Chapter 13 #2
“Sometime in early March. We’ll be all moved in the next time you come home.
” It boosted Charlie’s spirits immeasurably, and took a little of the sting out of how badly things had ended with Devon.
He was still sad about it, but tried not to dwell on it.
Adam had stopped asking him, and was sad for Charlie that he hadn’t tackled his issues and tried to make it work.
Charlie had told him that he had called her a few days after Christmas, that she hadn’t returned the call or answered his message, so he left her alone after that.
He was sorry about the portrait too. He had told the board at the bank that they would have to live without a portrait of him.
He didn’t have the heart to do one with anyone else now.
The portrait she would have done would have been a beauty, but it was not meant to be.
He just told the board that the artist had canceled due to a scheduling conflict, and didn’t say why.
He was continuing the role he had promised his father to fulfill as chairman of the board, but he was privately planning to resign by the end of the year.
—
The winds of change were in the air for Charlie.
Two weeks after he found his new home, he got a serious offer from a group in Texas who wanted to buy the startup he had been nurturing and growing for nearly twenty years.
It was the first offer he’d had in a range that made it seriously interesting.
He put all his advisors and money people on it, and even discussed it with Faye, who was still the smartest woman he knew and one of the best heads in venture capital, and she advised him to take it.
The company making the offer was very well-known, solid, and respectable.
“You can’t take it much further than you have.
You’ve grown the company as big as it should get, any bigger and it will be unmanageable.
You can start something new after you sell.
You like taking them from the ground up.
You’re too young to retire—you need a new game to play.
If I were you, I would take the deal and run with the money,” she said, and he laughed.
“You give the best advice in the business,” he said admiringly.
“Thank you. I’m just a shitty wife. It’s not my long suit,” but she liked the idea that they could still be friends.
It was all they had been for years anyway, with the burden of marriage, and none of the advantages.
They were both happier now, as their son had predicted they would be.
Liam was a smart guy too. It had been obvious to everyone for years, except them.
Charlie was glad she had woken up, even if he hadn’t.
But he was pleased with the way things were working out, as long as they could talk to each other and stay friends.
Not all of their financial arrangements had been worked out, but they were getting there.
Adam had suggested that they separate the financial negotiations from the rest so that the divorce could go through, and they wouldn’t get stuck, married for several more years while they worked out the last financial details, and they both liked the idea.
They were ready to be free. The divorce was going to be final at the end of June.
—
Devon’s February did not go as smoothly as Charlie’s.
He had no idea where she was or what had happened to her.
There had been a brief skirmish with the hospital.
They wanted to put her in a rehab center, which was far away on Long Island, with mostly older non-sighted people, but Devon wanted to stay at NYU hospital with her doctors near at hand.
Edward Stone wanted her there too, so he could keep a close eye on her and the medical staff around her.
Since she was a long-term patient and nowhere near able to go home, the administration at NYU wanted to send her to long-term rehab.
Devon had objected, and in the end, the rehab had decided that she still needed too much medical attention, which they did not have the staff at the rehab facility to administer, so she got to stay in her familiar room with the nurses she knew who took such good care of her, and the doctors she liked.
Edward was close friends with the head of the hospital board and was a big donor, so she was secure where she was.
There was no firm date for her departure from the hospital, which Dr. Allen explained to her was good news.
They were still hoping for improvement. Once they discharged her it meant that they had taken her as far in her recovery as she could go.
And the doctor was honest with her—it could take several more months.
He didn’t believe that she was a candidate for surgery, and there were enough minor improvements to lead him to hope that she could still recover, although he didn’t promise it.
She missed being able to go out, and felt cooped up in her room, but they applied ointments and drops, and examined her so many times a day that she was busy all day long, and she chatted with the nurses when they came to check on her.
Edward came to visit her almost every day, and treated her like a daughter, and Devon was so grateful for what they were doing for her that she made a large donation to the hospital too.
They switched her room then to an enormous corner room on the same floor that was only available to large donors and important politicians like the governor or a senator.
The new suite gave her more room to move around.
And every day they tested her vision and nothing significant had changed.
She could still only see light and dark and nothing more.
Her eyes were bandaged most of the time, except when they were checking her, or if they left them off for a while.
There were times that Devon was deeply discouraged.
She missed painting desperately, coupled with the fear that she might never paint again.
The gallery had postponed her February and March commissions, and had given the subjects dates in the fall, without telling them why.
None of them canceled, and they were even more eager to have portraits done by her.
Edward had agreed that they would evaluate the situation month by month.
He didn’t want to reinforce her fear that her career was over by simply canceling commissions.
It just made her future subjects even more eager for their portraits.
The manufacturer of the highly toxic solution that had blinded her was being scrupulously cooperative with Devon’s doctors and the laboratory in trying to pinpoint the range of effects from the solution and to estimate her chances for recovery.
They were hoping to avoid a lawsuit for selling such a dangerous substance without full disclosure of its potential disastrous effects.
There were warnings on the bottle, but not enough, and they had taken the stock they had off the market pending relabeling and further information.
Devon was becoming an important case study under the protective name of Jane Doe.
Edward had tracked down two ophthalmologists at Mass General, who also taught at the Harvard Medical School, who were consulting on her case digitally, and she was now a case study of interest for them too.
Very simply, it all boiled down to whether or not she would see again. Regaining her sight fully had become her only focus and her full-time job.
She thought of Charlie often in quiet moments, and wondered how he was.
She had no way of knowing, but she hoped he was all right and had not disappeared into his shell as a result of his old wounds when he abandoned her.
She realized that she was the wrong partner for him because of her own life experience.
She was too fragile on the subject of abandonment and loss to be with someone who used abandonment as both a shield and a weapon to protect himself.
He had reopened all her old wounds and they were deep, and she suspected that her issues had triggered his.
It was a dangerous combination for them both, and better that he had unhooked from her early and moved on.
But she was sad about it anyway. They had loved each other passionately for a minute and she would always remember their time in East Hampton, Labor Day weekend on his sailboat, and their week of Thanksgiving.
She cherished the memories and part of her would always love him.
She hoped he was happy now, whatever that meant to him.
—
Brandon Yates had come to the gallery to thank Edward Stone personally for the portrait Devon had done of him. He said it was the jewel of his collection of portraits and by far his favorite. “She even did a beautiful job with my dog,” he said, in awe of her talent.
“She’ll be happy to hear it,” Edward said warmly. “She is very proud of that portrait, and she loved working with you.”
“I think she’s fantastic. Such an incredible talent, and we had so much fun.
I’m actually having an unveiling party at my apartment,” Brandon said.
“I know she said she never socializes with her subjects, but do you suppose you could convince her to come? I want her to be the guest of honor. I really adore her, more than any of my leading ladies,” Brandon said seriously, “and she wouldn’t go out with me.
” Edward laughed at that. And he was sure that Brandon had tried hard.
He was very persistent and very sexy, according to the tabloids.
He had few costars he hadn’t slept with.