Remembrance

“No, if it's any of your damn business. And I'm not here to discuss Serena. I'm here to talk about Vanessa, and why the hell your wife got temporary custody of that child.”

“She wants to adopt her.” Greg sounded totally without interest in the matter, and inwardly Teddy raged.

“That's totally crazy. She doesn't love her.”

“So what, for chrissake? What the hell difference does love make? Do you think our mother loved us? Shit, who knows and who cares.”

“Greg.” Teddy leaned forward and grabbed his arm before he had time to pour another drink. “Tell the courts you don't want her. Please. The child is miserable with you and Partie. I'm sorry to be so blunt about it, but all you have to do is look at her. She's dying inside. She doesn't ever see you, she's ill at ease with Pattie. You can't keep her in that household like a prisoner, for chrissake.…” Teddy's eyes welled up with tears and his brother freed his arm and poured himself another drink.

“So we'll buy her some toys.”

“Toys!” Teddy jumped to his feet. “Toys! The child has no father, her mother was just murdered, she has seen her baby sister probably for the last time, and you want to buy her toys. Don't you know what that child needs?”

Greg stared at him in annoyance. “She'll have everything she needs, Teddy. Now, for chrissake, forget about it. You can come to see her when you want to. If you want kids so damn much, get married and have some yourself. Pattie and I can't.”

“But you don't want children. And it isn't a question of that, dammit. It's a question of what's right for the child.”

“If you don't like it”—Greg got up and strolled the room, and Teddy saw that he was already unsteady on his feet as he glanced over his shoulder—”then take it back to court. They knew what they were doing. They gave the other kid to the Greeks, they gave Brad's kid to us. You don't have a wife, Ted. The kid needs a home with a man and a woman. You can't bring up a child as a bachelor.”

“Why not? If your wife dies, what do you do, put your children up for adoption?”

“She was never your wife.”

“That's not the point.”

“Yes, it is.” Greg returned to face him. “I think that is the point. You were always in love with that sexy Italian broad Brad married. You hated Partie, and now you want to rock the boat for me again.”

Teddy looked stunned. “When did I ever rock your boat?”

“Shit.” Greg snorted and tossed off the last of his drink. “When didn't you? Everything you ever did Dad thought was terrific. You were Mom's baby, and Brad was the star. Every time I started to get their attention, you'd come along and play baby face and fuck up the whole thing.” He looked petulantly at his younger brother. “I had it up to here with you years ago”—he indicated a line near his eyebrows—”and now you want to make trouble for me with my wife. That woman hasn't got off my back for one thing or another since the day we got married, and if this is what she wants, this is what she gets. I'm sure as hell not going to side with you and make her give the kid back. She'd drive me nuts, so forget it. Just forget it.” He glared at his brother and poured his third drink in half an hour. “Get the message, buddy? Fuck off!”

Teddy stood there watching him for half a minute, almost detachedly wondering how soon he would die of cirrhosis, and then without another word he turned on his heel and left. His next stop that morning was to his mother, but his results with her were no better than they had been with Greg.

“It's ridiculous.” Her face had begun to wrinkle badly, but she was still beautiful, and her hair was still the same thick snowy white. “That child doesn't belong in this family. She never did. And now she doesn't belong with you, or Greg or Pattie. They should send her back to those Greeks where she belongs. Let them have her.”

“Christ, you never change do you?” He felt heartsick that no one would help him. He desperately wanted to have Vanessa, because he loved her, and because in a way she was an extension of Serena. But it was precisely that that made his mother hate her. And the fact that she was Brad's that made Pattie want her. “They'll destroy that child. You know that, don't you?”

“That's not my problem, or yours.”

“The hell it's not. She's your grandchild and my niece.”

“She's the daughter of a whore.” Her voice was vicious and quiet.

“God damn you!” Teddy's eyes filled with tears and he made a gesture as though he might slap his mother, but the violence of his own emotions shocked him, and he turned away, trembling.

“Are you quite finished now?” He didn't answer. “I suggest you leave and don't come back here until you've regained your senses. Your unreasoning passion for that woman has clearly affected your mind. Good afternoon, Teddy.”

He left without saying another word and the door closed quietly behind him.

48

The first hearing of the appeal seemed to take forever. It began the week after Christmas and droned on for almost two weeks. Teddy and his attorney presented every kind of evidence they could think of, Pattie and Greg brought out all of Pattie's friends to testify as to how fond they had been of Brad and how much they wanted his daughter. They claimed that Serena had been jealous and that was why they had never been “allowed” to see the child. Their testimony was heavily laced with pure fabrication, and doggedly Teddy attempted to convince the court that his home was the right place for the child. He promised to buy a larger place, to only tend to his practice four days a week, to hire a female housekeeper and a nurse for the child. He brought out people who had seen him over the years with Vanessa. All to no avail, it seemed. And on the last day of testimony the judge requested that they bring forth the child. She was too young to have any say in the matter, but the court wanted to hear her answer some questions. In a little pleated gray skirt and white blouse, shiny Mary Janes and white socks, her shining blond hair in braids, she was led forward by a matron and seated on the stand. Teddy's mother was watching the proceedings as well, but she had taken the stand for no one. She was merely watching, and most of all she had kept an eye on Greg. Miraculously he had stayed sober for all of the court proceedings, and she had pointed out frequently to Teddy that if he were truly an alcoholic he wouldn't have been able to do that. And Teddy said that wasn't true. As it was, they all knew that within ten minutes of leaving the courtroom he was usually too drunk to get out of the car. But that was just tension, his mother insisted. Teddy didn't choose to argue the point, although he had had his lawyer suggest to the court that Mr. Gregory Fullerton had a problem with alcohol. His wife denied it, under oath, on the stand, and the family doctor was so evasive and protective of privileged information, that Teddy ended up looking like a fool for the accusation.

When Vanessa was called, she sat as she always did now, her feet planted on the floor, her arms hanging down beside her, her eyes staring straight ahead. Teddy was never allowed to be alone with her anymore, but he had had the impression for months that she was slipping more and more into herself. Her eyes seemed glazed and the child who had been so full of life and her mother's magic was listless, but he could never talk with her long enough to pull her back.

The judge looked at her for a moment before beginning. He didn't want either of the attorneys asking her questions. They had already agreed to let the judge handle the questions, and both sides would attempt to be satisfied with that. But she seemed not to hear the judge at first when he spoke to her, and then finally she turned her face up toward where he sat when she heard her name.

“Vanessa?” His voice was gruff but his eyes were kind. He was a big man and he had grandchildren, and he felt for this child with the bleak gray eyes. They looked like dead fields in winter, and he suddenly wanted to take her into his arms. “Do you understand why you're here?” She nodded in silence, her eyes wide. “Can you tell us why?”

“Because Uncle Teddy wants me to come and live with him.” She glanced at him, but she looked more frightened than pleased. She was frightened by the entire proceeding. It reminded her of something else, but she wasn't sure what. She just knew it hadn't been pleasant, and neither was this.

“Are you fond of your uncle Teddy, dear?” She nodded, and this time she smiled.

“He always comes to help me. And we play good games.” The judge nodded.

“When you say that he comes to help you, what do you mean?”

“Like if something bad happens.” She began to look more animated than she had. “Like once, when …” She began to look troubled and very faraway. “… when my mommy was sick … he came to us … I don't remember …” She looked up vaguely, as though she had forgotten the story, and Teddy narrowed his eyes as he watched her. She had been referring to when Serena was giving birth to Charlotte. But had Vanessa really forgotten, or was she afraid to tell the story? He didn't understand. “I don't remember.” She began to look glazed again and sat in the chair staring at her hands.

“It's all right, dear. Do you think you might like living with your uncle Teddy?” She nodded and her eyes searched him out, but there was so little emotion in her face that it was frightening. She looked as though when Serena had died she had died too. “Are you happy in the home of your aunt and uncle now?” She nodded again. “Do they treat you well?”

She nodded and looked at him sadly. “They buy me a lot of dolls.”

“That's nice. Are you close to your aunt, Mrs. Fullerton?”

For a long time Vanessa didn't answer and then she shrugged. “Yes.”

He felt so sorry for the child, she looked so broken and so lonely. It was obvious that she needed a mother to comfort her. A man just wouldn't be enough. “Do you miss your mother and sister very much?” He said it very gently, as though he really cared, but Vanessa looked up at him in surprise.

“I don't have a sister.” She looked blank.

“But you did of course … I meant …” He looked a little confused and Vanessa stared at him.

“I never had a sister. My daddy died in the war when I was three and a half.” She said it as though she were reciting, and where Teddy sat a light dawned in his eyes. He was the first to understand, as Vanessa went on. “And I didn't have any brothers and sisters when he died.”

“But when your mother remarried—” The judge persisted with a puzzled frown, and Vanessa shook her little head.

“My mother never remarried.”

With this, the judge began to look annoyed, and Teddy whispered something to his attorney who signaled the judge, but he was silenced. “Vanessa, your mother remarried a man named —” But before he could continue, Teddy's lawyer hastened toward the bench. The judge was about to reprimand him, when he whispered urgently to the judge, who raised his eyebrows, looked thoughtful for a moment, and then signaled Teddy to the bench. There was a moment's whispered conference, during which the judge looked both chagrined and worried. He nodded then, and Teddy and the attorney went back to their seats. “Vanessa,” the judge went on more slowly, watching the child carefully as he spoke, “I'd like to ask you some questions about your mommy. What do you remember about her?”

“That she was very beautiful.” Vanessa said it softly and looked as though she were in a dream. “And she made me very happy.”

“Where did you live with her?”

“In New York.”

“Did you ever live anywhere else with her?”

Vanessa thought for a moment, began to shake her head, and then seemed to remember. “San Francisco. Before my daddy died.”

“I see.” Now the other attorney was beginning to glance strangely both at Vanessa and the judge, but he signaled him to remain silent. “You never lived anywhere else?” She shook her head. “Have you ever been to London, Vanessa?” She thought about it for a minute and shook her head.

“No.”

“Did your mommy ever remarry?”

Vanessa began to squirm and look uncomfortable in her seat, and everyone in the courtroom felt for her. She began to play with her braids and her voice cracked. “No.”

“She had no other children?”

The eyes glazed over again. “No.”

And then the shocker. “How did your mommy die, Vanessa?” The whole courtroom was stunned into silence and Vanessa only sat there, staring straight ahead. At last, in a wisp of a voice, she spoke. “I don't remember. I think she got sick. In a hospital… I don't remember … Uncle Teddy came … and she died. She got sick.…” She began sobbing. “That's what they told me.…”

The judge looked appalled, and he reached down and stroked her hair. “I only have one more question, Vanessa.” She went on crying, but she looked up at him at last. “Are you telling me the truth?” She nodded and sniffed. “Do you promise?”

She spoke in a brave little voice with those two shattered eyes. “Yes.” And it was obvious that she thought she was.

“Thank you.” He signaled for the matron then to take her away and Teddy longed to go to her, but he knew that he couldn't. The door closed behind her, and the courtroom exploded into a hubbub of chatter as the judge pounded his gavel and literally roared at both lawyers. “Why didn't anyone tell me the child was disturbed?” Pattie was put on the stand and insisted that she didn't know it, that she hadn't dared to discuss the murder with Vanessa before. But there was something about the way she testified that told Teddy she was lying. She knew how disturbed Vanessa was, but she didn't give a damn about her, Vanessa was an object—or worse, a prisoner of war. Teddy insisted that he was never allowed enough time with the child to determine anything, although he had begun to suspect it from little things that she said. The hearing was postponed pending further investigation. A psychiatrist was assigned to get a full evaluation of Vanessa before any further decisions were made. Meanwhile the story had leaked to the press and it was all over the headlines that the granddaughter of the Fullertons, and the daughter of the internationally known model, was allegedly “catatonic” after witnessing the murder of her mother, at the hands of Greek-English playboy Vasili Arbus. It went on to discuss Vasili's other wives, the fact that he had been spirited out of the country and was currently in a sanatorium in the Swiss Alps. And the article further explained that Vanessa was now the object of a custody fight between both of her father's surviving brothers: Greg Fullerton, head of the family law firm, and “socialite Surgeon,” Dr. Theodore Fullerton. The articles every day were awful, and eventually Vanessa had to be taken out of school. Before that, some effort had been made to maintain normalcy for her, but she had followed almost nothing in her classes, and much of the time she hadn't gone at all.

The psychiatrist took a full week to come to his conclusions. Vanessa waited in the judge's chamber as the doctor's testimony was given. The child was in a state of severe shock, suffering from depression, and had partial amnesia. She knew who she was, and remembered her life clearly up until the point at which her mother had married Vasili Arbus. In effect she had totally blocked out the last year and a half, and she had repressed it so severely that the doctor had no idea when she would be aware of the truth, if ever. She had some recollection of her mother being extremely ill, and it was, as Teddy had suspected, her memory of her mother in the hospital in London that had conveniently surfaced, but she did not recall that it had happened in London or that the reason for the “sickness” was that her mother was in labor. Along with all memory of Vasili, the memory of the baby she had loved so much, tiny Charlie, had vanished. She had repressed it all to avoid the agony it had brought her.

She was not crazy, the doctor insisted. In fact in some ways what she had done was healthy, for a time. She had cut out the part of her life that was so painful to her, and buried it. It had happened unconsciously, possibly moments after her mother's death or, as the psychiatrist and Teddy both suspected, at the moment when the baby had been taken from her and given to Andreas Arbus in court. It had been at that moment in time that it had all become too much for her. And she hadn't been the same since. She would recover, the psychiatrist felt certain, but whether she would ever remember the truth was a question he could not answer. If she did, it could come upon her at any time, in a month, in a year, in a lifetime. If she didn't, in some way the unresolved pain would always haunt her. He advocated psychiatric treatment for a time, to see if the memories would surface. He insisted though that she should not be pushed or prodded, that the way her mother had died should not be told to her. She should be left alone with her forgotten memories, and if they came of their own, it was all to the good. If they wouldn't come, she should be allowed to keep them buried. It was a bit like living with a time bomb, because one day they would probably surface, and it was impossible to say when. He hoped, he explained to the court and all of the parties involved, that when the child felt more secure again, her presently traumatized psyche would relax enough to allow her to deal with the truth. It would have to be dealt with, he said sadly. One day. If not, it would severely damage the child.

The judge inquired whether the doctor felt that she was in particular need of a mother figure, or if he thought that she would fare as well without.

“Absolutely not,” the doctor exploded. “Without a woman to relate to, that child will never come out of her shell. She needs a mother's love.” The judge pursed his lips then, and Teddy waited, and half an hour later the decision was announced. Permanent custody was to be granted to Greg and Partie. Greg looked relieved as he left the court, and Pattie was elated. She didn't even look at Teddy, as she forced Vanessa to walk ahead of her. The child walked like a machine, without looking, seeing, feeling. Teddy didn't even dare reach out to touch her. He couldn't bear it. And as he walked slowly down the steps in the chill air, his mother came up beside him.

“I'm sorry, Teddy.” Her voice was husky and he turned to her with angry eyes.

“No, you're not. You could have helped me, and you didn't. Instead you've left her to those two.” He indicated the limousine pulling away from the curb, carrying Vanessa back to their apartment.

“They won't do her any harm her mother didn't already do. And you'll see enough of her.” He said nothing, but walked away from her as quickly as he could.

He sat home alone that night, in his darkened rooms, staring out into the night. It had begun snowing. And tonight he planned to be just like his brother. He had taken out a full bottle of Scotch when he got home, and he planned to drink it all before morning. He was halfway into it when the doorbell rang, and he ignored it. There was no one he wanted to see now and his lights weren't on, so no one could know he was home, but after the bell rang for almost fifteen minutes, someone began banging on the door. They pounded repeatedly and finally he heard muffled shouts of “Uncle Teddy.” Startled, he put his glass down, jumped to his feet, ran to the door, and pulled it open, and there she was. Vanessa, carrying a paper bag in one hand and an old doll he had given her years before in the other.

