A Stranger in the Mirror By Sidney Sheldon

Toby was propped up in bed, staring at nothingness. As Jill walked up to him, Toby’s deep blue eyes lit up. They followed Jill, bright and alive, as she approached his bed and looked down at him. His lips moved and some unintelligible sound came out. Tears of frustration began to fill his eyes. Jill remembered Dr. Kaplan’s words, It’s important to understand that his mind is not impaired in any way.

Jill sat down on the edge of the bed. “Toby, I want you to listen to me. You’re going to get out of that bed. You’re going to walk and you’re going to talk.” The tears were running down the sides of his cheeks now. “You’re going to do it,” Jill said. “You’re going to do it for me.”

 

The following morning, Jill fired the nurses, the psysiotherapist and the speech therapist. As soon as he heard the news, Dr. Eli Kaplan hurried over to see Jill.

“I agree with you about the physiotherapist, Jill—but the nurses! Toby has to have someone with him twenty-four hours a—”

“I’ll be with him.”

He shook his head. “You have no idea what you’re letting yourself in for. One person can’t—”

“I’ll call you if I need you.”

She sent him away.

 

The ordeal began.

Jill was going to attempt to do what the doctors had assured her could not be done. The first time she picked Toby up and put him into his wheelchair, it frightened her to feel how weightless he was. She took him downstairs in the elevator that had been installed and began to work with him in the swimming pool, as she had seen the physiotherapist do. But what happened now was different. Where the therapist had been gentle and coaxing, Jill was stern and unrelenting. When Toby tried to speak, signifying that he was tired and could not bear any more, Jill said, “You’re not through. One more time. For me, Toby.”

And she would force him to do it one more time.

And yet again, until he sat mutely crying with exhaustion.

In the afternoon, Jill set to work to teach Toby to speak again. “Ooh…ooooooooh.”

“Ahaaahh…aaaaaaaaagh…”

“No! Oooooooooh. Round your lips, Toby. Make them obey you. Ooooooooh.”

“Aaaaaaaaaah…”

“No goddamn you! You’re going to speak! Now, say it—Oooooooooooh!”

And he would try again.

Jill would feed him each night, and then lie in his bed, holding him in her arms. She drew his useless hands slowly up and down her body, across her breasts and down the soft cleft between her legs. “Feel that, Toby,” she whispered. “That’s all yours, darling. It belongs to you. I want you. I want you to get well so we can make love again. I want you to fuck me, Toby.”

He looked at her with those alive, bright eyes and made incoherent, whimpering sounds.

“Soon, Toby, soon.”

 

Jill was tireless. She discharged the servants because she did not want anyone around. After that, she did all the cooking herself. She ordered her groceries by phone and never left the house. In the beginning, Jill had been kept busy answering the telephones, but the calls had soon dwindled to a trickle, then ceased. Newscasters had stopped giving bulletins on Toby Temple’s condition. The world knew that he was dying. It was just a question of time.

But Jill was not going to let Toby die. If he died, she would die with him.

 

The days blended into one long, endless round of drudgery. Jill was up at six o’clock in the morning. First, she would clean Toby. He was totally incontinent. Even though he wore a catheter and a diaper, he would befoul himself during the night and the bedclothes would sometimes have to be changed, as well as Toby’s pajamas. The stench in the bedroom was almost unbearable. Jill filled a basin with warm water, took a sponge and soft cloth and cleaned the feces and urine from Toby’s body. When he was clean, she dried him off and powdered him, then shaved him and combed his hair.

“There. You look beautiful, Toby. Your fans should see you now. But they’ll see you soon. They’ll fight to get in to see you. The President will be there—everybody will be there to see Toby Temple.”