When Florentyna sat down she was the only person seated. Journalists were to remark the next day that even the cameramen whistled. Florentyna looked down, aware that she had made a favorable impression on the crowd, but she still needed Richard for final confirmation. Mark Twain’s words came back to her: “Sorrow can take care of itself, but to get the true benefit of joy, you must share it.” As Florentyna was led off the stage, the students cheered and waved, but her eyes searched only for Richard. Making her way out of the Tercentenary Yard, she was stopped by dozens of people, but her thoughts remained elsewhere.
Florentyna heard the words “Who will tell her?” while she was trying to listen to a student who was going to Zimbabwe to teach English. She swung around to stare at the troubled face of Matina Horner, the Radcliffe president.
“It’s Richard, isn’t it?” said Florentyna quickly.
“Yes, I’m afraid so. He’s been involved in a car accident.”
“Where is he?”
“In Newton-Wellesley Hospital, about ten miles away. You must leave immediately.”
“How bad it it?”
“Not good, I’m afraid.”
A police escort rushed Florentyna down the Massachusetts Turnpike to the Route 16 exit as she prayed, Let him live. Let him live.
When the police car arrived outside the main entrance of the hospital she ran up the steps. A doctor was waiting for her.
“Senator Kane, I’m Nicholas Eyre, chief of surgery. We need your permission to operate.”
“Why? Why do you need to operate?”
“Your husband has severe head injuries. And it’s our only chance to save him.”
“Can I see him?”
“Yes, of course.” He led her quickly to the emergency room, where Richard lay unconscious beneath a plastic sheet, a tube in his mouth, his skull encased in stained white gauze. Florentyna collapsed onto the bedside chair and stared down at the floor, unable to bear the sight of her injured husband. Would the brain damage be permanent or could he recover?
“What happened?” she asked the surgeon.
“The police aren’t certain, but a witness said your husband veered across the divider on the turnpike for no apparent reason and collided with a tractor-trailer. There seems to have been no mechanical fault with the car he was driving, so they can only conclude he fell asleep at the wheel.”
Florentyna steeled herself to raise her eyes and look again at the man she loved.
“Can we operate, Mrs. Kane?”
“Yes,” said a faint voice that only an hour before had brought thousands of people to their feet. She was led into a corridor and sat alone. A nurse came up: they needed a signature; she scribbled her name. How many times had she done that today?
She sat alone in the corridor, a strange figure in an elegant dress, hunched up on the little wooden chair. She remembered how she had met Richard in Bloomingdale’s when she thought he had fallen for Maisie; how they first made love only moments after their first row and how they had run away and with the help of Bella and Claude she had become Mrs. Kane; the births of William and Annabel; that twenty-dollar bill that fixed the meeting in San Francisco with Gianni; returning to New York as partners to run the Baron and then Lester’s; how he had then made Washington possible; how she had smiled when he played the cello for her; how he laughed when she beat him at golf. She had always wanted to achieve so much for him and he had always been selfless in his love for her. He must live so that she could devote herself to making him well again.
In times of helplessness one suddenly believes in God. Floren
tyna fell on her knees and begged for her husband’s life.
Hours passed before Dr. Eyre returned to her side. Florentyna looked up hopefully.
“Your husband died a few minutes ago, Mrs. Kane” was all the surgeon said.
“Did he say anything to you before he died?” Florentyna asked.
The chief of surgery looked embarrassed.
“Whatever it was my husband said, I should like to know, Dr. Eyre.”
The surgeon hesitated. “All he said, Mrs. Kane, was ‘Tell Jessie I love her.’”
Florentyna bowed her head. The widow knelt alone and prayed.
It was the second funeral of a Kane in Trinity Church in six months. William stood between two Mrs. Kanes dressed in black as the bishop reminded them that in death there is life.
Florentyna sat alone in her room that night and cared no longer for this life. In the hall lay a package marked: “Fragile, Sotheby Parke Bernet, contents one cello, Stradivarius.”
William accompanied his mother back to Washington on Monday. The news magazines at the stand at Logan Airport were ablaze with cover headlines from Florentyna’s speech. She didn’t even notice.
William remained at the Baron with his mother for three days until she sent him back to his wife. For hours Florentyna would sit alone in a room full of Richard’s past. His cello, his photographs, even the last unfinished game of backgammon.
Florentyna began to arrive at the Senate in midmorning. Janet couldn’t get her to answer her mail except for the hundreds of letters and telegrams expressing sorrow at Richard’s death. She failed to show up at committee meetings and forgot appointments with people who had traveled great distances to see her. On one occasion she missed presiding over the Senate—a chore senators took in turn when the Vice President was absent—for a defense debate. Even her most ardent admirers doubted if she would ever fully regain her impetuous enthusiasm for politics.
As the weeks turned into months, Florentyna began to lose her best staffers, who feared she no longer had the ambition for herself that they had once had for her. Complaints from her constituents, low-key for the first few months after Richard’s death, now turned to an angry rumble, but still Florentyna went aimlessly about her daily routine. Senator Brooks quite openly suggested an early retirement for the good of the party, and continued to voice this opinion in the smoke-filled rooms of Illinois’s political headquarters. Florentyna’s name began to disappear from the White House guest lists and she was no longer at the cocktail parties held by Mrs. John Sherman Cooper, Mrs. Lloyd Kreegar or Mrs. George Renchard.