“What are you doing here?”

She said absolutely nothing for a minute, and suddenly she looked afraid. “I ran away.”

He wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry as he looked at her. They were both standing in the light from the hallway. And self-consciously, he flicked on the lights in his apartment. “Come on in and we'll talk about it.” He knew however, that there was nothing to talk about. He would have to take her back as soon as they had discussed it.

As though reading his thoughts, she braced herself stubbornly in the hall. “I won't go back.”

“Why not?”

“He's drunk again, and she hates me.”

“Vanessa,” he sighed tiredly, and wished he hadn't drunk the half bottle of Scotch before she'd got there. He wasn't thinking as clearly as he should, and he was so damn glad to see her. “She doesn't hate you. She wouldn't have fought so hard to get you if she hated you.”

“She just wants me like a thing.” Vanessa sounded angry. “Like all those clothes she buys, and the crystal stuff on the coffee table and the dolls she buys me. It's just stuff. That's all I am to her. More stuff.” Teddy knew that she was absolutely right but he couldn't say so. “And I hate them.”

“Don't.” He knew she was going to have to live with them for a long, long time. The court had ruled.

“I won't go back there.” She glared at him and he sighed as he flicked on the lights.

“Vanessa, you have to.”

“I won't.”

“Come on, let's talk this over.” He was feeling a little unsteady on his feet and it was a welcome relief to sit down with her.

But Vanessa looked as stubborn as the proverbial mule. “I won't go back to them, no matter what.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “Will you please be reasonable, for chrissake? There's nothing we can do. You can't live with me if the court gave them custody.”

“Then I'll just keep running away, and they'll send me away to school.”

He smiled sadly. “They wouldn't do that.”

“Yes, they would.” Vanessa looked matter-of-fact. “She said so.”

“Jesus Christ.” For this they took her away from him? To threaten her with boarding school. “Look, nobody is going to send you anywhere, Vanessa. But you can't stay here.”

“Just for tonight?” The eyes were so big and sad that he melted and reached out his arms to her with a smile.

“Oh, princess, how did all of this happen to us?”

There were tears in her eyes when she turned her little face up to his, and once again he saw the face of his brother in this small child. “Why did Mommy have to die, Uncle Teddy? It's so unfair.”

“Yes.” He could barely speak as he thought of her. “It is.”

“Oh, please,” she said, clinging to him, her little hands warm against his shirt, “don't make me leave you. Just for tonight?”

He sighed, feeling suddenly very, very sober, and then he nodded. “All right. Just for tonight.” But he never got a chance to call Greg and Partie. Pattie called him before he could get up to call. He reached for the phone, and she shrieked at him instantly.

“Is she there?”

“Vanessa?” His voice was strangely calm. “Yes.”

“God damn it, Teddy, bring her back here! The court gave her to us, now she's ours!” Like a vegetable, or a suitcase. The very thought chilled him.

“I'll bring her back to you in the morning.”

“I want her now!” Pattie was strident, and Teddy's eyes began to blaze.

“She wants to spend the night.”

“Never mind what she wants. She's ours now, she's to do as I say. I'm coming over to get her.”

“I wouldn't do that if I were you.” His voice was smooth as velvet, but it had an edge of steel. “I told you, I'll bring her back to you in the morning. She can sleep here.”

“No, she can't. You heard what the judge said. It's unsuitable, you're a bachelor. She is not allowed to spend the night at your house,” Pattie said archly. “I want her home right away.”

“Well, she's not coming. I'll see you in the morning.”

But what he saw in the morning was not Pattie, but the police. They arrived just as he was making breakfast for Vanessa. The doorbell rang, an officer asked if he was Theodore Fullerton, he said that he was, he was told that he was under arrest, handcuffs were clapped on him, and in front of Vanessa's horrified eyes he was led away. Another officer turned off the fire under the breakfast and gently told Vanessa to get her things. For a minute she started to get hysterical and looked around her frantically.… There was something about the uniforms … the police … she couldn't place it but they terrified her.… She grabbed her doll and ran for the door, looking for Teddy. But when she got downstairs, accompanied by the other officer, the car carrying Teddy to the station had already pulled away. Vanessa was driven back to Greg and Pattie's apartment, where she was returned to Pattie with a kind word and a smile.

At the exact same moment Teddy was downtown at the station, being booked for kidnapping. Pattie had brought charges against him during the night. Bail was set at fifteen thousand dollars, an extortionate amount, and a hearing was set in front of the very same judge the next day.

The next morning, looking unshaved and exhausted, Teddy was led into court, the handcuffs were removed, and the judge glared at him for several minutes before clearing the court. He ordered everyone out of his courtroom, especially the reporters—the headlines that morning had been bad enough: SOCIALITE SURGEON KIDNAPS NIECE. There was even some subtle intimation in the piece that, given his passionate interest in her, perhaps Vanessa was his child and not Brad's.

“Well, Doctor Fullerton, I can't say that I'm pleased to see you here again. What exactly do you have to say about all this? Off the record, just for the information of the court.”

“I didn't kidnap her, your honor. She arrived at my door.”

The judge looked troubled. “Had you told her to do that?”

“Of course not.”

“Did she give you a reason?”

“Yes.” He decided to be honest. He had nothing to lose now. “She hates my brother and his wife.”

“That's not possible, she said nothing about that in my courtroom.”

“Ask her again.”

The judge looked angry. “Have you primed her?”

“I have not.” Teddy's eyes flashed. “My sister-in-law is already threatening to send her to boarding school, that's how much they love her, your honor. If I do say so myself—he looked chagrined as he smiled ruefully at the judge—”you made a very poor choice.”

The judge looked anything but pleased with Teddy's comment. “She's a very disturbed child, Doctor. You know that. She needs a normal household with a mother and a father. As much as you may love her, you are only a man.”

Teddy sighed. “My sister-in-law doesn't have a maternal bone in her body, your honor, she hated Vanessa's mother with a passion. Vanessa's father jilted her for the child's mother. In a way I think Pattie—Mrs. Fullerton—wants to get even. She wants to finally ‘take possession’ of his child at all costs, to prove something. She doesn't love Vanessa, your honor. She doesn't even know the child.”

“Is it true that the child's mother hated Mrs. Fullerton?”

“I don't think so. I think the hatred was all on Mrs. Pattie Fullerton's end. She was wildly jealous of Serena.”

“Poor woman.…” He thought of Serena and shook his head. “And your brother Gregory?” The judge looked mournful, it was the worst case he'd had in years, there seemed to be no right solution for Vanessa. “Is he fond of the child?”

“Your honor,” Teddy sighed, “my brother is an alcoholic. In my opinion he's in the very last stages of it. Not a very pretty scene for Vanessa to see, or anyone else for that matter.”

The judge shook his head and sat back heavily in his chair with a sigh. “Well, I've got kidnapping charges on you to deal with, and it looks like I should reopen the case on your niece.…” He looked as miserable as Teddy. “I'm going to do something very unusual, Doctor. I'm going to give you thirty days in jail for the alleged kidnapping of your niece after my verdict. You may request a trial on the matter if you wish, but I'm not going to charge you with kidnapping. I'm going to charge you with contempt of court. There is no bail for contempt, and you will serve the full thirty days. In that way I can be quite sure that you won't truly kidnap her.” He glared at Teddy, who listened with dismay. “And during the thirty days I'm going to have an extensive investigation done on this matter, and I will restate my verdict in the custody matter exactly thirty days from today. That will be”—he looked briefly at his calendar—”March fourth.” With that, he signaled to the bailiff, and without further ado Teddy was removed.

49

On March fourth, at 9 A.M., Teddy was led back into the courtroom, clean-shaven and well groomed but almost twelve pounds thinner after his month in jail, and he found himself looking at his brother, his sister-in-law, and Vanessa. For him it had been an endless month and he hadn't been able to see Vanessa for the whole time, and now as he saw her his heart leaped, and he began to smile. Her eyes lit up too, and he saw that she looked a little better. Maybe she would be all right with them, after all.

The bailiff called the court to order, everyone was told to rise, the judge came in, and he frowned at them all. He informed them that the investigation conducted regarding Vanessa's custody had been the most extensive of any of his career on the bench. He told everyone present that he truly felt that they were all worthy people and that it was not a case of finding one person suitable and the others not. It had become an issue of the greatest good to Vanessa. There were certain peculiar problems to this case—the judge looked in the grown-ups' eyes, knowing that they would understand him—that made it especially difficult to select the right home for the little girl. Whatever happened, he hoped that they would all remain friendly, because he felt certain that Vanessa needed all of them around her, no matter whom she lived with. It was quite a long speech for a normally taciturn judge. He cleared his throat then, shuffled through some papers, and looked from Margaret Fullerton to her youngest son.

“Doctor Fullerton, I think you have a right to know that I had a lengthy talk with your mother.” Teddy glanced at her with instant suspicion, but he could read nothing in her eyes. “And it would seem that your devotion to the child has been not only admirable but of long and steady duration. Apparently you remained close to her mother after your brother died, from what I understand, and both Vanessa and her mother came to rely on you greatly. It is also my understanding that Mr. and Mrs. Gregory Fullerton had no contact whatever with Vanessa and her parents.” Teddy glanced at his mother in sudden amazement. Had she told the judge all that? But why? Why would she suddenly help him? “Therefore, it would seem to me that residing with you, despite the fact that you're not married, would give Vanessa a sense of continuity, which, according to the psychiatrist, is much needed. So, Doctor Fullerton, I am granting you final custody of this child.” There was a gasp from Vanessa, and she ran toward him. He threw his arms out and held her to him, and he was crying as he held her. The judge looked at them both and felt his own eyes grow damp. And when Teddy glanced at his mother, he saw that she was wiping her eyes, and he felt gratitude overwhelm him. She had finally done something decent. Only Pattie looked as though she wanted to kill them all as she stalked out of the courtroom, but Greg stopped to shake Teddy's hand and wished them both luck. He knew that it was the right thing for Vanessa.

Margaret Fullerton watched her youngest son, thinking of what had led her finally to soften toward Vanessa. The past was over with, the child was so lost without Teddy. It seemed time to let history become memory. “Perhaps I'm getting old,” she said to herself and smiled.

In the courtroom Teddy was still holding Vanessa and the two of them were laughing, and when they walked triumphantly out of the courtroom hand in hand, the photographers had a field day and they didn't give a damn.

She ran down the courtroom steps, holding Teddy's hand, like a little movie star, smiling at him from ear to ear and holding so tightly to his hand that his fingers almost went numb. He hailed a cab outside the court, and they went directly to his apartment. He hadn't seen it or Vanessa in a month, and as he turned the key in the door it felt as though he had been gone for a year. He stood at the threshold, looking down at his beloved smiling niece, not sure whether to carry her over the threshold or not, after all, they were starting a new life. Instead they stepped over it together, holding hands, and when they reached the other side, they shook hands ceremoniously, and then she stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek.

“Welcome home, princess.”

“I love you, Uncle Teddy.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” He folded her in a great big hug. “I love you too. I hope you'll be happy here.” He wanted to make up to her for the past, but he knew that he couldn't do that, all he could give her was the present and what he was.

“I'll be happy, Uncle Teddy.” She looked at him with a big smile, and for the first time in months she looked like a nine-year-old child. There was no trace of the tragedy or the trauma or the anguish of all that she had been through. She threw herself on the couch, giggled loudly, threw her hat in the air, and looked like a mischievous little elf as she lay there and kicked off her shoes.

The headline that night read SOCIALITE SURGEON BECOMES BACHELOR FATHER, and it went on to reiterate for the thousandth time about his month in jail, the kidnapping charges Pattie had tried to make stick that had become contempt of court, and again all the details about the custody case. The papers had been strictly kept from Vanessa all along, and Teddy hoped that they would all get lost somewhere over the years. He didn't want any of that coming back to haunt Vanessa. She still remembered nothing of Vasili, or the baby, or her mother's murder, but she seemed much more herself now. It was just a matter of time.

50

“Vanessa? Vanessa? Are you home?” Teddy walked sedately through the front door, put his hat on the hall table, took off his coat, and peeked into the study. She wasn't there, but as he wandered through the house he suspected that she was in the darkroom. For the past four years she had spent most of her time there. He had had to give up the guest bedroom on her behalf when she discovered photography in her freshman year at Vassar, but she was so good at what she did that it was actually a pleasure.

During the thirteen years she had lived with him almost everything had been a pleasure. They had grown up together, hand in hand, learning and growing, and occasionally fighting like cats and dogs, but there was an enormous respect between them. His mother had died when Vanessa had been twelve, but that was no particular loss to Vanessa. Her grandmother had never accepted the child, and that never changed right up until her death. She left Vanessa none of her vast fortune. She left it all, equally divided, between her two sons. Two years later Greg had died, predictably of cirrhosis, and Pattie had eventually moved to London and married “someone terribly important.” From the rumors he occasionally heard, Teddy assumed she was happy, but he didn't really care if he never saw her again. Once she lost custody of Vanessa, she had entirely lost interest in the girl, and they never saw her. So over the years Teddy and Vanessa had been alone. He had never married, and he had devoted himself wholeheartedly to the task of being a bachelor father. It had its moments of absolute despair, there were moments that were hysterical beyond words, and moments that were worth an entire lifetime. When she had graduated from Vassar the previous spring, it had been a moment that he knew he would always cherish. In some ways she was as lovely as her mother had been, but it was more a similarity of spirit. She had grown up to look exactly like Brad, and sometimes it amused Teddy to see how much she was like him. She had his same long lanky blond good looks, her sense of humor was much the same, her eyes were the same gray-blue, and when she laughed, it was as though he had come back for another life, as a woman. It was extraordinary to watch her, and be with her, she was so dynamic and so alive. It was her energy and her drive that she got from her mother. And she wanted to be not a model but a photographer. She had studied fine arts at Vassar and done very nicely, but all she cared about was what she saw in her camera lens, and after that what she did with it.

Teddy knocked softly on the door, and Vanessa answered.

“Yeah? Who is it?”

“The big bad wolf.”

“Don't come in, I'm developing.”

“Will you be through soon?”

“In a few minutes. Why?” It seemed to him that most of then-conversations were through that door.

“Want to go to dinner?”

“Wouldn't you rather play with kids your own age?” She was always teasing him that he should get married.

“Mind your own business, smartass.”

“You'd better be nice to me, I could sell that picture I took of you last week to the papers. Famous surgeon seen dressed as a bunch of grapes.” He roared with laughter at the memory. She and half a dozen friends had gone as the Fruit of the Loom insignia to a Halloween party, and at the last minute the guy who was supposed to be the grapes couldn't come, and she had pressed Teddy into service. He had been a good sport, but they had also won the prize, so Vanessa had had someone take pictures of them. “How would that look in the medical journal?”

“That's blackmail.”

“You'd better be nice to me. I just sold another picture to Esquire.” She had been free-lancing for five months now, and she was doing very nicely.

“You're moving up in the world.” He was still standing in the hallway, talking to the door. “Are you ever coming out of there?”

“No, never,” she shouted back.

“What about dinner?”

“Sounds good. Where are we going?”

“How does P.J. Clarke sound to you?”

“Terrific. I'm wearing jeans and I don't want to change.”

“So what's new?” He was teasing. She was always in jeans, with her incredible blond hair swinging, and assorted army surplus jackets and vests, which made up the rest of her wardrobe. She wanted to be comfortable enough to take pictures at all times. She was in no way preoccupied with her wardrobe.

“I'll get dressed.”

He disappeared into his own bedroom and loosened his tie. He had led two lives for years, that of a sedate, successful surgeon at Columbia Presbyterian, in dark pin-striped suits, white shirts, and dark ties, and then a whole other life with Vanessa. A life of ice skating and pony rides and the zoo and father's days at camp, and hockey games and ice cream parlors. A life of blue jeans and sweat shirts and pink cheeks and windblown hair. She had kept him even younger than his forty-five years and he hardly looked more than thirty. His own blond good looks had held up well, and he actually looked a great deal like her. They had the same lanky frames, the same shoulders, the same smile, it was perfectly conceivable that she could have been his daughter. Once in a while when she was little, she had introduced him as her “Daddy,” but she still called him Teddy, and most of the time she told friends that he was her uncle. She remembered in every glorious detail the day she had been finally awarded to him in court, but of the ugliness of the past, she still remembered nothing.

