The next morning, Véronique took another step into real life. Bernard had left her some cash in case she needed it, which she hadn’t so far. She asked one of the younger nurses to buy some clothes for her, some jeans and a sweater and a pair of sneakers. She had no clothes to go home in. She asked for a bag for her toiletries, and a purse of some kind. She hadn’t thought about clothes to wear for months, and lived in hospital gowns and pajamas, with paper slippers.
At Véronique’s request, Bernard had had her mother’s secretary empty her apartment in the seventh, put the furniture in storage, and send everything else in boxes to her mother’s apartment. Her apartment was for sale, and everything she owned was now at her mother’s. She would have to go through all of it, and her mother’s clothes and papers, when she went home. At least it would give her something to do for a while.
Dr. Verbier, her main psychiatrist, questioned her about it that afternoon. With her release from the hospital weeks away, the sessions had gotten more intense, about her plans. Who she was going to see, where she would live, if she had contacted any friends, how she was going to occupy her time.
“How do you feel about going to live in your mother’s apartment?” the doctor asked her.
“It’s what I want to do,” Véronique said quietly. She didn’t want to have to justify it. “I grew up there. I’m selling my apartment, it’s on the market now.” She wasn’t attached to it and had no need for it anymore.
“It will be hard for you, Véronique, being in the place where your mother lived, without her now.”
“I own the apartment,” Véronique said, eager to get off the subject.
“It will be filled with memories, and all of her belongings.” She knew it would be hard, but it would be comforting too. A part of her fantasized that her mother would be there when she got home. It was still hard to believe that she wouldn’t be.
She still had her mother’s memorial service and burial to arrange. Bernard was keeping her mother’s ashes for her, in the office safe.
“Have you thought about what you’re going to do when you get home, for work?” Dr. Verbier asked her. She was embarrassed to admit that, thanks to her mother and her own earnings set aside, she had the luxury of not working for a while. The doctor was well aware that she had been a highly successful model, and would have to choose a new career now. Véronique had nothing but change to adjust to when she got home. No part of her previous life was still intact. All of the psychiatric staff had discussed her case, and were concerned that she could be a suicide risk, but Dr. Verbier was fairly sure she wasn’t. But there was no question in her mind, Véronique’s re-entry after the hospital would be a tremendous adjustment, and she was liable to have a hard time with it. She had to find a whole new direction for her life. Véronique was tired of talking to them about it. She felt ready to go home, no matter how challenging it was.
She had another project she wanted to pursue, and asked Bernard to send her a laptop so she could start even before she left the hospital. She started working on it as soon as the laptop arrived. She wanted to research her father, and read everything about him. She wanted to see what kind of man he was.
She found all the information about him that she wanted, and discovered that he had retired in June, shortly after he lost his wife. Marie-Helene had died in March, and Florence Hayes a month later. Bill Hayes was retired now. He had given up his Senate seat due to ill health, one report said.
She read everything she could about him, from his voting record to the failed presidential campaign many years earlier when he had been the vice presidential candidate. She thought about how strange it would have been if her father had been the president of the United States. But his political ambitions seemed to have cooled a little after they lost the election. He won his Senate seat then, and had had a highly respected career. She couldn’t help wondering if he had ever regretted letting Marie-Helene get away, if his senatorial career had been worth losing the woman he loved, and who had loved him so deeply.
He looked handsome in the photographs she saw on the Internet. There were several of them with his wife and children during his campaigns, and she felt sorry for her mother again when she saw them. She wondered if her mother had followed him online, or if it would have been too painful to do so. She wasn’t a woman who cried about the past. She had always been energetic, optimistic, and forward thinking, and had never expressed any regrets to her daughter, even in her final letter.