Once in a Lifetime by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online Page B

saw tears sliding slowly down her cheeks as she reached toward Daphne and took her tiny white hand in her larger one and held it as though Daphne might have been her child. Her pulse was still weak, and it was still too soon to tell If she would live. Barbara held her breath as she watched, trying not to cry but she couldn't help it. The nurse left them alone at last, and Barbara stood staring at Daphne miserably until the nurse came back and signaled to Barbara from the doorway. The tall, sturdy woman stood exactly where she had when the head nurse left her, and she gently replaced Daphne's hand on the bed, and then left the room. As she walked slowly back down the hall, she looked grief-stricken for a long unguarded moment and then put back her mask as they stood beside the desk.
    "Will she be all right?" Barbara's eyes sought something they couldn't have, some encouragement, some hope, a promise. But it was difficult to believe that Daphne would make it, lying there, so still, so small, so immobile. She almost looked as though she were already gone. Liz took small comfort in knowing that Daphne inspired the same kind of passionate devotion from those who knew her as from those who read her books. But Barbara Jarvis was looking at her now, wanting an answer, an answer that no one had, save God.
    "It's too soon to say. She could very well make it." And her voice gentled with long years of practice. "Or she might not. She has suffered a very extensive trauma." Barbara Jarvis nodded in silence and walked slowly away and into a phone booth. When she came out she asked when she could see Daphne again and they told her in half an hour. "Would you like a cup of coffee? You can see her again for fifteen minutes, on the hour. Or ..." Maybe she would leave, she was only her secretary after all.
    Barbara read their minds. "I'll stay." She tried to smile faintly, but the effort seemed enormous. "I'd like coffee." And then, almost with pain, "Thank you." A student nurse led her to a coffee machine placed conveniently near a blue vinyl couch that had seen several lifetimes of sorrow. The couch itself seemed depressing to her as she thought of people waiting here for loved ones to live or die, more often the latter. The nurse in blue stripes poured a cup of steaming black coffee and handed it to Barbara as the taller woman stood for a moment looking into the young girl's eyes. "Do you read her books?" Blushing, the young nurse nodded. And then she went away. And at three o'clock Liz Watkins came back, to do a double shift. Barbara was still there, looking frantic and exhausted. Liz checked the chart, and saw that there was no improvement.
    Liz came to chat with Barbara after a while, and poured her a fresh cup of coffee. She wondered about Barbara then, guessed her to be about Daphne's age, and for an insane moment she wanted to ask Barbara what Daphne was really like, but she knew that to do so was to invite the secretary's hostility to rise again like an angry cloud around her.
    "Is there any family who should be called?" It was all that she dared to ask.
    Barbara hesitated for only a fraction of an instant and then shook her head. "No. No one." She wanted to say that Daphne was alone in the world, but that wasn't exactly true, and either way it was none of this woman's business.
    "I understand that she's a widow."
    Barbara looked surprised that she knew, but she nodded and took a sip of the hot coffee. It had come out on The Conroy Show once, but she had never discussed it again. She didn't want anyone to know it. Now she was known only as "Miss" Fields, and the implication was that she never had been married. At first it had felt to Daphne like a treason to Jeff, but in the long run she knew it was better. She couldn't bear to speak of him and Aimee. She only spoke of them to ... But Barbara forced the thought from her mind, panicking at what might happen to him now.
    "There've been no calls from the press?" She looked up from her