He had consulted several psychiatrists over the years and they had eventually convinced him not to worry. It was disturbing that none of that had ever surfaced, but it was possible now, they all felt, that she would never remember. She was happy, well adjusted, there was no reason for any of the past to come leaping out. And they also suggested that if he wanted to, once she was an adult, he might want to tell her. He had decided not to do that, she was happy as she was, and the burden of knowing her mother had been murdered by her husband might have been too great for Vanessa. The only possibility that could be of concern was if she suffered some major trauma. In that case, perhaps, some of the memories could be dislodged. When she had been little, she had had frequent nightmares, but she hadn't even had those in years, and eventually Teddy had stopped worrying about it completely. She was just like any other child, happy, easygoing, better natured than most, they had never had any teen-age problems. She was just a terrific kid and he loved her as though she were his own child. And now that she was almost twenty-three, he couldn't believe how quickly the years had flown past them.

He returned to the darkroom twenty minutes later, in blue jeans and a dark brown cashmere jacket with a beige turtleneck sweater. She shopped for him sometimes at Bloomingdale's, and came back with things he would never have bought for himself, but he had to admit that once he had them he liked them.

“Are you ever coming out of there, Mrs. Cartier-Bresson?”

The door opened just as he said it, and she stood before him in all of her towering beauty, her hair flowing around her shoulders like a wheat field, and a huge smile on her face. “I just developed some truly great pictures.”

“Of what?” He looked into her eyes with pleasure. It seemed for all her twenty-three years she had been the hub of his existence.

“I took pictures of some kids in the park the other day, and they're just stupendous. Want to see?” She looked at Teddy with pleasure and he followed her back to the darkroom. She switched the light on, and he looked at the prints. She was right. They were fantastic.

“You going to sell these?” They were really lovely.

“I don't know.” She cocked her head to one side, and the blond mane fell over her shoulder. “There's a gallery downtown that wants my work. I was thinking I might let them show them.”

“They're beautiful, darling. You've done some lovely work in the last few weeks.”

She pinched his cheek and kissed him. “That's just because I have an uncle who buys me great cameras.” He had bought her a Leica for Christmas, and another Nikon for her graduation. She had got her first one for her eighteenth birthday, which was what had got her started.

They walked out of the apartment arm in arm, and they got in a cab that took them to P.J.'s. They went out often in the evening together now that she was back from college. He liked taking her out and going to fun places with her, and she liked being with him, even though sometimes Teddy felt guilty about that. She hadn't had a lot of friends when she was in school. She was kind of a solitary child, and she had always clung to him. At Vassar she had made some friends, but she seemed happier alone with her camera. And with her twenty-third birthday looking at her in a matter of weeks, she was still a virgin. There had been no important men in her life and she seemed to shy away from them. A touch on the hand, a hand on her arm, almost always made her shudder. It was something that worried Teddy a great deal. As the first psychiatrist had said in the courtroom many years before, all of the buried horror she had seen would leave a mark on her life, if it never surfaced. It hadn't, and Teddy wondered if unconsciously she remembered seeing Vasili kill her mother and was afraid because of it. Or was it buried so deep that it didn't affect her? Like shrapnel left over from a long-forgotten war?

“You're awfully serious tonight, Uncle Doctor. Why so quiet? Something wrong?” She was always very straightforward with him.

“I was just thinking.”

“What about?” She was munching on an enormous hamburger and looked about fourteen. He smiled at her.

“About you. How come you're such a good kid? It's not normal.”

“I'm retarded.” She grinned at him and set down the hamburger. “Would you rather if I got into drugs?” She grinned, knowing how he felt about the drug epidemic. Though she didn't know what a deep-seated horror Teddy felt or why.

“Please. I'm eating.”

“Okay, so just be grateful I'm boring.” She knew what he was working toward. She should be going out with some nice young man and not her old uncle. She had already heard the speech ten thousand times, and she always told him in answer that he should be married.

“Who said you were boring?”

“You were about to start picking on me again for being a virgin.”

“Was I?” He looked amused. “You know me awfully well, Vanessa.”

“Hell, I ought to,” she chuckled, “we've been living together for thirteen years.” She said it too loud and several people turned around to stare at them, in particular two women who glared at them in obvious disapproval.

Teddy leaned toward them with his most charming smile. “My niece,” he said sweetly.

“I've heard that one before,” snapped the woman and she turned around at her table as Vanessa burst into laughter.

“You're more outrageous than I am, do you know that?”

The trouble was that they liked each other so much and were so comfortable with each other that neither of them was highly motivated to go looking for anyone else, which wasn't good for either one of them. Teddy had never really got over Serena, and his years of single parenthood had kept him busy enough that he could use it as an excuse not to look seriously for another woman. There had been women now and then, but they never meant very much to him. And in Vanessa's case, she just seemed to shy away from any kind of serious involvement with a man. She grew oddly shy and uncomfortable around them. Teddy had seen her do it. So instead she hid behind her camera, saw all, and felt as though no one saw her.

“It's a damn waste, kid.” He looked at her with a grin as he paid the check.

“What is?”

“You hanging out with me all the time. Besides, I'll never get you off my hands like this. Don't you want to get married?” But whenever he mentioned marriage, there was always terror in her eyes.

“No, never. That's not for me.” It was then that he could see the bits of shrapnel surface. It was always there. She just didn't know it.

The next morning they sat peacefully over scrambled eggs and bacon. They alternated making breakfast every morning. On her days they had scrambled eggs, on his they had French toast. They had it down to a science. They read the paper in sections, with perfectly harmonized rotations. Watching them in the morning was like watching two people perform a ballet. It was all perfectly synchronized, and no one spoke a single word until after the second cup of coffee.

But this morning, when he held out his cup, nothing happened. Instead she sat staring at the paper, with a blank look on her face, and sensing something, Teddy watched her.

“Something wrong?” She shook her head, but she didn't answer. He got up and came around behind her then, and what he saw gave him a jolt. It was a photograph of Vasili Arbus. She was reading the article, but her eyes kept straying back to the picture. The article was brief and said only that he was dead of a drug overdose at fifty-four. It said also that he had spent five years of his life in a mental hospital for having committed murder, and he had been married six times. But for once none of his wives were listed. Not even Serena. Teddy wanted to say something as he watched her look at the picture, but he knew he shouldn't do it. He had to let happen what would happen. It wasn't fair to help her repress it all again. He said absolutely nothing, and she went on looking at the picture for another ten minutes, and then suddenly she looked up at Teddy with a troubled smile.

“I'm sorry. That's crazy. It's just… I can't explain it…I feel as though I've seen that man somewhere before, and it's bothering me.” Teddy said nothing and she shrugged. “Hell, he's been married six times, maybe he has some kind of hypnotic power over women. Looking at that picture was like going into a trance.” Teddy almost shuddered. After all those years here it finally was. But she seemed to have cast the mood off. She poured his second cup of coffee and went on reading the paper, but he saw a few minutes later that she had turned back to Vasili's picture again. It was interesting also that they didn't say whom he had murdered. He was grateful for mat. That would have been a terrible shock for her. This way her own memory had to do the work, but it was like trying to stir Rip Van Winkle.

Teddy watched her closely that morning, but when he left for work, she seemed herself. He took the paper with him, just as a precaution, so she wouldn't fixate on it while she was alone. He was nervous about all of that coming to the surface when she was by herself somewhere. And after twenty minutes of trying to concentrate on his patients at his office, he gave up and called Vanessa's last psychiatrist, but it had been eight years since she'd seen him. It turned out that he had retired, and a woman had taken over his practice. Teddy explained the case, and she went to get the file. She was back on the line a moment later, pensive as she glanced through it.

“What do you think? Do you think I should tell her now?” He sounded very nervous, and the woman was annoyingly calm when she answered.

“Why not let her work through it? She'll only remember as much as she can handle. That's the whole point of that kind of repression. It's the mind's way of protecting itself. As long as she couldn't handle it, she didn't remember. When she can, if she can, it'll come back to her. Probably in little pieces, and as she digests each one the next one will come to her.”

“It sounds like a long process.” Also depressing, he thought.

“Not necessarily. The whole thing could be over in a day, or it may take weeks, or months, or even years.”

“Terrific. And I just sit there watching her ruminate, is that it?”

“That's right, Doctor. You asked me. So I told you.”

“Thanks.” Her name was Linda Evans and he wasn't sure he liked her.

“You know, there's another thing you might want to be aware of, Doctor. She may have nightmares. That would be fairly normal, while things push their way up to the surface.”

“What do I do?”

“Be there for her. Talk to her if she wants to talk. It may come out very quickly that way.” And then she thought about it for a minute. “If you need me, Doctor, call me. I'll leave word with my service. This is kind of a special case. I'd be happy to come over, no matter what time.”

“Thank you.” It was the first really nice thing she had said. “I appreciate that.” And then he chuckled. “And if you ever need your spleen removed, I'd be happy to take care of that for you too.” She laughed, amused at the bad joke. Doctors seemed to be famous for them, but he had a nice voice, and she felt genuinely sorry for his niece. Besides, it was a case that had always intrigued her. She remembered studying the file when she'd taken over the practice.

They hung up and Teddy went back to work, not feeling greatly encouraged, but when he went home that night, Vanessa was busy in the darkroom again and seemed in good spirits. The maid had left them a pot roast and they ate dinner at home, they both talked about work, she went back to the darkroom for a while, and he went to bed early. And when he awoke with a start, he saw from the clock on his night table that it was two thirty in the morning. He knew instantly that it was Vanessa who had woken him. In the distance he could hear her screaming. He jumped out of his bed and ran to her bedroom. And he found her sitting there, staring into space, muttering darkly. She was still asleep, and it was obvious that she had been crying. He sat beside her for the next hour, and she muttered and whimpered and cried softly for a while, but she never woke up, and she didn't scream again. He called Dr. Evans back in the morning and reported to her. She urged him to relax and just see what happened, and the same thing happened again the next night, and the night after that. It went on for weeks, but nothing really surfaced. In the daytime Vanessa was cheerful and busy and entirely herself, and at night she lay in bed and moaned and cried softly. It was as though deep down some part of her knew, but the rest of her didn't want her to know it. It was agonizing watching her that way every night, and at the end of three weeks he went to see Dr. Evans.

He waited in the waiting room for fifteen minutes, and then the nurse told him that she was ready to see him. He was expecting, he had decided, a short, heavyset, serious-looking woman with thick legs and glasses. What greeted him instead was a statuesque brunette, with a radiant smile, big green eyes, and her hair pulled back in a chignon like a ballet dancer. She was wearing a silk shirt and a pair of slacks, and she looked at the same time both relaxed and intelligent. As he walked into her office Teddy felt surprised as well as unnerved.

“Something wrong, Doctor?” He saw from a quick glance at the degree on her wall that she had gone to Harvard, and he calculated quickly that she had to be about thirty-nine, but she didn't look it.

“No …I … I'm sorry.” He smiled at her then and looked more himself. “You're not at all what I expected.”

“And what was that?” She was very much in control of the situation and he felt silly.

“Someone … well… different.…” He burst out laughing. “Hell, I thought you'd be ugly as sin and about two feet tall.”

“With a beard? Just like Freud? Right?” She laughed at him, and then blushed faintly. “You're not what I expected either.”

“Oh?” He looked amused.

“I thought you'd be very stuffy, Doctor. Pin-striped suit, horn-rimmed glasses”—she looked at the attractive blond mane —”no hair.”

“Why, thank you. As a matter of fact, I do usually wear pin-striped suits. But I took the afternoon off to come and see you. So I came in my civvies.” He smiled at her. He was wearing gray gabardine slacks and a blazer. And he looked very handsome. “May I make a suggestion? Could we possibly stop calling each other Doctor? It's an awful lot of Doctoring.” He grinned and she smiled and nodded agreement.

“Call me Linda.”

“I'm Teddy.”

“All right.” She sat back in her comfortable black leather chair and looked at him directly. “Tell me about your niece. In detail.” He told her everything that had been happening, and she nodded. And when he had finished his recital, she told him gently, “Do you remember? I told you it could take months, or even years. There was a possibility, with the initial shock, that she might have been jolted into remembering the whole story. What seems to be happening instead is that it's leaking slowly into her subconscious. It could take a very long time, or it may all subside again. It's unlikely that anything would happen to shock her again the way that photograph did. That was kind of a fluke.”

He agreed. “But it was amazing how it struck her. She stared at it for about half an hour.”

Linda Evans nodded slowly. “She must have some awful memories of that man. It's not surprising that the photograph haunted her.”

“You don't think we should just tell her and get it over with?”

“No, I don't.”

“Do you think she ought to come to you?”

Linda thought about it for a moment and then shook her head. “On what grounds? Why would you be suggesting such a thing? You see, she has no idea what's happening yet. If she wakes up one day and wants to see a therapist, that's one thing, but if you suggest it, it may put her on edge. I think we just have to let her be for the moment.” Teddy nodded, chatted with Linda for a moment, and then shook her hand and departed. But a week later he was back to talk to her again, and eventually he became a regular visitor to her office. He no longer took the afternoon off to come to see her, he arranged it during his lunchtime instead.

“See, I told you. Pin-striped suits.” She laughed with him. There really wasn't that much to say about Vanessa, and after a month or two she began having fewer and fewer nightmares, but Teddy had come to enjoy talking to Linda Evans. They seemed to share a myriad common views and opinions, common interests and likings for many of the same things. Eventually he suggested that they spend the lunch hour in a restaurant instead of her office, and from there it was only a step to dinner. Normally she had stringent views about not going out with patients, but Teddy wasn't really a patient. He was the uncle of a patient she had never even met, but whose file she had inherited with the practice, and he was a fellow doctor. Besides, she was amazed at how much she enjoyed him. And Teddy was equally amazed at his feelings—lie wondered once or twice if, in speaking of Vanessa's past to Linda, he was somehow healing the ghosts of his own. For the first time in a long time he could speak of Serena without a stab of pain and it dawned on him slowly that he was falling in love with Linda. They went to dinner two or three times a week, occasionally went to the opera or the theater. He even took her to a hockey game with Vanessa, and was pleased at how well the two women got along. It also gave Linda her first look at Vanessa. She found her a delightful girl and saw no sign of inner torment.

By spring Teddy and Linda saw each other almost every night, and Vanessa had begun to tease them. Linda was becoming a regular visitor at the apartment, and Vanessa teased that if she was going to hang around as much as she was, she was going to have to start taking a shift for breakfast. It was also beginning to occur to Vanessa that she needed her own apartment. She didn't want to hurt Teddy's feelings, but she was twenty-three years old, she wanted to combine a studio with living quarters of her own, and it was obvious that he was crazy about Linda Evans.

“Why the hell don't you ask her to marry you, Teddy?”

“Don't be crazy!” he growled at her over one of her breakfasts. “Besides, your eggs were lousy today.” But the thought of marriage had already crossed his mind and he didn't want to tell her.

“That's it!” She pounded a hand on the table and he jumped. “I'm moving out!”

“Will you stop that!” She was making him very nervous, but suddenly he saw something gentle and sad in her eyes. She had been teasing at first but now she meant what she was saying and he knew it.

“I kind of mean it, Uncle Teddy.” She looked just like a little girl as she said it, and he felt his insides turn over.

“Why?” He looked very upset. “Because of Linda? I thought you liked her.” He looked so disappointed that she hugged him.

“I do, silly. I'm just turning into a big kid now, and I want to get a studio to work in, and … well… a place of my own.” It felt like such a betrayal, she felt like a monster.

