“So what are you up to, sweetheart?” Jean hadn't called her in two weeks. She was too depressed to call, and she didn't want Tana to hear it on the phone. At least when Arthur was in New York over the holidays, there was some hope that he might stop by for a few hours, but this year she didn't even have that hope held out to her, and Tana was gone.… “Studying as hard as you thought?”

“Yes … I … no…” She was still half asleep. She had stayed with Harry until four o'clock. His fever had suddenly shot up the night before and she was afraid to leave him again, but at four in the morning, the nurses had insisted she go home and get some sleep. It was going to be a long, hard climb for him, and if she burned herself out now, she wouldn't do him any good later on, when he needed her most. “I haven't been. At least not for the past three days.” She almost groaned with fatigue, as she sat down in the straight-backed chair they left near the phone. “Harry got back from Vietnam.” Her eyes glazed as she thought of it. This would be the first time she had told anyone, and the thought of what there was to say made her sick.

“You've been seeing him?” Jean sounded instantly annoyed. “I thought you had studying to do. If I'd thought you could take time off to play, Tana, I wouldn't be sitting here spending the Christmas holidays by myself … if you have time to play around with him, the least you could have—”

“Stop it!” Tana suddenly shrieked in the empty hall. “Stop it! He's in Letterman. No one's playing around, for God's sake.” There was silence at Jean's end. She had never heard Tana sound like that. There was a kind of hysterical desperation in her voice, and a frightening despair.

“What's Letterman?” She imagined it was a hotel, but something instantly told her she was wrong.

“The military hospital here. He was shot in the spine.…” She began to take in great gulps of air so she wouldn't cry, but it didn't work. Nothing worked. She cried all the time when she wasn't with him. She couldn't believe what had happened to him. And she nearly collapsed now on the chair, like a little child. “He's a paraplegic now, Mom … he may not even live … he got this terrible fever last night…” She just sat there, crying, shaking from head to foot and unable to stop, but she had to let it out, as Jean stared at her office wall in shock, thinking about the boy she had seen so many times. He was so confident, almost debonair, if one could say that about a boy his age, he laughed all the time, he was funny and bright and irreverent and he had annoyed her most of the time, and now she thanked God Tana hadn't married him … imagine the life that would have been for her.

“Oh sweetheart … I'm so sorry.…”

“So am I.” She sounded exactly as she had as a child when her puppy died, and it broke Jean's heart to listen to her. “And there's nothing I can do, except sit there and watch.”

“You shouldn't be there. It puts too much strain on you.”

“I have to be there. Don't you understand?” Her voice was harsh. “I'm all he has.”

“What about his family?”

“His father hasn't shown up yet, and he probably never will, the son of a bitch, and Harry's just lying there, barely hanging on.”

“Well, there's nothing you can do. And I don't think you should see something like that, Tan.”

“Oh, no?” She was belligerent now. “What should I see, Mom? Dinner parties on the East Side, evenings in Greenwich with the Durning clan? That's the worst crock of crap I've ever heard. My best friend has just had his ass shot off in Vietnam, and you don't think I should do something like that. Just what do you think should happen to him, Mom? Should I cross him off my list because he can't dance anymore?”

“Don't be so cynical, Tana.” Jean Roberts sounded firm.

“Why the hell not? What kind of world do we live in anyway? What's wrong with everyone? Why don't they see what we're getting into in Vietnam?” Not to mention Sharon and Richard Blake and John Kennedy and everything else that was wrong with the world.

“That's not in your hands or mine.”

“Why doesn't anyone care what we think … ? what I think … what Harry thinks.… Why didn't anybody ask him before he went?” She was sobbing again and she couldn't go on.

“Get hold of yourself.” Jean waited for a moment, and then said, “I think you should come home for the holidays, Tan, especially if you're going to spend them around the hospital with that boy.”

“I can't come home now.” Her voice was sharp and suddenly there were tears in Jean's eyes.

“Why not?” Now she sounded like the child.

“I don't want to leave Harry now.”

“How can he mean that much to you … ?” more than I do.…

“He just does. Aren't you spending Christmas with Arthur anyway, or at least part of it?” Tana blew her nose and wiped her eyes, but Jean shook her head at her end.

“Not this year, Tan. He's going to Palm Beach with the kids.”

“And he didn't invite you?” Tana sounded shocked. He was really the consummate selfish son of a bitch, second only to Harry's dad, perhaps.

“It would be awkward for him.”

“Why? His wife's been dead for eight years, and you're no secret anymore. Why couldn't he invite you?”

