Chapter 12 #3
“I was going to cancel it anyway, and yes, I do know him. I don’t think he would have been happy with the portrait.
He had something different in mind,” she said vaguely.
She didn’t want Charlie to find out what had happened to her, and to come back out of pity.
He had closed the door on her firmly, and she wasn’t going to open it, or play the sympathy card.
She didn’t want to appear pathetic. Charlie was out of her life for good.
Edward spoke to her calmly. He could see how upset she was, which was understandable.
He was just praying that the chemicals wouldn’t have lasting effects.
People had been blinded by less, and in her case it would be a tragedy, and she didn’t deserve to have this happen to her.
She was the sweetest person he knew, and he was well aware of her personal history.
This was one blow too many. It would be an unbearable end to the story.
Edward stayed for an hour and he found her keys in her purse. He said he’d have her bag dropped off later by his driver. Her nurse could get her organized. And she reminded him before he left to look at Brandon’s portrait when he went to her apartment.
He called her from her place when he got there.
“Oh my God, Devon, it’s fantastic. It’s a total fantasy.”
“It was his fantasy, and I was nervous about it at first, but I went with it, and we both love the result. Even the dog looks fabulous.”
“Where did you get the miniature armor, or did you just make that up?”
“No, I brought it from Paris.”
“It’s the perfect little twist and eye-catcher, to balance the composition.
” There was always some special little object or quirk in Devon’s paintings, something that was meaningful to the subject or to her, that added her special touch to the painting.
Edward had cried when he saw it, fearing it could be her last. He couldn’t bear to think it, and he refused to believe it.
He had called Dr. Allen on the way to the apartment, and the doctor also had said that there was the possibility that she could remain blind, but they had no way of knowing yet, and he was hoping that wouldn’t happen.
With a grade III alkali injury it was also possible she would recover her sight.
Edward had told the doctor that she was one of the most important contemporary portrait artists in the country, possibly the world, and they had to do everything humanly possible to save her sight, and the doctor had assured Edward they would.
They already were, with the ongoing flushing and the ointments they were planning to start that night.
The most important thing was that she had gotten there quickly after the injury, and the paramedics had flushed her eyes vigorously.
What remained to be seen was how much damage the chemicals had done and if it could be reversed or not.
The nurse Edward had hired from a private registry was a pleasant upbeat Irishwoman, who helped Devon take a shower, brushed her hair for her, and helped her get dressed.
She tucked Devon’s arm into hers and got her to walk down the hall to get some exercise.
Edward had sent Devon’s laptop along with her clothes and an iPad, and the nurse put some music on for her, and got Devon to take a nap.
She had been through an enormous trauma, and she needed to calm down and rest. She was still taking strong pain medicine, which wore her out too.
She had been through a lot in the past twenty-four hours.
And her private nurse on the second shift was just as nice.
She was from Martinique, so Devon spoke to her in French, which was comforting too, and reminded her of her grandmother and Jean-Louis.
She dreamed of him while she was sleeping, and had woken up in tears.
She had told him she was blind and Axel was in the dream too.
Dr. Allen came back to see her that evening, and Dr. Lovato had checked on her before she left.
They were extremely attentive. Edward had seen to it that everyone knew she was to get VIP treatment, and the best medical care possible.
Edward came back to see her that night himself to make sure that everything was going smoothly.
And everyone at the gallery had sent her their love.
Tom Kingsley had called her to wish her well.
The troops were rallying around her but nothing had changed with her eyes.
She was still engulfed in total darkness, but with so many people being kind to her, she felt less panicked than she had at first. But she was still in a great deal of pain.
—
Charlie had contacted a realtor that day, the same one he had used to list his father’s house, which was currently in escrow.
He listed the house in Atherton, and told the realtor he was looking for a smaller house in the same area, suitable for him and his son.
He wanted comfort and space, without being as vast as the house he was selling, and a pool if possible, he said, remembering Liam’s request.
He had a busy day starting to get the divorce rolling, and listing the house.
And at the end of it, he sat quietly in the library he used as an office at home.
He missed Devon unbearably and wanted to tell her he was getting divorced.
He took out his cell phone and stared at it for a long time, and finally called her number.
She was likely asleep when he called and it went to voicemail.
Or she had opted not to take his call. He couldn’t blame her.
It had been just over a month since he’d seen her and never contacted her again, and ignored all her calls and messages.
He assumed that her not taking his call was her final message to him to leave her alone.
When he got his check from the gallery by FedEx the next day, with a formal letter, it had the ring of finality to it.
The Kingsley Stone Gallery informed him that the artist had canceled his commission, feeling that the portrait requested would not be a successful collaboration, and thought it wisest not to proceed, hence the return of his payment in full.