“Have you started looking yet.'“

“No, I thought I'd start in the next few weeks.”

“Already?” He looked pale, and then retreated behind his paper, and when he left for his office, he looked shaken. He called Linda half an hour later. “Vanessa wants to move out.” He sounded as though his wife had said she was divorcing him, and at her end of the phone Linda grinned, but when she spoke to him, her voice was gentle.

“What did you tell her?”

“I didn't really, I was too upset. She's too young, and … what if she starts having nightmares again, if it all comes back to her?”

“Then, she'll call you. Besides it may never happen. You said that she had settled down again.”

“But she might see something.” He sounded frantic and Linda was smiling.

“Sweetheart, she's a big girl now. Your baby is leaving the nest. You're going to have to face it.”

He groaned softly. “You know, I feel like a complete jerk, but it just about turned my insides upside down.” He was smiling now too, and he felt comforted by the sound of Linda's voice. Suddenly he needed her more than ever. For years Vanessa had filled an enormous void in his life, a void that had been left by Serena. But now little by little Linda was moving into that space and he was letting her do it.

“You're not alone. This happens to all parents. It's especially hard on fathers to see their daughters grow up, and very hard on mothers to have their children leave the nest. You're a mother and father rolled into one, so it's hitting you doubly hard. Guess what, Doctor? It's normal.”

“You know, I almost cried.”

“Sure. Who wouldn't?” She had such a nice way of making him feel that everything was all right and he wasn't crazy.

“You know something? You're terrific. How about lunch today?”

She glanced at her calendar. “Sounds delightful.” And then she had an idea. “Want to meet me at my place?”

He chuckled in his office. “Now, that is a splendid idea, Doctor Evans. A consultation?”

“Of course.” They both laughed and hung up, and at noon they met in her apartment and made love until two thirty. With Linda, Teddy was feeling a passion that he hadn't felt in years. And for the first time in years, after they made love, he didn't feel empty or guilty. The ghost of Serena was finally fading.

“You know,” he said, looking at her pensively as he drew a lazy finger around her breasts, “I used to think it was all over.”

“What?”

“Oh, I don't know …” he sighed. “I haven't been in love in so long, Linda.” He looked at her sadly for a moment. “I was so much in love with Vanessa's mother that I never really wanted anyone else.”

“It must have been very traumatic for you when she was killed.”

His eyes were bright with tears as he looked at Linda. “I wanted to kill the son of a bitch myself. I'll never understand how he could do it … and they let him out of the country.”

“He must have had an awful lot of pull.”

“He did. His family was very influential. Anyway, I don't know. After that I poured out everything I had on Vanessa. There was never much left for anyone else. I think maybe I was numb.” He smiled at the beautiful woman lying at his side, and she touched him gently.

“You certainly aren't numb anymore.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” He kissed her and a moment later he felt desire surge within him again. They made love one last time, and parted regretfully afterward to go back to work, even though they were meeting again for dinner that night.

As Vanessa's preparations to move gained momentum they seemed to spend more and more time together. It was as though, in letting her go, Teddy was better able to reach out to Linda. Vanessa finally moved into a studio apartment of her own on May 1, and on the following weekend Linda stayed for four days. After that Teddy wound up spending most of the following week at her apartment. She returned to his place for the weekend and spent the week. They never seemed to leave each other anymore, except to go to their offices, and when the three of them went away for a weekend in Cape Cod in August, Teddy looked at Vanessa sheepishly and cleared his throat.

“I have something to tell you, sweetheart.” Linda watched him, feeling tenderness mingle with amusement. In some ways he was still very shy. But it was part of what she loved about him, and there was a great deal about him that she loved.

Vanessa looked at him with a question in her eyes, and for just an instant the two women's eyes met and held, and then Linda looked away. She didn't want to spoil the surprise. “What is it?” Vanessa tried to seem nonchalant but she wasn't. She suddenly felt an electric thrill of excitement and anticipation course through her.

“I … uh … Linda and I …”He almost choked on the words and then took a breath. “We're getting married.”

“Well, it's about time.” Vanessa beamed. “When's the wedding?”

“We haven't quite figured that out yet. We thought maybe September.”

“Do I get to take pictures?”

“Of course.” He looked at her searchingly, wanting her approval, and she was beaming, and suddenly she threw her arms around his neck. They had had something so special for so many years, and now it had altered slightly, but in a healthy way for them both, and she was so pleased that he was marrying Linda. They were perfect for each other, in every way. And neither one of them had ever been married, he at forty-six and she at thirty-nine.

“I'm so happy for you, Uncle Teddy.” She held him close and Linda felt warm just watching them. And then Vanessa reached out to hug her, and as the two women embraced there were tears in their eyes.

“Do I get to be an aunt, or …” She looked puzzled. “What would I be? A cousin? Gee, seems like I could have a better title than that.” And then her eyes clouded strangely. She had been about to say sister, but something had stopped her. Teddy and Linda both saw it and no one said a word. “Can I be an aunt?”

“Sure.” Linda grinned. “But you're a little ahead of yourself, Vanessa. I'm happy to announce that this is not a shotgun marriage.”

“But I could arrange that.” Teddy grinned and put an arm around each of his women, as they strolled down the beach, talking about the wedding, and he felt as though he were the happiest man alive.

51

The wedding was lovely. They had it at the Hotel Carlyle in mid-September. They invited about a hundred friends, and Vanessa took all the pictures, and by Christmas her wish had come true. As they sat around the fireplace after the turkey dinner, Linda reached out to touch her husband's hand, and then looked at Vanessa.

“I have something to share with you, Vanessa.” She wore a mysterious little smile, and Vanessa looked at her in the firelight, thinking that she had never seen her look more lovely. She wore a peacock-blue silk dress, with her hair loose around her shoulders. Her eyes looked greenish blue and her skin had an almost rosy blush that made her look much less than her thirty-nine years.

“If it's more food, Linda, I can't.” Vanessa lay down on the floor with a groan and smiled up at her aunt and uncle.

“No, it's not more food.” Linda giggled and Teddy grinned. He was wearing an expression of beatific contentment that Vanessa had never seen before, as Linda went on. “We're having a baby.”

“You are?” Vanessa looked stunned. It took her a moment before she actually looked pleased. Again one could almost see her hearing an echo, and Teddy watched her nervously, afraid that the news would cause her pain. But an instant later her eyes danced and her face was radiant. “Oh, Linda!” She threw her arms around her friend, and then around Teddy, and clapped her hands with glee.

The next day Vanessa went out and bought the baby an enormous teddy bear, and for the next five months she bought things for the baby in a never-ending stream, pandas, giraffes, silver rattles, hand-made quilts, tiny nightgowns made of old lace, little caps, and she even knit a pair of booties. Linda and Teddy were touched by the gifts, but occasionally, when Linda looked at her, she was worried. There was an odd kind of tenseness about her lately, a sense of something about to happen. Linda tried to talk to her about it once or twice, but Vanessa herself didn't seem to know what the matter was and insisted that she wasn't aware of it. It was an almost indefinable impression one got when one looked at her closely. It was as though, deep within, she was desperately unhappy. And it grew more marked as the time for the baby's birth came closer.

Linda on the other hand seemed to grow happier and calmer as she got larger. There was a serenity about her that struck everyone who knew her. Even her patients were touched by what one of them called “the rosy glow of the Madonna” about her. There was a luster in her eyes, a warmth to her smile, that told everyone how happy she was about the baby. At forty she was finally having the baby she had wanted all her life but had decided would never come.

“And suddenly there you were one day in my office”—she smiled at Teddy one night as she told him—”and I knew that you were it. Prince Charming.” She beamed at her husband and he grinned.

“Oh, you did, did you? Is that why you had me come back for all those consultations?”

“I did not!” She tried to look insensed. “You wanted to come back to talk about Vanessa.”

“Well, I did at first.” He looked suddenly thoughtful. “Speaking of which, have you seen her lately?” He looked worried and Linda nodded. “I'm worried about her. She's lost weight and she looks very nervous.”

“I think she is. I tried to talk to her about it the other day.”

“Anything important?” He looked worried. After all, in a sense Vanessa was still his first child, and Linda understood that. But she looked pensive as she answered.

“Honestly I don't know. I think that maybe the baby has set off some old impressions for her. I'm sure she doesn't know it, but whether or not she's aware of it, there's a definite déjí vu in it for her. It's bound to rattle up something.” She sighed unhappily for a moment. “And I think the latest man she's met has her upset too.”

“Why?” Teddy looked surprised. “Who is he?”

“She didn't say anything to you?”

Teddy sighed. “She almost never does. By the time she gets around to telling me, they're usually already off the lists.” It always made him sad to see how she closed herself off from men and any kind of close relationship. The only people she was close to were Teddy and Linda, with them she was wide open to her feelings and to theirs, but with anyone else she ran like a frightened deer if they came near her. She was twenty-four now and Teddy knew that she had never been physically involved with anyone. “Who is he?”

“I think he's a photographer's agent, she met him at a party. She said that he was very nice, and apparently he was interested in representing her work. She was thinking about it too, but then he asked her for a date and she got nervous.”

“Did she go?” Linda nodded.

“Yes. I think they went out three or four times. She really liked him. They had a lot in common, he was crazy about her work. She says he made some very good suggestions about how she should market herself. Everything was fine.”

Teddy looked bleak. “And then he kissed her.”

Linda reached out and touched his hand. “Don't take it so personally, Teddy.”

“I can't help it.” He looked at his wife. “I keep thinking that if I'd handled it right, if I'd been the perfect role model, she wouldn't be afraid of men.”

“Teddy, she saw a man kill her mother. Be reasonable. How can anything you did or didn't do alter that?”

He sighed. “I know, I know … but in my heart I keep thinking—” He looked sadly at Linda then. “Do you think I should have told her?”

Linda shook her head. “No, I don't. And I don't think telling her would have changed a damn thing. She'd still have to live with the same nightmare, consciously or not. If she's going to trust men, or even just one man, it will come to her on her own, if the right man comes along. It's still possible, you know, Teddy. She's a young girl. She isn't totally averse to the idea. She's just frightened.”

“So what's happening with this guy?” Teddy looked a little more hopeful after Linda's speech.

“For the moment, nothing. She called a halt on dating him until she decides if she wants him as her agent. She says that if she does, then she doesn't want to go out with him, she'd want to maintain a businesslike relationship with him.”

“Sounds like you.” He leaned over and kissed her, and then gently patted the enormous belly. “You sure that's not twins, by the way?”

She laughed and shook her head. “Not according to my doctor. The kid's probably got big feet like me.” She smiled at her husband. “Or he's carrying a football.”

“Or a purse.” They both laughed, and Teddy sighed as he thought of Vanessa. “Think she'll start seeing this guy again?”

“She might.”

“What's his name?”

“John Henry.”

“John Henry what?”

“That's it. John Henry.”

“He sounds like a phony.” Teddy frowned.

“And you,” Linda laughed at him, “sound just like a father. One minute you're all upset that she'll never go out with him again, the next minute you think he's a creep.”

“Have you seen him?”

“No. But Vanessa's a bright girl. If she says he's a terrific guy, I'm sure he is. She certainly isn't easy about men, so if she likes this one that much, I'd say he's probably a winner.”

“Well, we'll see what happens.”

“Yes, we will.” Linda was looking at her husband. “Don't worry about it so much. She's all right, Teddy.”

“I hope so.” He lay back on the bed. “I've been so worried about her lately.” But much of the time his worries about Vanessa were eclipsed. He was so excited about the baby that he could hardly wait until the due date. He was more than a little concerned about Linda having her first baby at forty. Medically speaking, they both knew the dangers of giving birth to a first baby at her age, but her doctor seemed to feel confident that there would be no problems.

But more and more Teddy found himself remembering Serena's pregnancies. He remembered the golden glow she had seemed to have before the birth of Vanessa, and how he had delivered her himself that afternoon, alone in the house in the Presidio. He told Linda about it one night, and she watched him. Something so gentle and so sad always happened to his face when he spoke of Serena. It gave her just a hint of what the woman must have been like, and always made her wish that she had met her. She had seen photographs of her among some of Teddy's old things, and she was really incredibly beautiful. It was funny, only Vanessa's shape was actually reminiscent of her mother. Her face and everything else about her was exactly like her father. It was only in looking at the old photographs or remembering cherished moments that Serena still came alive to Teddy.

“Weren't you terrified?” Linda was referring to when he had found Serena on the floor, already in hard labor.

“Scared shitless.” He grinned. “I had been in med school for exactly four months, and the only thing I knew about delivering babies was what I had seen in the movies. Boil water and smoke a lot until the doctor comes out of the room, wiping his hands. And suddenly the whole damn movie was upside down and I was the doctor.”

“Did she have a hard time?” There was a tiny edge of fear in Linda's voice as she spoke. In the last few weeks she had started to get a little nervous. But Teddy knew instantly what was happening and he kissed her and shook his head.

“No, she really didn't. I think most of all we were both scared because we didn't know what was happening. But once she started pushing, it went great after that.”

“You know”—she smiled sheepishly at Teddy—”I hate to admit it, at my age, and with my training …” He smiled, already knowing what was coming. “… but lately I've been getting nervous about it.”

“I hate to tell you this, Doctor, but that's perfectly normal. All women get nervous before childbirth. Who wouldn't? It's a major happening in anyone's life, and physically it's always a little scary.”

“I feel so silly though. I'm a psychiatrist, I'm supposed to be able to handle things like that.” She looked at him in sudden panic. “What if I can't stand the pain? … if I freak out … ?” He took her in his arms and stroked her dark hair.

“You're not going to, and it's going to be wonderful.”

“How do you know?” She sounded like any of a million patients and he loved her better for it.

“Because you're in good health, you've had no problems at all, and because I'm going to be right there with you the whole time.”

Linda had been so excited about this first baby that she had bought everything in sight since the day she found out she was pregnant. The nursery was a sea of white eyelet with blue and pink ribbons, there was an antique bassinet draped in white organdy, a cradle a patient had sent her, shelves filled with dolls, handmade quilts, and lots of little goodies knitted by Linda's mother. A dozen times a day now she walked into the room, looked around, and she always felt that something was missing. It was five days before her due date when she finally realized what it was that was missing, as she laughingly told Vanessa over lunch.

“It's the baby!” They born laughed at the revelation. Linda had retired from her practice the week before, and she was enjoying the last days of waiting. “I must admit, I'm a little antsy. But part of that is just not working for the first time in fifteen years. I feel guilty as hell about that.” But she was going back for half days when the baby was a month old, so the five weeks she'd taken off were really no more than a healthy vacation.

“Your patients will wait.”

“I suppose so,” Linda sighed, “but I worry about them.”

“You're as bad as Teddy. Before he met you, he'd have a nervous breakdown if he took two weeks off. There's something about doctors. They're compulsive.”

Linda grinned. “I think we like to call it conscientious.”

“Well, I must say, I admire it. But I don't have that problem. I spent all of last week sitting on my ass and I loved it.”

“Oh?” Linda looked intrigued. “With anyone special, or is that an indiscreet question?”

There was a twinkle in Vanessa's eyes when she answered. “I saw John Henry again. I decided not to use him as my agent.” For Vanessa that was a major step, Linda knew. She had been almost certain that that was going to be the way out Vanessa would have selected. She would hire him as her agent and then claim that she couldn't get involved with him after that.

“That's an interesting decision.” She sounded noncommittal, and Vanessa grinned.

“You sound like a shrink.”

“Do I?” Linda laughed. “I apologize. I meant to sound like an aunt.”

A warm look passed between them. “You're not bad at that either. No, I don't know. I thought about it a lot. And in a funny way I think we were already too involved with each other for me to do business with him coherently. The funny thing”—she looked at Linda in a puzzled way—”is that I'm attracted to him.”

“Is that such a shock?”

“For me, yes. Most of the time, Linda”—she shrugged—”even if I like them, I don't want to go to bed with them. I just… I just can't.…”

“When the right one comes along, it'll be different.”