“It doesn't matter. I have work to do here anyway.”

“Yeah,” it drove her nuts thinking about her mother's subservience and devotion to him, “work for him. Why don't you just tell him to jump in the lake one of these days, Mom? You're forty-five years old, you could still find someone else, and no one could treat you worse than Arthur does.”

“Tana, that's not true!” She was instantly outraged.

“No? Then how come you're spending Christmas alone?”

Jean's tongue was quick and sharp. “Because my daughter won't come home.”

Tana wanted to hang up in her face. “Don't lay that trip on me, Mom.”

“Don't talk to me like that. And it's true, isn't it? You want him around so there isn't any responsibility on you. Well, it doesn't always work like that. You may not choose to come home, but you can't pretend it's the right thing to do.”

“I'm in law school, Mom. I'm twenty-two years old. I'm grown up. I can't be there for you all the time anymore.”

“Well, neither can he. And his responsibilities are far more important than yours.” She was crying softly now and Tana shook her head. Her voice was calm when she spoke again.

“He's the one you should be mad at, Mom, not me. I'm sorry I can't be there for you, but I just can't.”

“I understand.”

“No, you don't. And I'm sorry about that, too.”

Jean sighed into the phone. “I guess there's nothing we can do about it now. And I suppose you are doing the right thing.” She sniffed, “But please, sweetheart, don't spend all your time at the hospital. It's too depressing, and you can't do the boy any good. He'll pull out of it on his own.” Her attitude made Tana sick, but she didn't say anything to her.

“Sure, Mom.” They each had their own ideas, and neither of them was going to change anymore. It was hopeless now. They had gone their own ways, and Jean knew it too. She thought of how lucky Arthur was to still have his children around so much of the time. Ann always wanted his help, financially and otherwise, and her husband practically kissed Arthur's feet, and even Billy was living at home. It was wonderful for him, she thought as she hung up. It meant he never really had enough time for her. Between his business obligations, his old friends who had been too close to Marie to accept Jean, according to him anyway, and Billy and Ann, there was scarcely ever any time for her. And yet, there was still something so special between them, and she knew there always would be.

It was worth all the hours she spent alone, waiting for him. At least that was what she told herself, as she straightened her desk and went home to her apartment to stare into Tana's empty room. It looked so painfully neat, so empty and deserted now. So unlike the room she was living in, in Berkeley, where her things were spread all over the floor, as she rapidly gathered her things, desperate to get back to Harry again. She had called the hospital after she and her mother hung up, and they said his fever was up again. He was asleep, and he had just had a shot, but she wanted to get back to him before he woke up again. And as she pulled a comb through her hair, and climbed into her jeans, she thought of the things her mother had said. It was unfair of Jean to blame her loneliness on her. What right did she have to expect Tana to always be there for her? It was her mother's way of absolving Arthur of his responsibilities. For sixteen years she had made excuses for him, to Tana, to herself, to her friends, to the girls at work. How many excuses could one make for the man?

Tana grabbed her jacket off a hook and ran downstairs. It took her half an hour to cross the Bay Bridge on the bus, and another twenty minutes to get to Letterman, peacefully nestled in the Presidio. The traffic was worse than it had been in the past few days, but it was the morning of Christmas Eve, and she had expected it. She tried not to think of her mother as she got off the bus. She could take care of herself at least, better than Harry could right now. That was all she could think about as she went up to his room on the third floor and walked softly inside. He was still asleep, and the curtains were drawn. It was a brilliantly sunny winter day outside, but none of the bright light and cheer entered here. Everything was darkness and silence and gloom. She slipped quietly into a chair next to the bed, and watched his face. He was deep in a heavy, drugged sleep, and he didn't stir for the next two hours, and finally just to move around a little bit, she walked out into the hall, and wandered up and down, trying not to look into rooms, or see the hideous machinery everywhere, the stricken faces of parents coming to see their sons, or what was left of them, the bandages, the half faces, severed limbs. It was almost more than she could stand, and she reached the end of the hall, and took a deep breath, as suddenly she saw a man who literally took her breath away. He was the tallest, most handsome man she had ever seen. Tall, dark-haired, with brilliant blue eyes, a deep tan, broad shoulders, long, almost endless legs, an impeccably cut dark blue suit, and a camel's hair coat tossed over his arm. His shirt was so perfect and creamy white that it looked like something in an ad. Everything about him was beautiful and immaculate and magnificently groomed. He wore a crest ring on his left hand, and a troubled look in his eyes, and he stood watching her for a fraction of an instant, just as she stood watching him.