The letter was signed by Edward Stone. Charlie wasn’t surprised but it hurt anyway.
It was all the consequence of his shabby treatment of her, which he fully recognized.
Her not taking his call, canceling the portrait, and returning his check said it all.
She had severed any connection to him. He had been afraid of losing her if he became too attached to her, but he was attached to her anyway, and had lost her just as surely.
He felt the same agonizing tearing of his soul that she had been feeling for the past month.
Until then, he had had the option to reach out to her if he was brave enough.
Now he knew that door had closed, and she wouldn’t open it to him again.
It was a searing pain and felt like a death.
—
When Devon woke up, after taking her painkillers, her nurse told her there had been a missed call while she was sleeping and read the number to her.
Devon recognized it as Charlie’s number immediately.
She thought of returning the call. But what could she say to him?
That she was blind now and might never see again and her career might be over?
That she still loved him, but refused to be a burden to him?
Or that she was terrified and in pain and he had broken her heart?
There was nothing she could say that didn’t sound pathetic, so she said nothing, just as he had, and didn’t return the call.
It really was over now, and had to be forever.
There was no turning back from the path he had set them on.
If he had continued their relationship after Thanksgiving, she would have dreaded being a burden to him, but he would have been there and they would have faced it together.
But now she had to face the fact that he didn’t want her, he had abandoned her, whatever the reason, she was alone, and he was out of her life forever.
And if she was going to be blind, she thought that maybe it was just as well that he had been spared.
—
They removed the flushing device that night and began the application of antibiotic and steroid ointments into her eyes, repeating the treatment at frequent intervals.
After a week, there was the first slight sign of improvement, as she could see light and dark now.
She couldn’t see shapes, just as it had happened right after the accident, but she could see light.
It was the first hopeful sign since the accident, and she cried when the first glimmers of light and shadows appeared.
And Edward cried when she called the gallery and told him.
He had come every day. Brandon Yates’s painting was dry and had been delivered by then, and he was ecstatic.
They didn’t tell him what had happened to her.
They didn’t want anyone to know or for the art world to get wind of it.
Devon’s blindness was being kept a carefully guarded secret except to the gallery owners and staff, and they had kept it out of the press and social media.
—
For the next month, Devon’s world became as small and dark as her vision, trying new medicines, following new protocols, having consultations.
Dr. Allen tried an experimental treatment for a few days, but Devon was allergic to it, so they returned to the original protocols.
The doctors had a conference call with the product’s manufacturer, who admitted that permanent blindness could occur from an accident like Devon’s, with direct contact.
No one knew for certain if the toxic effects of the chemicals could be reversed.
It was impossible to know which would be true for Devon—restoration of her sight, or blindness, or severely impaired vision.
All they could do was to continue her treatment of antibiotics and steroids and hope for the best.
Devon had days of dark depression, and moments of hope.
There were weeks of treatment with only slight improvement, and the occasional breakthrough that led everyone on her team to hope and pray that she would see again one day, and even paint.
There was no way to say which way it would go.
She had gotten very adept at getting around her hospital room without assistance.
She could even get around the hospital with one of her nurses, but for now, she was still blind, and the little glimmers of light that she saw were very small.
And with each passing week, hope of her recovery was waning.
The treatments she had to endure were painful, but she was very brave.
They anesthetized her eyes at times to measure the pressure to see how affected her corneas were and to check for glaucoma.
Surgery was a possibility if the treatments didn’t work, but there was no guarantee that surgery would be effective, if she remained totally blind.
She sat at the window, listening to the street noises and trying to identify what they were.
She noticed that her hearing had become more acute, and found that she could hear voices from a great distance and discern what they were saying.
She recognized each of the nurses’ footsteps, and knew who they were before they spoke.
All of her senses were heightened, and she lay in bed at night, wide-awake, overwhelmed by anxiety and fear for her future.
What was to become of her if she remained fully blind?
Who would take care of her, and how would she be able to take care of herself?
She knew that others did it, but how would she live without being able to paint?
She had visions in her mind of things she had seen and still wanted to paint.
She would rather have lost a limb than her eyes.
She could have painted from a wheelchair, but there was nothing she could do without her sight.
She had lost so many people she loved in the course of her lifetime, and now she had lost herself.
A psychiatrist came to see her every few days, and there was talk of eventually moving her to a rehabilitation center for the sight-impaired, if there was no improvement.
Once they moved her there, she knew they would have given up on her and expected her to adjust to her situation.
She didn’t want to adjust to it, she wanted to fight and do everything she could to get her sight back.
But by the end of January, she was sinking into a deep depression, and she was losing hope. Nothing had changed.