“How do you know?” Vanessa looked very young as she asked her. “Sometimes I think maybe I'm just strange. It's not that I don't like men, it's just that …” She groped for the words. “It's as though there were this wall up between them and me, and I just can't get past it.” That was exactly what was happening, as Linda knew only too well. She only hoped that one day Vanessa would find the door, or have the courage to climb over the wall.

“There are no walls too high for us to climb, love. Some walls just take more work than others. I think that it may just depend on how badly you want to.”

“I don't know.” Vanessa didn't look convinced. “It's not really that … it's like I just don't know how to begin, or what to do. … But,” she sighed softly, “it's crazy, John seems to understand that.”

“How old is he?”

“Twenty-seven.” Linda found herself wishing that he were older, and perhaps more mature.

“But he seems a lot older than his age. He was married for four years. They got married when he was in college. Childhood sweethearts and all that. She got pregnant, so they got married when he was eighteen. But—” She hesitated, realizing that she had just made a ghastly faux pas, and she looked up at Linda. “Never mind. It's a long story.”

“I'd like to hear it.” And the worst of it was that Vanessa wanted to tell her. She wanted to share what she was thinking about John. She needed to get it off her chest, and she could always talk straight to Linda.

“I'm sorry, love. It's a lousy story. But maybe since you're a doctor … Their baby was born defective. It had some terrible birth defect, and I guess he and his wife hung together because of the child. It sounded really awful when he told me. They took turns sitting at the hospital for the first year, and after that they had him at home until he”—she almost gulped—”until he died. I gather that it took a terrible toll on the marriage. When the baby died, they split up, and that was it. That was five years ago, and I think it shook him up for a long time.”

Linda looked shaken too, but birth defects were certainly no news to her, and to Vanessa's relief she didn't look overwhelmed by the story. “That's understandable, and so is the divorce. A lot of times couples don't survive tragedies like that one.”

Vanessa nodded. “I'm sorry to tell you that now. I didn't think when I started—”

“It's all right.” Linda touched Vanessa's hand. “I'm a big girl, you know. I'm even a doctor.” They smiled at each other.

“You know, the odd thing is that I like him so much. I feel comfortable with him, it's as if he really understands me.”

“Does that surprise you so much?”

“Yes.” She sighed softly. “Everybody else has always pushed me. They're on the make and they want to get you to bed in one night. I tried explaining to John how I felt, and he understood it. He said that after his little boy died and he broke up with his wife, he didn't sleep with anyone for two years. He just didn't want to. He thought that there was something wrong with him too, but there wasn't, it was just as though he were numb or something.”

Linda nodded. “He's right. It is very common.”

“You know, he asked if anything ever happened to me to make me feel the way I do.” She shrugged and smiled. “But I just told him I was crazy from birth, I guess.” She laughed, but it was a hollow sound, it was almost as if her eyes asked Linda a question.

Linda spoke very quietly. “I think it must have been a tremendous trauma for you when your mother died, and the custody case. You never know how those things will come out later.”

“Yeah.” She looked wistful. “Some people wind up with a stutter. Me, I'm frigid.” Her eyes were sad when she looked at Linda again but Linda shook her head.

“That's not necessarily true. In fact I seriously doubt it. You've never made love with anyone, Vanessa. You don't know what you are yet.”

“That's the truth. I'm nothing.” She looked disappointed in herself and Linda felt for her.

“Give yourself time. John sounds like a nice man. Maybe he'll come to mean something to you.”

“Maybe.” She sighed again. “If I let him.” It was not as if she were unaware of her problems. She was even beginning to think of seeing a shrink again, which pleased Linda. Maybe she would finally get it all out, after all. Maybe it was time for her. The blockage that had sat there for so long was finally making her uncomfortable.

For two nights Linda had trouble sleeping, the baby had dropped, and it felt so heavy that she could barely walk. A heat wave came along, and she was miserable and restless. At five o'clock one morning she got up, her back ached, she had heartburn, she couldn't sleep, and she finally gave up and made herself a cup of coffee. The coffee gave her cramps, and she felt like a lion in a cage by the time Teddy got up at seven.

“What time did you get up, love?” He looked surprised to see her so wide awake and so busy. She had been in the baby's room since six o'clock, folding clothes again and checking the suitcase she had packed for the baby. He hadn't seen her this busy in months, and then suddenly, as she made a funny face, he began to watch her. “Something wrong?” He said it as casually as possible, as she checked the supplies in the dressing table.

“That damned cup of coffee gave me cramps.” And then just as she said it her face pinched and she gently felt her stomach, and suddenly she understood what was happening. She looked up at Teddy in surprise, with a broad grin. “My God, I think I'm in labor.”

“What time did you get up?”

“About five o'clock. I was restless and I couldn't sleep, so I came in here and got busy.”

He grinned at her. “For a doctor you're not very smart. When did the cramps start?”

“About five thirty.” But they were so gentle, she hadn't even realized she was in labor.

“Why don't you give your doctor a call?”

“Already?”

He nodded. “Already.” She was forty years old. He was not going to play games and wait until the last minute. In fact he insisted on taking her to the hospital right away, even though she was barely in labor. But the whole thing seemed like an adventure, as she showered, put on a clean dress, and kissed him in the doorway.

“When we come back here, we'll be a mommy and a daddy.”

The thought of it made him smile, and he kissed her longingly. They hadn't been able to make love in weeks, and he was hungry for her body. “You'd better get your ass out of here, Doctor Evans, or I'm going to rape you right here in the hallway.” But as soon as he said it she had her first good pain, and she made a little surprised sound, as he supported her with an arm around her shoulders. “I think, my love, that we'd better go. The last baby I delivered at home was twenty-five years ago, and I'm not exactly dying to try that again.”

“Chicken.” She grinned at him.

By the time they got to the hospital, Linda was getting excited and the pains had begun to come at regular intervals, five minutes apart. She was smiling at everybody and exploding with energy and excitement. He helped her unpack her Lamaze bag at the hospital and then they prepared her, and when he came back, she was lying on her bed in a pink hospital gown, with a lollipop between her teeth, her hair tied back with a pink ribbon.

“Good Lord, woman, you look like you're starring in a movie, not having a baby.”

She looked proud of herself as she rode out another pain. “Isn't this how women look when they're having babies?”

“I don't know. Ask an expert.” The doctor had just come in, he examined Linda and declared that all was going splendidly. She was going to try to have the baby by natural childbirth, though he offered her medication if she wanted it. But both she and Teddy had agreed that it would be better for the baby if she tried not to.

A few minutes later the pains picked up in speed, and an hour later Teddy was telling her to pant softly. Her eyes had begun to look a little glazed and there was a faint veil of sweat on her brow, her hair had begun to stick to her face, and she was beginning to clutch at his hand when the pains came. “This isn't as easy as I thought.” She looked at him anxiously, and when the next pain came, she clenched her teeth and he had to shout to make her do her breathing. When it was over, he ran a damp cloth over her forehead, gave her ice, held her hand, and told her how wonderfully she was doing. Nurses came and went, and offered her encouragement, they told Linda she was doing great, and outside in the hall they all gossiped about Linda and Teddy both being doctors. They had seen Lamaze practiced before, and in 1971 it was already fairly common, but they had rarely seen it practiced with such devotion. Linda and Teddy were both working hard, and he was marvelous with Linda.

The next stage lasted until late afternoon, and by six o'clock Linda looked exhausted. Her face looked ravaged by the pain, her hair was glued to her face and her neck, and she was trying desperately not to whimper, and then suddenly with the next pain she gave a scream and lunged toward Teddy. “I can't do it, I can't … I can't… tell them to give me something … please … oh, God …” But he talked her through it. He could tell how well it was going. It was a whole other world than he had seen with Serena. When he had arrived in London that morning, he had known that she was literally dying. Had they left her there long enough, her heart would have eventually stopped from the strain, and the baby would have died too if they hadn't moved quickly. But in Linda's case everything was different. She was obviously in enormous pain, but things were moving at a reasonable pace, and she wasn't being beaten by what was happening. The labor was moving along nicely, and what had happened was that she was finally in transition. After thirteen hours of labor she was nearly eight centimeters dilated, and in a little while she could begin pushing. But they both knew from the Lamaze class that she had just entered the hardest part of her labor. The next two hours were absolutely grueling, and Teddy stayed with her every moment, holding her hand, urging her on, breathing with her, holding a paper bag for her to breathe in, and cooing softly to her almost as if she were the baby, and then suddenly with a final scream a look of victory came to her face, and with no urging at all she began pushing. He tried to make her hold back, but the doctor came quickly, gave the sign to the nurses, and without further ado they wheeled her bed from the labor room right into delivery. She was shifted onto the table, her legs put in the stirrups, and five minutes later she had begun pushing in earnest. The entire delivery-room team urged her on while Teddy held her shoulders, and sweat ran down his face and his back and his arms as profusely as it did down hers. Linda had never worked as hard in her entire life, and Teddy felt as though he were pushing with her.

“Come on, push!” they all shouted at once as Linda's face grew red and she groaned with the effort. It seemed to take forever, but finally the doctor grinned and held up a hand to announce, “The baby's crowning … come on, Linda … come on … I can see hair! … Come on, push!” Linda tried again and the baby moved another inch, the top of his head was almost out now, and Teddy could feel tears sting his eyes when he looked in the mirror. At forty-seven years of age he was having his first baby and he had never loved a woman as much in his life as he loved Linda at that moment.

“Come on, sweetheart … come on, you can do it … oh … that's it … come on … more!” She was pushing as though she would burst and suddenly with a gasp and a groan the head came free all at once and the room was filled with a hearty wail. The doctor grinned, the nurses laughed, and Linda and Teddy began to cry at once, smiling and laughing along with them.

“Oh, what is it?” Linda struggled to see, and when Teddy held her up, she could see the baby's face, angry and red and scrunched up as it cried.

“We can't tell yet.” The doctor smiled broadly. “Give us a few more pushes and I'll tell you what it is.”

“That's not fair,” Linda gasped, smiling at her husband. “God ought to put their sex organs on their heads, so you can tell … right away.…” But she was already working again. Two more pushes and the doctor freed his shoulders, and then, with one enormous final push, the baby was born and he lay in the doctor's hands.

“It's a boy!” he cried triumphantly. “A great big beautiful boy!” Linda's and Teddy's eyes filled with tears as they looked at him. Linda laughed and reached up to kiss her husband, and he smoothed back her hair and looked down at her with unlimited adoration.

“You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.”

“Oh, Teddy …” She smiled through her tears. “I love you.”

“I love you too. Oh, look at him.…” He couldn't get over it, the baby was perfect.

“Eight pounds, twelve ounces. Good work, Mrs. Fullerton.” The doctor looked pleased as he handed the baby to his father.

“And you thought it was going to be twins.” Teddy grinned and looked into his son's face, held him for a moment, and then gave him to his mother. “Here's your boy, Mom.” Their eyes filled with tears again as she held him.

It was a night filled with jubilation and excitement. When they got back to Linda's room, she was so high she could almost fly. She got out of bed and walked down the hall to see her son in the nursery window, and she stood holding on to her husband's arm, and they both looked like the proudest parents alive.

“Isn't he beautiful, Teddy?”

“He sure is.” Teddy couldn't take his eyes off his son. “What'll we call him?”

She looked at Teddy with a smile. “I kind of thought we could call him Bradford, for your brother.” As she said it Teddy felt a lump in his throat, and he reached out and held her and said nothing.

That night a bond had formed between them that he knew that nothing would sever. They had waited half their lives to find each other, and he had thought he would never get over Serena. But Serena had been a dream for him, an unattainable woman he had always loved, and who had never really been his. She had belonged to Brad and then to Vasili, and never really to him. She had loved him, but she had never belonged to him. This woman who had just borne him a son was now his, and he knew it, just as he was hers and would never belong to anyone else again. And as they walked slowly down the hall, back to Linda's room, it was as though the ghost of Serena di San Tibaldo quietly tiptoed away for the last time.

52

“A boy? Hurray! Oh, Teddy, that's super!” Teddy called Vanessa at eleven thirty that night, and she was ecstatic. “Oh, that's beautiful!” And then with a worried voice, “How was it for Linda? Was it hard?” Vanessa had always had nervous feelings about giving birth, and she always said that she never wanted to have children. When the time came, she would adopt. It was something that she and John Henry agreed on. Next time he wanted to know what he was getting. He couldn't imagine going through the agony of a birth-deformed baby again, and the horror of waiting for nine months to know that it was normal terrified him. Yet, like Vanessa, he wanted children.

But Teddy sounded jubilant as he reported. “No, she was just terrific. You've never seen anyone go through it better. And she looked just beautiful.” He almost cried again. “Wait until you see the baby!”

“I can't wait to see him. What's his name?”

“Bradford, for your father. It was Linda's idea. We'll call him Brad, I guess.”

At her end Vanessa smiled. “You've got yourself one terrific lady, Teddy.”

“I know.” He sounded as though he could barely believe his good fortune. “She was so great, Vanessa. You should have seen her!”

“I'll see her tomorrow, first thing.”

“Good. Why don't you bring your friend John Henry? Maybe he'd like to see the baby too.” Teddy was curious about him, and he was dying to show off the baby. Vanessa understood and chuckled at him.

“I'll see if he's free.” But she knew that he wouldn't be able to go. There were some things that still upset him, and going to a hospital to see a newborn was one of them. He had already told her that he wouldn't do it. He had told her that he'd see the baby later, at home. And she understood. “I'll probably come alone, Teddy. I don't want to share the baby with anybody anyway, not even with you!” He had laughed, but when she arrived the next morning at the hospital to see them, she looked very pale as she got off the elevator on the maternity floor.

As Teddy watched her get off the elevator, she seemed disoriented. He started to walk toward her with a smile, but then he stopped. She looked almost gray. He wanted to say something to Linda, but there wasn't time. Vanessa stood next to him in a moment, her eyes very big and gray, and she looked frightened.

“You okay, sweetheart?”

She nodded. “Yeah, but I think I have a headache or something. I worked in the darkroom late last night, and I think that did it.” She smiled but it didn't look real, and then she forced herself to look more cheerful still. “Where's my nephew? I'm dying to see him.”

“In his mother's room.” Teddy looked at her with a smile, but he was still worried as he followed her inside. Linda was sitting on the bed, nursing the baby. Vanessa stopped for a moment, she had snuck in her camera, and clicked several frames, before she put the camera down again and came toward them. There was something terribly serious in her face as she looked at Linda, and then without saying a word, her eyes went to the baby. She couldn't take her eyes off of him. She just stood there staring, her eyes big, her face pale, and her hands trembling.

“Do you want to hold him?” She heard Linda's voice as though from very far away, and without saying a word she nodded and reached out and Linda gave him to her. She sat down in a chair with a look of awe, holding the tiny bundle. The baby had gone back to sleep at his mother's breast, and now he lay round and content in Vanessa's arms as she looked down at him. She said nothing for long moments, as Teddy and Linda exchanged a smile, then suddenly Linda looked at Vanessa. There were tears running down Vanessa's face in steady streams, and a look of pain on her face that tore at Teddy. But before he could say anything at all, Vanessa had begun to speak softly.

“She's so beautiful … she looks just like you, Mommy …” She didn't look up at Linda as she spoke, and Linda sat very still, worried about both Vanessa and the baby. “What'll we call her?” And then softly, she began to croon her name. “Charlotte … Charlie. I want to call her Charlie.” She looked up at Linda then, but her eyes were blind to the people around her. She cradled the baby gently and began to sing softly, as Teddy and Linda watched her. Some deep-seated maternal instinct told Linda to take back the baby, but another sense knew that it was important that she leave him with Vanessa.

“Isn't she pretty, Vanessa?” Linda's voice was like a whisper in the quiet room, and Teddy watched with awe what was happening. “Do you like her?”

“I love her.” Vanessa looked straight at Linda, and saw her mother. “She's mine, isn't she, Mommy? She doesn't have to be his. She's ours. He doesn't deserve her.”

