn into the guest room when she noticed the painting in a dark passage. Left there, unwanted, unloved, unadmired, forgotten. It was the portrait of herself and Pilar. Madame Duras had never been very fond of it. Now, without thinking further, Deanna decided that this time she’d take it home, where it belonged.

In the familiar guest room, she looked around. Everything was a polite shade of sandy beige, in damask or silk, and the furniture was all Louis XV. It was a room that had always seemed cold to Deanna, even when she had slept in it on her honeymoon with Marc. She ran a comb through her hair and tried to make herself think of Marc. What would it be like to see him again? To see his face, touch his hand… after Ben. Why was it that Ben seemed more real to her now, or was he only a dream? Had she once more been swallowed alive by this beige silk world, never to return? She wanted desperately to call Ben but she didn’t have time. She had to get to the airport in time to catch Marc as he left the gate from the plane, or she’d miss him entirely. She wondered if there were any way to leave a message that she was coming, but she knew from experience that such messages always went astray. A man with a thin, thready voice would stand in a corner of the airport whispering to himself, “Monsieur Duras… Monsieur Duras,” as Marc marched unknowingly by. And if he did get it, it might frighten him too badly about Pilar. She could at least spare him that.

The maid knocked on the guest-room door and told her the taxi was waiting. As she spoke the words, she handed Deanna a small package. Two ham sandwiches and part of a chicken. Perhaps Monsieur would be hungry too. Hungry? Jesus, who could eat?

Unlike the earlier ride from the airport which had seemed interminable, this one seemed much too short. She found herself nodding slowly off to sleep in the backseat as they raced along into the night, her thoughts jumping in disjointed confusion from Pilar to Ben to Marc. It seemed only moments later that the cab screeched to a halt.

“Voila.”

She muttered an absentminded “merci” to the driver, paid the fare and a handsome tip, and hurried inside, smoothing her skirt again as she ran. She was beginning to feel as though she hadn’t changed her clothes in a week, but she didn’t really care how she looked, she had too many other things on her mind. She glanced at the big board that listed the flight numbers and the gates and started out at a run in the direction of the gate from which she knew he’d come. The flight had just landed. It would be only a minute or two before the passengers would deplane. She had just enough time to make it. First-class passengers always debarked first, and Marc always traveled first class.

She darted in and out between other travelers, almost stumbling over someone’s bags. But she reached the area just as the first passengers were coming through customs, and with a sigh backed off into a corner to watch. For a mad moment she wanted to surprise him, to show him that she cared, despite her betrayal of the summer. But even in this ghastly time of agony over Pilar, she wanted to hold out something to Marc, to make it easier for him. She would simply walk up beside him with a touch of the hand and a smile. She could still do that for him, she could give him a moment of pleasure in the midst of so much pain. She pulled her jacket closer around her and looked down at the cravat on her ivory silk shirt. Seven or eight people had already walked past her, but there was still no sign of Marc.