Jill stood looking down at his ruined body and thought, I can’t help you. You don’t want to live like this. You want to die.
The idea began to grow in Jill.
The newspapers were full of stories about terminally ill husbands whose wives had released them from their pain. Even some doctors admitted that they deliberately let certain patients die. Euthanasia, it was called. Mercy killing. But Jill knew that it could also be called murder, even though nothing lived in Toby anymore but those damned eyes that would not stop following her around.
In the weeks that followed, Jill never left the house. Most of the time, she shut herself away in her bedroom. Her headaches had returned, and she could find no relief.
Newspapers and magazines carried human-interest stories about the paralyzed superstar and his devoted wife, who had once nursed him back to health. All the periodicals speculated about whether Jill would be able to repeat the miracle. But she knew that there would be no more miracles. Toby would never be well again.
Twenty years, Dr. Kaplan had said. And David was out there waiting for her. She had to find a way to escape from her prison.
It began on a dark, gloomy Sunday. It rained in the morning and continued all day, drumming against the roof and the windows of the house until Jill thought she would go mad. She was in her bedroom, reading, trying to get the vicious tattoo of the falling rain out of her mind, when the night nurse walked in. Her name was Ingrid Johnson. She was starched and Nordic.
“The burner upstairs isn’t working,” Ingrid announced. “I’ll have to go down to the kitchen to prepare Mr. Temple’s dinner. Could you stay with him for a few minutes?”
Jill could sense the disapproval in the nurse’s voice. She thought it strange for a wife not to go near her husband’s sickbed. “I’ll look after him,” Jill said.
She put down her book and went down the hall to Toby’s bedroom. The moment Jill walked into the room, her nostrils were assailed by the familiar stench of sickness. In an instant, every fiber of her being was flooded with memories of those long, dreadful months when she had fought to save Toby.
Toby’s head was propped up on a large pillow. As he watched Jill enter, his eyes suddenly came alive, flashing out frantic messages. Where have you been? Why have you stayed away from me? I need you. Help me! It was as though his eyes had a voice. Jill looked down at that loathsome, twisted body with the grinning death’s mask and she felt nauseated. You’ll never get well, damn you! You’ve got to die! I want you to die!
As Jill stared at Toby, she watched the expression in his eyes change. They registered shock and disbelief and then they began to fill with such hatred, such naked malevolence, that Jill involuntarily took a step away from the bed. She realized then what had happened. She had spoken her thoughts aloud.
She turned and fled from the room.
In the morning, the rain stopped. Toby’s old wheelchair had been brought up from the basement. The day nurse, Frances Gordon, was wheeling Toby out in his chair to the garden to get some sun. Jill listened to the sound of the wheelchair moving down the hall toward the elevator. She waited a few minutes, then she went downstairs. She was passing the library when the phone rang. It was David, calling from Washington.
“How are you today?” He sounded warm and caring.
She had never been so glad to hear his voice. “I’m fine, David.”
“I wish you were with me, darling.”
“So do I. I love you so much. And I want you. I want you to hold me in your arms again. Oh, David…”
Some instinct made Jill turn. Toby was in the hallway, strapped in the wheelchair where the nurse had left him for a moment. His blue eyes blazed at Jill with such loathing, such malice that it was like a physical blow. His mind was speaking to her through his eyes, screaming at her, I’m going to kill you! Jill dropped the telephone in panic.
She ran out of the room and up the stairs, and she could feel Toby’s hatred pursuing her, like some violent, evil force. She stayed in her bedroom all day, refusing food. She sat in a chair, in a trancelike state, her mind going over and over the moment at the telephone. Toby knew. He knew. She could not face him again.
Finally, night came. It was the middle of July, and the air still held the heat of the day. Jill opened her bedroom windows wide to catch whatever faint breeze there might be.
In Toby’s room, Nurse Gallagher was on duty. She tiptoed in to take a look at her patient. Nurse Gallagher wished she could read his mind, then perhaps she might be able to help the poor man. She tucked the covers around Toby. “You get a good night’s sleep now,” she said, cheerily. “I’ll be back to check on you.” There was no reaction. He did not even move his eyes to look at her.
Perhaps it’s just as well I can’t read his mind, Nurse Gallagher thought. She took one last look at him and retired to her little sitting room to watch some late-night television. Nurse Gallagher enjoyed the talk shows. She loved to watch movie stars chat about themselves. It made them terribly human, just like ordinary, everyday people. She kept the sound low, so that it would not disturb her patient. But Toby Temple would not have heard it in any case. His thoughts were elsewhere.
The house was asleep, safe in the guarded fastness of the Bel-Air woods. A few faint sounds of traffic drifted up from Sunset Boulevard far below. Nurse Gallagher was watching a late late movie. She wished they would run an old Toby Temple film. It would be so exciting to watch Mr. Temple on television and know that he was here in person, just a few feet away.
At four A.M., Nurse Gallagher dozed off in the middle of a horror film.