“Why not?”

“Because he's so mean to you, and … and those things he does … the drugs … and when he didn't come back … and … Uncle Teddy said you could have died. But you didn't.” She looked at once agonized and relieved, as they watched her relive it. “You didn't because Uncle Teddy came and got the baby out.” She winced then, remembering how she had seen her mother, near death, her legs in stirrups, strapped helplessly to the table. “Why did they do that to you? Why?” Instinctively Linda knew.

“So I could have the baby. That was all. They didn't mean to hurt me.”

“But they did, and they almost let you die … and he wasn't there …”

“Where was he?”

“I don't know. I hope he's gone for good. I hate him.”

“Does he hate you?'

“I don't know …” Vanessa started to cry. “I don't care …” She continued to cradle die baby, and then, as though she'd had enough, she held him out to Linda. “Here, I think she wants you.” Linda nodded, took the sleeping infant from her, and handed him to Teddy, nodding toward the door. Teddy left with him immediately, and returned a moment later, alone, to watch the drama unfurl. He was terrified at what was happening to Vanessa, but he had always known that it would have to come one day, and it was best if it came now, all at once, with Linda there to guide her.

“Does he hate you, Vanessa?”

“I don't know … I don't know …” She jumped out of the chair and went to the window, staring out of it blindly. And then she wheeled around and looked at Linda. “He hates you … he hates you … he hit you … oh, Mommy … we have to go away … back to New York, to Uncle Teddy.” And then suddenly her face clouded again and she seemed to stare into space with a look of horror. “Back to Uncle Teddy …” It became almost a chant. “Back to New York … oh, no … oh, no …” She looked around frantically, from Linda to Teddy, and he wondered for an instant if she would ever be the same again, if she would ever be sane. “Oh, no! Oh, no! …” And then a wail. “He killed her! That man … he killed my mommy!” She began to sob and reached out to Linda. “He killed you … he killed you … he killed you …” She looked up then as though for the first time she really saw Linda, and it was not the face of a child that Teddy and Linda saw as they looked at her, but the face of a ravaged young woman. “That man”—it was a hoarse whisper, she had come back—”the one I saw in the newspaper that day … he killed my mother.” She stared at Teddy, seeing him too, and then she went on, as though waking from a dream and trying to remember. “And then … the police came and they took him away, and I was”—she looked at them, puzzled—”I was holding a baby.” She closed her eyes then and trembled. “Charlie. Her name was Charlie … the baby Mama had in London … and they took her away from me in a courtroom.” She began to cry great gulping sobs then. “And they made me live with Greg and Pattie …” She looked at Teddy and held her arms out to him. “And then I came to live with you … but I never knew … I never remembered, until”—she looked at Linda in shock and despair—”until I saw that baby … and I thought …” She looked up at her uncle and his wife. “I don't know what I thought …”

Linda helped her at last. “You thought it was Charlie.”

She looked at Linda then. “Is all of this true? I feel like I dreamed it.”

Linda looked at Teddy. “It's true. You repressed it all after it happened, and it's been waiting to come out for years.”

She looked frightened then. “Is there more? Did something else happen?”

Linda was quick to answer. “Nothing else. You remembered it all. It's all over now, Vanessa. It's out.” Now all she had to do was learn to live with it, which Linda knew wouldn't be easy either. She watched the girl closely. She had had a tremendous shock. “How do you feel?”

She looked blank for a minute. “Scared … empty … sad.” And then two huge tears rolled down her face. “I miss my mother.” She hung her head down and began to sob again. “He killed my mother …” She was shaking all over. “When I came into the room, she was … she was lying there … her eyes open, his hands were on her neck and I knew she was dead … I knew …” She couldn't go on, and with tears streaming down his face, Teddy took her in his arms.

“Oh, baby … I'm so sorry.”

“Why? Why did he do it?” The questions were sixteen years later.

“Because he was crazy. And maybe because he was into drugs, I don't know. I think he loved her, but he was terribly disturbed. She left him, and he thought he couldn't live without her.”

“So he killed her.” For the first time she sounded bitter, and then she looked up at her uncle with a look of shock. “What happened to Charlie? Did they give her to him?”

“No, they put him away in an institution. For a while at least. Your sister was given to Vasili's brother. He was a decent man, I think. He was as distraught as I was at the time, and he wanted Charlotte.” Teddy smiled sadly. “He was very fond of you too. Do you remember him at all?” She shook her head.

“Have you stayed in touch with him over the years?”

Teddy sighed. “No, I haven't. The judge discouraged us from having contact with each other. He said that you and Charlie had gone to separate lives. I don't know how Arbus felt about it, but I was nervous about you, because you had repressed it all. I didn't want anyone coming along to surprise you over the years.” She nodded slowly in understanding and spoke softly after a little while.

“She would be almost sixteen now. I wonder what she looks like.” Her lips trembled again. “When she was a baby, she used to look just like Mommy.”

Teddy began to think of something but he thought it was too soon to suggest it. Perhaps in time, when Vanessa had absorbed it all, they could all go to Greece and look up Andreas Arbus. Vasili, he knew from the article, two years before, was dead now. It was, of course, that article and Vanessa's subsequent nightmares that had led him to Linda. He smiled at his wife. She had handled it all so beautifully.

“I'm sorry I spoiled everything, Linda. I came to see the baby and to be happy for you, and instead I went crazy.” She looked rueful and blew her nose. She felt very strange, as though she had just run ten miles or climbed a mountain, it wasn't so much a feeling of exhilaration but of being drained.

Linda reached out to her and put an arm around her in maternal fashion. “You didn't go crazy. You did something very healthy. You finally reached back into the past and opened a door that's been locked for years. And the reason your psyche let you do it is because you were ready. You can handle it now, and your mind knows that. What you did took sixteen years to do, and it wasn't easy. We all know that.”

Vanessa nodded, unable to speak for the tears, and Linda looked cryptically at Teddy and he understood.

“I'm going to take you home now, sweetheart, so you can get some rest.” He took her gently from Linda. “Want to come home with me?”

She looked at him sadly and tried to smile. “I'd like that. But don't you want to be here with Linda?”

“I'll come back later.”

“I need some rest anyway.” Linda smiled at them both, and there was a special smile in her eyes for her husband. She had loved him even more than before since they had shared the birth of their baby. The baby created a bond between them that they could already feel. “You two take it easy today. Brad and I will be home in a few days. That'll be plenty of time for all of us to be together.” She kissed Vanessa again and told her that everything she was feeling was normal and healthy and she should go with it and just let it flow, let the memories come, cry with the sadness, feel the grief and the pain and the loss, and then it would finally be done with once and for all. And then she said gently, “I think your friend John could tell you something about that.”

But Vanessa looked shocked. “How can I tell him? He'll think I'm crazy.”

“No, he won't. Try him. From what you've told me, I don't think you'll be disappointed.”

“What? And just tell him that sixteen years later I remember that my mother was murdered. It sounds nuts to me.” She sounded bitter again but Linda was firm with her.

“Well, it isn't nuts, so you'd better understand that. What has just happened to you is the most normal thing that's happened to you in twenty-five years. And the fact that your mother was murdered isn't your fault, Vanessa. You couldn't help that. It's not a reflection on you, or even on her. It happened. Her husband was obviously crazy when he did it. And you couldn't have stopped him.”

“He was crazy long before that.” Vanessa remembered him clearly now, and hated him all over again, and then she turned to Teddy.

“Did my mother love you?” It was a blunt and painful question for him. Serena had loved him, he knew, but never as he had loved her.

He nodded slowly. “Yes. I was someone she could depend on. I was like a brother to her, or a very special friend.” He looked at his wife now. It was the first time he had told her that, and he wanted her to know it too. And there was something gentle and loving in her face as she looked at him.

“Why didn't they let you keep Charlie?” That had been bothering her for the past half hour.

“Because she was no blood relation to me, and you were. Her uncle wanted her, and he had a claim to her.”

“Would you have taken her?” Vanessa needed to know that. Suddenly she wanted to know everything about what had severed her from her sister. It was as though she had to know all the whys.

“I would have taken her. I wanted to very much.” Vanessa nodded, and a moment later they left. Teddy took her back to his apartment, and she lay down on the couch and they talked for over an hour, about her mother, about the first time he'd seen her, about when he delivered Charlie in London, about Vasili and how Serena had fallen in love with him, and then, as though she had all she could take for the moment, Vanessa closed her eyes and fell asleep on the couch. Teddy stayed near her all day and called Linda several times. He was worried about Vanessa, but she assured him that she felt things had gone very well. He suggested that he stay with her, and when she woke up four hours later, he could see that she felt better than she had. There was a terrible aura of sadness about her, as though she mourned now in a way she hadn't dared when her mother had died. He remembered now that frozen little face, those blank eyes, and in the woman she had become he could see the grief that she had carried hidden for so many years.

At five o'clock she decided to go back to her own apartment. She had a date with John Henry, and she suddenly felt a longing to see him.

“I'm going to be lousy company tonight, but I don't really want to call it off.” She looked at her uncle. “Thank you, Uncle Teddy.” Her eyes filled with tears. “For everything …”She choked on a sob. “For so many years.” They held tightly to each other, and Teddy cried softly too. It was as though, that day, they had finally buried Serena together, and the pain of it, even remembered, was almost more than he could bear too.

53

Linda and the baby came home from the hospital three days later, and when Vanessa came to see them, she looked a great deal better than she had a few days before. Her eyes looked bright and she wasn't so pale, but she still looked worn and tired as she held Brad for the first time. But this time there was no trauma, no ugly memories to haunt her. The ugly memories were out in the open now, along with the good ones, and she felt sharply the loss of Charlie as though it had happened to her only the week before. But this was a different baby, and she knew it. She held him and crooned to him, and laughed when she thought he was smiling. She adored him, and Teddy and Linda were thrilled. On the whole she seemed to have recovered very well from her trauma, but it was clear to Linda as the summer wore on that the pain of it hadn't really left her.

“What's happening with John?” She finally dared to ask her in August. She hadn't wanted to press her before. “Nothing much.” She sounded vague. “We still see each other.” “Oh, has it cooled?” He had come to see the baby once or twice with Vanessa, and Linda and Teddy both liked him. Vanessa's appraisal of him had been correct, he was handsome and intelligent, gentle and kind, and mature well beyond his years. He had declined to hold the baby, but had stood playing with him over his crib. It was obvious that there were still too many memories for him, wrapped up with the infant. He was more comfortable talking to Teddy, or Linda, in the other room. In truth it was a malaise that he and Vanessa shared. There were times when the baby still reminded her of Charlie, but nonetheless she came to see him almost all the time. She had come to visit the baby again on the day when Linda was asking her about John Henry.

“I don't know. Maybe we're just destined to be friends.”

“Any special reason?” But Linda already knew what it was, as Vanessa turned to her almost with defiance.

“Yeah, despite what you said, I seem to be frigid. I just don't want to go to bed with a man.”

Linda sighed as she watched her. “I think you're being premature again, Vanessa. You had an enormous shock two months ago. You have to give yourself time.”

“How much time? I'm almost twenty-five years old.” She sounded angry at Linda, but they both knew that she was angry at herself.

“You told me that when John's baby died it took him two years before he wanted to make love again.”

“How long's it been for me? Sixteen?” She was sick to death of her own problems, of trying to live with them, overcome them, forget them. It was all she had thought of for two months.

“How long have you known? Only two months. You're being very unfair with yourself.”

“Maybe I am.” But she stopped seeing him entirely a month later. She said that she couldn't handle a relationship until she sorted things out in her head, and he was very understanding. He told her simply that he loved her, that he wanted to stand by her, to help her work it out, but if she needed to be alone, he would respect that. He asked only that she try to stay in touch and let him know from time to time how she felt. The day he left her apartment for the last time he stood in the doorway with a look of sorrow in his eyes as he looked at her.

“I want you to know two things, Vanessa. One, that I love you, and two, that you're not crazy. You've been through a horrendous experience and it may take you time to sort it out. But I'll be here if you want me. In a year, in a day. I've never met anyone like you. So when you work it out, just call.”

Her eyes filled with tears and she nodded, but then she turned away as he closed the door. And after he had left, she had never been as lonely in her life. She wanted him desperately, emotionally, physically, mentally, in every way she could think of. But every time she thought of making love to him, she thought of Vasili standing over the body of her mother, and she couldn't bear it. It was as though, if she let anyone that close to her, he would do the same thing to her.

“Is that normal?” she finally asked Linda one day in her office. Linda had gone back to work full-time in the fall, and it was now late September.

“Yes.”

“How the hell do I get over it?”

“Time. And your good mind. You have to remind yourself over and over again that John is not Vasili, and just because Vasili did something doesn't mean that John will do it to you. Vasili is not all men. He is one man. And you are not your mother. I never knew her, but I suspect that you are very different. You're a whole other person, with a totally different life. You just have to say that to yourself over and over, and eventually it will start to take.” She smiled gently at Vanessa. It had been a difficult few months for the girl and it showed. But she was growing from her efforts to wrestle with the problems.

“You know, I've been thinking of going away for a while.”

“I think that's a great idea. Anyplace special?”

Vanessa looked at her for a long moment, and then said it. “Greece.”

Linda nodded slowly. “Want to tell me why, or do I have to guess?”

Vanessa took a deep breath, almost afraid to say it, but she had to. “Ever since the baby's birth I have this overwhelming urge to find Charlie.”

“I understand.” Linda's voice was soft.

“It's a little crazy really, I know she's not a baby anymore, but she's my sister. My mother and father are gone, and other than Uncle Teddy, she's all I have left of the past. I have to find her. And at the same time I'm so damn scared. Maybe I won't have the guts to see her, after all. Maybe I'll just go to Europe and float around.”

“It might do you good.” And then, hesitantly, “Any news from John?”

Vanessa shook her head. “I told him not to call me, and he won't.”

“You could call him.”

“I'm not ready.” And then with a sad shrug, “Maybe I never will be.”

“I doubt that. Maybe he's just not the right one.”

But Vanessa shook her head again. “That's not true. If there were someone,” she said very softly, “I would want it to be with him. He's the kind of man I'd like to spend the rest of my life with. We have a lot in common. I've never … I've never been able to talk to anyone the way I talk to him.”

“That's how I feel about Teddy. It's a very important thing. Maybe after you get back from Europe …”

Vanessa shrugged again, looking noncommittal. “Maybe.”

She thought about the trip for another week after that and then she made the reservations. She was leaving on the first of October, and the night before she left she called John and told him where she was going. He asked her the same questions Linda had, and she told him the same things.

“I want to go to Greece but I don't know what I'll do. I've decided to start out by making kind of a pilgrimage in honor of my mother. Maybe then I'll be able to let go.”

“That sounds like a good idea.” He had been so happy to hear from her, and he wished he could see her before she left, but he knew that she would not agree. It was almost as though she were afraid to see him, afraid of what he represented, and of how much he cared for her. She had told him once at the end that she had nothing to give him, that she thought that she had given herself to people who no longer existed, and she had no way of finding her way back. “Where are you starting out?” He brought the conversation back to the trip after a moment.

“Venice. I know she lived there with her grandmother for a while. I don't know where. But I'd like to see it. Everyone says it's a beautiful town, especially in October.”

He nodded at his end. “It is.”

“After that, Rome. I want to see the palazzo, wander around a little to some of the places Teddy says my father talked about. And then—” She hesitated. “I'll see. Maybe Greece.”

“Vanessa.” He said it almost urgently. “Go.”

“To Greece?” She sounded surprised.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because that's where you'll find the missing piece. You gave yourself to Charlie and they took her away, you have to go back there to find her or to find you. I have the feeling that you won't be happy until you do.”

“You may be right. I'll see.”

“Will you let me know how you are?” For a moment he sounded worried.

“I'll be okay. What about you?”

“I'm all right. I miss you though. A lot.” The damn thing was that she missed him too.

“John …”She wanted to tell him that she loved him, because she did. But there seemed to be so little she could offer him. He was a man who deserved so much more than she had to give. And then she decided to say it anyway. “I love you.”

“I love you too. Promise me that you'll go to Athens.” She laughed nervously into the phone. “I mean it.”

“All right, I promise.”

“Good.”

She hung up then, and the next morning she took the plane to Paris, where she changed flights at Orly Airport, and then flew on to Venice, where the pilgrimage began.

54

Vanessa spent two days in Venice and loved it. It was the most beautiful city she had ever seen, and she walked for hours, getting lost in the maze of crooked little streets, wandering over narrow bridges, sitting in gondolas, looking at the Lido or the assorted palaces. She wished that she had known which one her mother had lived in as a child but they were all so lovely that it didn't matter. She was enchanted with her stay and wished that she had seen it with John.

After that she went to Rome, and was a little overwhelmed when she saw the Palazzo Tibaldo. The few times she'd seen the Fullerton house in New York she had been struck by how grand it was, but it was nothing like this. To her the palazzo looked immense.

It had been taken over in recent years by the ambassador of Japan, and there were Japanese soldiers standing outside it when Vanessa went to have a look. She wished that she could walk in the gardens, but she knew that she couldn't. She remembered her mother talking of Marcella, who had died many years before. For the rest of her stay in Rome she wandered around the many piazzas, the Piazza Navona, Piazza di Spagna, sat on the Spanish Steps with the other tourists, went to the Trevi Fountain, sat in a café on the Via Véneto and drank wine. All in all she was having a wonderful vacation, but after four days in Rome she began to get anxious about why she had come. The first two laps of her pilgrimage were almost over. There had been plenty to see and she had taken lots of photographs, but she knew only too well that that wasn't why she was there. On the fifth morning of her stay in Rome she lay in bed and remembered her conversations with Linda, and suddenly her promise to John rang in her ears. She knew as she lay in her bed at the hotel that morning that she had no choice. She had embarked on a journey on which her life rested, and now she had to take the next step. She picked up the phone, asked for the concierge, and booked a seat on the next flight to Athens. The flight was scheduled to leave at two o'clock that afternoon.

She reached the airport in good time, checked her bag, and boarded the aircraft, and an hour later she arrived at Hellinikon Airport in Athens, looking wide-eyed and feeling desperately afraid. She could no longer remember why she had thought this part of the trip so important. She was terrified of what she would find there, of how she would feel, and she didn't really understand why she had come. When she reached the hotel in Athens, she felt weak from her anxieties, and she went to her room with trembling knees and set down her bags. And then, as though she couldn't wait a moment longer, she went to the telephone book, and holding it close to her, she sat on the bed. But she couldn't read the Greek letters in it, so, as though she were trapped in a dream, she went downstairs to the front desk and asked them to look it up for her. She wasn't going to call them. She just wanted the phone number and the address—”in case.” The man at the desk looked it up for her quickly. Andreas Arbus lived on a street in a quiet residential section, the man at the desk explained. He gave her the address and the phone number and told her it wasn't very far away. Somehow that made it all worse when Vanessa went back to her room, and ten minutes later she had to escape. It was almost unbearable knowing that perhaps now she was very close. She hailed a cab and explained to him in English that she wanted to see a little bit of Athens. She paid him handsomely in drachma, and after an hour's tour they stopped at a café and shared a carafe of wine.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous, the skies were blue, and the buildings looked brilliantly white, and Vanessa sat staring into her glass of wine, wishing that she hadn't come. It was as though she were trying to delay the inevitable every moment, and as she walked back into her hotel room, she knew with a feeling of panic that it was time. Like a woman condemned to a death sentence she walked to the phone with dragging feet, picked up the receiver, and dialed the number she'd been given by the man at the desk.

A woman answered and Vanessa felt her heart go into triphammer action. The woman on the other end spoke no English at all, and all Vanessa could do was ask for Andreas. A moment later there was a man's voice on the phone.

“Andreas Arbus?” Vanessa sounded desperately nervous and he answered her in Greek. “No … I'm sorry, I don't understand.… Do you speak English?”

“Yes.” Even with the one word, he had a charming accent, but she still couldn't imagine what he looked like. “Who is this?”

“I—” She was terrified now and she didn't want to tell him. What if he hung up on her? What if her sister was dead? She forced the crazy thoughts from her mind. “I've come from the States and I'd like to see you.”

He sounded intrigued. “Who are you?” There was laughter in his voice, perhaps he thought it was a joke, and she realized then how absurd it was to expect him to meet her if she wouldn't tell him her name. She took a deep breath and almost choked on a sob.

“My name is … Vanessa Fullerton.” It came out in a rush. “You may not know who I am, but my mother was married to your brother and—” She couldn't go on, as tears clogged her throat.

“Vanessa?” The voice was gentle. “Are you here? In Athens?” He sounded stunned, and she wondered if he would be angry. Perhaps he didn't want her around. God only knew what they had told Charlotte. “Where are you?”

She gave him the name of the hotel. “The man at the desk says it's pretty close to where you live.”

“It certainly is. But I am astonished to hear from you. Why have you come?” He sounded gentle and as though he genuinely cared.

“I—I don't really know, Mr. Arbus. I—I think I just had to. It's a long story. I … perhaps … we …”

“Would you like to get together?”

She nodded. “Yes, I would. Would that be all right?”

“Of course, my dear. Are you busy now?”

“No. No, I'm not.”

“I'll be there in half an hour. Is that all right with you?”

“Thank you. That would be fine.” Well, she had done it, she told herself after she hung up. She had called him. And she had no idea at all what to expect now. Surely he would come alone. He would not bring Charlotte with him. But at least she would see him, and maybe she would get some answers from him. The only trouble was that she was not yet sure of the questions, but perhaps when she would see him, she would know.

She waited nervously in her room, tapping her foot and waiting. She had combed her hair, washed her face, she was wearing gray slacks and a cashmere sweater, brown Gucci shoes and, as always, there was a camera over her arm, and she nervously took it with her when at last she went downstairs. She stood rooted to one spot in the lobby, watching people come in, and then realized that she hadn't told him what she looked like, and she had no idea what to expect of him.

She stood there for another ten minutes, wondering if perhaps he were already there, and then, as she watched the door, she saw him. She had no recollection of him at all, yet when she saw him, she knew it was he. He was well built, and very elegant, he was wearing a dark blue suit that looked as though it had been made in London or Paris, and he had an interestingly chiseled face and salt-and-pepper hair. His eyes as he looked around were quick and intelligent, and his face was heavily lined, she noticed. He looked like an interesting man, and as he inquired at the desk and then came toward her, she felt a magnetism in his eyes that surprised her. He was an odd combination, she could see. In some ways he looked very young, and at the same time in a certain way he looked quite old. He was in fact fifty-eight years old, but he didn't look it. He had kept his body youthful, and he looked no more than forty-eight or so. He came toward her slowly, as though afraid to approach, and the dark eyes were smiling gently.

“Vanessa?” The voice rang a distant bell. “I'm Andreas.” He held out a hand and she walked toward him. There was something in his eyes that made her trust him.

“Hello.” She smiled and he watched her. Her face was not very different than it had been sixteen years before.

“Do you remember me at all?” He stood before her, looking down at her gently and she shook her head, but then she smiled.

“But I've had a bit of a problem with that.”

“Oh?” He looked at her with concern and then indicated the bar. “Shall we go in there? Perhaps we can find a quiet corner.” Vanessa nodded and fell into step beside him. It was odd, there was something so virile about him that one felt more of a woman at his side. Vanessa felt it as she walked along beside him, and he glanced at her, smiling at the beautiful hair. “You've grown up to be a beautiful woman, Vanessa.” He found a table and they settled down. “But I always knew you would.” He looked at her quietly then. “Do you want to tell me why you're here?”

She sighed again. “I really don't know why I'm here. I just knew that I had to come here.” He said not a word about Charlotte. He only nodded. And then suddenly she felt compelled to tell him the story of how she had repressed it all and remembered it only recently at the birth of Teddy's baby. She had to fight not to cry as she told him, and it seemed absurd to be telling this totally strange man. After all, he was the brother of the man who had killed her mother, and yet she couldn't bring herself to hate him, and she realized when she finished her story that he was holding her hand. He patted it then and released it, looking deeply into her eyes.

“You had forgotten completely about Charlotte?” It was hard to believe.

“Completely.” Vanessa nodded. “It all came back to me at once.” He shook his head as though feeling her pain.

“How terrible for you.”

And then Vanessa couldn't help asking the question. “Does she know about me?”

He smiled. “Yes. She knows all about you.” He sighed then. “All that I knew to tell her. Your uncle didn't wish any contact, and the American court had discouraged it. Of course.” He looked troubled. “I can understand … it was a terrible time.” This time there were tears in his eyes. “Vanessa, my brother was a very strange, very sick man.” Vanessa said nothing. Part of her didn't want to hear about him, and another part of her did. It was all part of why she had come. “He was not really evil, but so wrong in his pursuits, his ideas. It was as though he had taken a bad turn in his youth.” He sighed again. “We never really got along. And he was always in trouble … women … drugs … terrible things. His wife before your mother committed suicide.” He stopped abruptly, looking at Vanessa, afraid to go on. “And then of course there was the tragedy that happened in the States.”

“Does Charlotte know?” It was odd asking this stranger questions, and yet she knew that she could, that she had to.

He looked at her quietly. “That her father killed her mother?” He said it so bluntly that Vanessa was shocked. “Yes, she knows. She knows the good about him, and she knows the bad. And she knows everything I knew to tell her about your mother. I wanted her to know it all. She has the right. She has the right to try to understand in her own way. I think she accepts it. It is horrible, and it hurts her, but she never knew either one of them. To her they are only people in a story.” He said it sadly. “It is not as if someone told her that I had killed someone. That would be different, that would tear her apart, but Vasili … your mother … they are only names to her.” He spoke very softly.

Vanessa looked at him and nodded. “Did she have a woman to bring her up?”

He shook his head. “My wife passed away when Charlotte was two. She doesn't remember her. She had my daughters, who are like big sisters to her, and she has had me.” Something sad crossed his face then, but Vanessa couldn't read it. “And you? Did your uncle marry when you were young?” He was looking at her so intently, as though to drink in her face, as though to see something that Vanessa herself didn't know was there. It seemed strange to her at first but she got used to it after a few minutes. There was something extraordinarily compelling about the man.

“No, my uncle only married last year. We were alone while I was growing up.”

“Did you mind?” He seemed curious and she shrugged, thinking over her answers.

“I don't think so. Teddy was like a mother and father rolled into one. I missed my mother, but that was different.”

He spoke very gently. “I think that Charlotte has always been very curious about you. She talked often as a child of her American sister, she used to play games with you, using her imagination, once she wrote you a letter. I still have it somewhere. I used to wonder if you would come back.”

“Have I been here before?” She looked momentarily startled and he nodded.

“A few times with Vasili and your mother. We used to play checkers, you and I.…” His voice drifted off and it was as though she could see something in the distance. She closed her eyes and she began to remember. She could see him, and his wife and his children.… When she opened her eyes, they were filled with tears.

“I remember.”

“You were a wonderful little girl.” And then his face clouded. “I remember when Charlotte was born, I came to London.…”He shook his head and looked at Vanessa squarely. “You went through a great deal. Your mother should never have married Vasili.”

Vanessa nodded agreement, thinking of how strange their lives had been, interwoven, and then broken apart, and then back again.

“And you?” He looked at her with a warm light in his eyes. “You're not married yet?”

“No.” For a moment she looked distant and then she smiled.

“A beautiful girl like you? That's a waste.” He wagged a finger and she laughed, and then she asked him another question.

“Does she look anything like me?”

He looked at her closely, and then shook his head. “Not really. There is a kind of impression. It's more in the way you move, the shape of your body. Not the face, or the eyes, or the hair.” He looked at Vanessa very hard then and she felt his eyes bore through her. “Do you want to see her, Vanessa?”

She was honest with him as her eyes met his. “I don't know. I'm not sure. I want to, but… what then? What will it do, to both of us?”

“Perhaps nothing. Perhaps you will meet as two strangers, and part the same way. Perhaps you will meet as sisters. Or you will grow to be friends. It is difficult to say.” And then, hesitantly, “Vanessa, you should know, she looks a great deal like your mother. If you remember your mother at all, it may upset you to see her.” It was odd to think of it, why should this girl she had never seen look anything like her mother? The whole idea of having a sister was suddenly almost more than Vanessa could understand. She felt suddenly exhausted again as she sat there with Andreas, and he saw all the emotions crossing her face and reached out a hand for hers. “You have time to think it over. She is away for two weeks. On a cruise with some friends.” He looked sheepish. “She is supposed to be in school, but … it's a long story, but she talked me into it. My children say I spoil her rotten, but she's a good girl.”

Vanessa thought about what he had said. “When will she be back?”

“Two weeks from today. She left last night.” Vanessa thought it over with exasperation. If she hadn't lingered in Rome, she could have come to Athens the day before, and it would be over. She would be on her way back to the States by now, with whatever impressions she had gathered and the deed done. Now she would have to wait for fourteen days.

“I suppose I could go somewhere else, and come back.…” She mulled it over and he watched her. When he thought there was no one looking, there was something unbearably sad in his face.

“Wouldn't you like to stay here, in Athens?” He smiled the smile of a host. “You could move into the house, if the hotel is a problem.” But Vanessa smiled and shook her head.

“You're very kind, but it isn't that. I'm just not sure what I'd do sitting here for two weeks. I could go to Paris, I guess.” But she really didn't want to. She wanted to take a look at Charlotte and go home. She had decided that much now, but wait another two weeks?

“Why don't you try waiting here?” He inclined his head in a gentlemanly fashion. “I will do my very best to entertain you.”

“No, really, I couldn't impose on you—”

He interrupted her. “Why not? You have waited sixteen years for this moment. May I not share it with you? May I not help you to live through the fears, to deal with the anticipation, to have someone to talk to?” As he said it she wanted to let him take care of her forever, he had that kind of way about him, a way of giving in every way he could, so that one felt as though one had been given a part of his very soul.

“You must have better things to do.”

“No.” He looked at her very strangely. “I don't. What you are doing is much more important than anything I was attending to when you arrived. Besides,” he said, shrugging easily, “October is a slow month in Athens.” He laughed in his husky way. “Athens is slow all year.” And then he smiled as he asked a question. “And what do you do in New York, Vanessa? Your uncle is a doctor, I believe.”

“He is, and so is his wife. I'm much less respectable than they are.” She smiled at Andreas. “I'm a photographer.”

“Are you?” He looked pleased. “Are you good at it?”

“Sometimes.”

“Then we'll have to take pictures together. I enjoy photography too.” They began to talk then of a recent exhibition that had come to New York and also to Athens, and the time began to drift by as if they were old friends. And at ten o'clock they both remembered that they hadn't eaten. Andreas insisted on taking her to a restaurant nearby, which turned out to be a beautiful little place with marvelous food. When he brought her back to the hotel at one o'clock in the morning, she was exhausted and happy, and felt like a different woman than when she'd arrived. She tried to share the feelings with him, but he only hugged her and kissed her on both cheeks. “Never mind, Vanessa. It is I who thank you. I shall see you tomorrow. Does that suit you? We'll go and take pictures on the Acropolis, if you'd like that.” She could think of nothing better. They said good night again, and she went back to her room.

She found herself musing over things he had said, as she undressed slowly, and she found her mind full of him as she fell asleep. The prospect of waiting two weeks to meet Charlotte still didn't thrill her, but at least for a few days she could spend some time with Andreas, and after that she'd have to see.

When she awoke the next morning, the maid was bringing in an enormous bouquet of flowers. They were fragrant and brilliantly hued in a big handsome white vase, and Vanessa looked stunned. The card said only WELCOME, ENJOY YOUR STAY, ANDREAS, but she was very touched and told him so when he picked her up. He was driving a large silver Mercedes, and in die backseat he had a whole basket of Greek goodies for her to eat. In addition he had brought along for her a picnic basket, in case they didn't want to go back to eat. She looked at him strangely for a moment, as though she didn't understand him, and he met her eyes.

“Yes?”

“Why are you so good to me, Andreas?” Perhaps he felt sorry for her, or he felt an obligation, but there was something very different in his eyes.

“For one thing, you are a very lovely young woman, possibly the loveliest I've ever seen. For another thing, I care about you, Vanessa. I did a long time ago when you were a child.” How blessed she had been then to have two men who had cared so much about her. Teddy, and perhaps even this man. “You were special to me even then.”

“But you don't know me now.” She was still puzzled, and she wanted to know what he saw.

But he looked at her very deeply. “I do know you, little one. I knew what was happening to you then, and I can see what has happened to you now.” It was almost like having a father, and yet it was not like that at all. He was unusual and special and terribly attractive, she felt herself being swept away on a current she didn't understand at all.

“How can you see what has happened?” She tried to look amused, but she was not.

“I can see it in your eyes.”

“What do you see, Andreas?” She spoke softly and he stopped the car and pulled off the road.

“I see how much you have been hurt, Vanessa. I see what Vasili must have done to you as a child. It is as though something in you has been beaten.” And then, in a matter-of-fact voice, “I can also see that you're afraid of men.” She started to deny it, and then, feeling defeated, she shook her head.

“Does it show so easily, then?”

“No.” He smiled at her and looked more handsome than ever. “I'm just a very wise man.”

“Be serious.” She began to laugh at him and he laughed too.

“I am serious.” And then he turned toward her and asked a question that shocked her. “Are you still a virgin, Vanessa?”

“I … no …” She blushed beet-red and looked away.

“Don't lie to me.”

“I'm not.” And then after a moment's pause, softly, “I am.”

“Is there someone you love?” It was odd to be answering all these questions he asked her, and yet she wanted to. It was as though she wanted to give herself to him.

“Maybe. I don't know. I haven't made up my mind.”

“But you haven't gone to bed with him?”

She sighed softly. “I can't.” And then as they drove into the hills around Athens she told him how it was with her and men —how she'd feel afraid when they got too close to her and she held them at bay, even more so since she remembered the murder, she would picture his face and feel all over again how panicky she was then.

“One day, Vanessa, you will forget that.” And then he shook his head. “No, that is wrong. You won't forget it. But it will not haunt you. Most of all, you must stop being afraid.”

“But how?” She turned to him as though he had all the answers, and in some ways he did.

“Time. Everything heals in time. It hurt me a great deal when my wife died.”

“That's not the same thing.”

He glanced at Vanessa. “No, it's not.”

“What about Charlie? … Charlotte … is she like me at all? …”

Andreas chuckled softly. “No, little one.” But his eyes sobered then as he patted Vanessa's hand. “But she has nothing to remember. She was only a baby. And she is young and beautiful, and all the boys love her and she loves them. She is a tease and a flirt and a little beast. That one”—he rolled his eyes and laughed again—”will lead some poor man a merry chase.” Vanessa envied her as she listened. It seemed part of another life. But Andreas understood her and looked at her seriously again. “It is a great deal harder to be who you are. All that Charlotte has ever known is that she is greatly loved. She is the fruit of an unfortunate union between two people who flew across the sky at each other and crashed like falling stars. They met and exploded in a hailstorm of beautiful comets. She is one of those comets, and the falling stars simply vanished from the heavens as they died.”

“You make it sound so lovely.”

“It was lovely, for a time, Vanessa. They loved each other very much.”

“But look what happened then.” She sounded mournful, and he looked at her severely.

“No, you must stop looking at that, Vanessa. You must look at the beginning, at when it meant something. If you look always at the trail of dust behind the car, you will never see the beauty of the machine.” The allegory amused her and she smiled. “Everything is beautiful for a time. Some things have great meaning in a lifetime, what they become later doesn't always matter so much. In your mother's case it was tragic, but it still meant a great deal. They had a child who is a joy to everyone who knows her, and especially to me. Just as you were the fruit of your mother's love for your father. When he died, none of the beauty could ever be forgotten, because there was you. You must learn to hold the moment, Vanessa, only the moment… not to try to seize an entire life.” She was silent for a long time after he said it, and in time they reached the Acropolis, took all of their photographs, and then ate their picnic on the hills. For the rest of the afternoon they stayed away from difficult subjects, and made each other laugh with funny tales and memories. They compared their cameras, took pictures of each other, cavorted and laughed and had a wonderful time. It was as though he were her own age and not old enough to be her father, and when he took her back to the hotel, she was sorry to see him go.

“Dinner tonight, or are you tired?” She wanted to say no to him, but she couldn't. It didn't seem right to monopolize all his time, but she enjoyed being with him and she had nothing else to do.

They met again for dinner that night, and the next night, and the night after. And on the fifth night they went dancing, and when he brought her home, he seemed unusually quiet.

“Is something wrong, Andreas?” She looked at him and saw that the lines around his eyes seemed deeper.

He smiled. “I think you've worn me out. I'm an old man, you know.”

“That's not true.” It was certainly hard to believe looking at him.

“Well, it feels true, and when I look in the mirror …” He made a terrible face.

She invited him into the hotel for a drink, and although he looked tired, he accepted, and as they sat over ouzo and coffee she felt oddly nostalgic. Her days in Greece were the happiest of her life.

“What were you thinking just then?”

She looked at him for a long moment, and without her thinking, the words slipped out. “That I love you.”

He looked as though she had reached deep inside him and touched his heart. He looked startled and gentle and deeply touched. “The nicest part of all that is that I love you too.”

“It's funny.” She looked at him and he took her hand. “I came to see my sister, and in the last few days I've forgotten about her most of the time.” For a moment Vanessa looked embarrassed. “All I think about is you.”

“I've been falling in love with you since you got here, my love, but I didn't think it was right… a beautiful young girl and such an old man.”

“Stop saying that.” She looked hurt. “You're not old.”

He looked at her in an odd way. “I will be very soon.”

“Does that matter?” Her voice was very soft, and she could feel his breath, soft on her face as he sat very close to her. “It doesn't matter to me, Andreas, not at all.”

“Perhaps it should.” His voice was as soft as hers.

“What about the falling stars? Don't we have a right to be falling stars too, for one moment before we fall out of the heavens, never to be seen again?”

“Is that what you want, only a moment instead of a lifetime? My darling, you deserve much more.”

“You told me that I was wrong, that I should search for the moment, and not the lifetime.”

“Ah.” He smiled gently at her. “You see … the foolish things that I say.…” But he was looking at her so profoundly and with such love that she moved gently toward him, and a moment later she was in his arms and he was kissing her as he hadn't kissed a woman in half his lifetime, and all he wanted in what remained of his life was this splendid young girl. “I love you, Vanessa … oh, darling.…”He held her close. He wanted to take her upstairs to her hotel room, but more than that, he wanted to take her home with him. He laid some money on the table, stood up with a gentle smile, and held out his hand to her. She asked no questions. She followed him out of the hotel, got in his car, he drove her home, and ten minutes later they were standing in his palatial home with the fountains and the atrium and the courtyard, the exotic plants and the priceless objects he had collected from around the world. Quietly, holding her hand, he led Vanessa to his room, closed the door and locked it, so none of the servants would surprise them in the morning, and then led her to the small study where he often sat, staring into the fire. He threw a match into it now, and in a moment there was a cozy blaze before them, and he sat beside her and kissed her, and then knelt before her, with her face in his hands. He touched the lines of her face and ran his fingers through her hair, touched her throat and her neck and her breasts and circled her waist with his hands. He touched her and held her and caressed her, until the fire began to grow dim, and then he looked at her gently and asked her permission to take her to his bedroom.

“Will you come with me, Vanessa?” He said it so gently that she would have gone to the ends of the earth with him. She followed him quietly, let him undress her, and a moment later they lay side by side in his bed. Here again he lingered over the graceful curves of her long, supple body, and marveled at how beautifully she was made, and at last, gently at first, and then with ever greater urgency, he took her. She cried out at first and he knew that it hurt her, but he held her close to him, sharing her pain, and when it was over, he held her and caressed her and loved her, and in a little while they made love again.

When she woke up beside him in the morning, there was a smile on her face and a look of peace in her eyes that had never been there before, not so much because she had made love with Andreas but because she had given her heart to him, she had come to trust him, and with that, she had at long last unlocked the long-hidden door she had never, until that moment, been able to find.

55

The next days sped by much too quickly, as Andreas and Vanessa spent all of their time together, going for long walks in Athens, discovering markets, going for drives and once a sail on his yacht. She moved out of the hotel the morning after they had become lovers, and he ensconced her in a handsome guest room just down the hall from his suite. She spent each night in his bedroom, and in the morning, like two children, they ran into her room and tousled the bed so it looked as though she had spent the night there, and then they laughed, and one morning he had insisted on making love to her there, so that the disorder would appear real. She had never been so happy in her life, and it was as though the rest of her life had been forgotten. Teddy and Linda and the baby all seemed part of a distant dream, and whenever she thought of John Henry, she gently pushed the thought away. She didn't want to think of him now. She only wanted to be with Andreas, for as long as they had, however long that was, a moment or a lifetime, to share their hours and their dreams.

She noticed once or twice that he seemed a little vague in the morning, and noticed also that there were vast quantities of pills in his dressing room. But she felt that it was indiscreet to ask him questions about it. Now and then he was still sensitive about the difference in their ages. He wanted to introduce her to his family though and it was Vanessa who suggested that they wait until she met Charlie, and now the day was approaching when her sister would come home.

The last night they spent alone together they went to a quiet restaurant, came home early, and made love, and afterward Andreas fell into a deep sleep. Vanessa wandered slowly around his bedroom, looking out at the view and wondering what the next day would bring. What would she think of this girl who though a total stranger was her closest kin?

From some of what Andreas had said, she suspected that Charlie had been spoiled rotten, and since she was living in the midst of the Greek shipping magnates, it was certainly likely that that was the case. Andreas had already tried to buy two diamond bracelets for Vanessa, and she insisted that that wasn't what she wanted. Instead he bought her some marvelous lenses for her camera and gave her a beautifully cut simple emerald ring.

“But I can't keep that, Andreas, it's so expensive!”

He was amused at her concern. “I promise you, my darling, I can afford it.” He had kissed her passionately and quelled her objections, but after they had made love, she mentioned it again.

“I shouldn't, it's too big a present.”

“Ah, how refreshing, a woman who wants smaller emeralds!” He looked amused. “Believe me, darling, my wife had none of those reservations.” Vanessa had to laugh at him and shook her head. In the end she had agreed to keep it, and now she saw it sparkling darkly on her left hand. It looked, in a way, like an engagement ring, and it meant a great deal to her. It symbolized the love that she had for this man, and all that he had done for her. He had freed her from her lonely tower and brought her down into his arms. Had he asked her to marry him at that moment, she would have, but there was never any talk of the future between them. He seemed to live entirely in the here and now.

The next morning Vanessa rose early and was already dressed by the time Andreas came out of his room. He was going to pick Charlotte up at the dock and bring her back to meet Vanessa. Vanessa had insisted that she didn't want to shock her, but he insisted again that Charlotte was a sturdy, happy child and it would not upset her to be surprised. In the end Vanessa let him talk her into going, and they drove down to the port after they got the phone call that his friend's yacht had returned. Vanessa sat playing with the emerald ring and looking out the window, feeling a cascade of emotions rush over her and trying to fight back a lump in her throat.

He leaned over and kissed her as he stopped the car and smiled at her. “Are you all right, my love?” She nodded, looking at the handsome, lined face and touching the silvery hair.

“Yes, thanks to you, I've never been better.” And then she sighed. “I'm just scared.”

“Of what?” And then suddenly he understood. “That she will reject you?”

“Maybe. I don't know. I loved her so much when she was a baby, and now I'm meeting a total stranger. What if she doesn't care about me at all?”

“She always has, in the stories she told me about you, in her fantasies. You were always the big sister whom she loved.”

“But she doesn't know me. What if she hates the real thing?”

“How could she”—his eyes glinted with affection mingled with passion—”when I love you so much?”

“Oh, Andreas, what was my life before you came along?” She could barely remember it now. After two weeks with him it was as though she had belonged to him for her entire lifetime.

He pointed the yacht out to her then, it was a magnificent piece of work, painted black with three enormous masts and full sails. It slept eighteen in the cabins, with a crew of twelve. Charlotte must certainly have had a very pleasant trip.

“What shall I do? Shall I wait here?” She wanted to run away and Andreas smiled at her.

“Why don't you? I'll go on board and talk to her alone for a few minutes, and then we'll come up to get you. Maybe you'd like to see the boat?” But he could see in her eyes that all she cared about was seeing Charlotte. The boat could have sunk once her sister got off it, the rest just didn't matter at all. He had to smile at her.

“What are you going to tell her?”

“That you're here, that you came all the way from New York to see her, that you didn't know where she was until now.”

“Will you tell her about us?” Vanessa looked worried, and suddenly wondered if Linda had at one time felt that way about her.

But he shook his head. “No, darling, not now. One thing at a time. She's only sixteen.”

Vanessa agreed with him. It was a relief. It was hard enough to meet a sister, without having to tell her that you were madly in love with her uncle, and highly desirous of becoming her aunt. She turned the emerald ring around on her finger, and Andreas walked quietly toward the gangway, and a moment later disappeared.

It seemed hours before he emerged again, but it was actually more like twenty minutes. He had taken Charlotte quietly aside after greeting his friends and had had a talk with her. He had explained that Vanessa was in Athens and all of the things he had told Vanessa he would say.

“She is?” Charlotte's eyes flew open wide. “She's here?”

“Very much so.” He smiled at the enthusiastic response.

“Where is she?”

“Charlotte … darling …” Suddenly he was worried too. Maybe Vanessa was right. Maybe it wouldn't be easy. “She's outside.”

“On the dock?” Charlotte stood to her full height, her sheaf of black hair flung straight as onyx threads over her shoulder. Her hair was Vasili's, but the rest of her, every inch, was Serena. “She's right out there?” Charlotte pointed with all of her sixteen-year-old disbelief and excitement, and with a slow smile Andreas nodded, and as he did she took off, ran out of the room, up to the deck, across the gangway onto the dock, and stood looking around with excitement, and then she saw her, standing so tall and quiet and blond beside her uncle's car. She looked exactly as Charlie had dreamed her. So exactly that it stunned her now to see the real thing. It was as though she had always known her, always carried an image of her in her heart, and as she stood staring from the distance, Vanessa suddenly stiffened. She had seen her coming off the boat, the black hair, the long legs, all of it. It was exactly like seeing her mother. Vanessa gave a small anguished sound and stood there, rooted to the spot, it was as though her mother had come back to life, in the body of this girl coming toward her. Without thinking, Vanessa began to ran toward her, and she didn't stop until they stood in front of each other, the tears pouring down Charlotte's face as well as Vanessa's, and without saying a word, Vanessa held out her arms. Charlotte flew into them, and they held to each other, as from the deck Andreas watched them, with tears flowing from his eyes too. The two girls clung to each other for an endless moment, and it seemed as though Vanessa was never going to let go.

“Oh, baby …” she kept saying over and over. “Oh, Charlie.”

“You came back.” Charlotte looked up at her rapturously, with the face of her mother and the eyes of a child. “You came back.”

“Yes, love.” Vanessa looked down at her, a woman at last. A smile lit her eyes behind the tears. “I did.”

56

For the next two weeks the threesome was inseparable. Vanessa went everywhere with Charlie, except when she was in school, and then Vanessa spent her time with Andreas. They were alone again at night, after Charlie went to bed, and then their life continued as it had before Charlie had got back to Athens. It was an idyllic time for them all, and Vanessa had never been happier. She had everything she wanted, a man she loved, a sister she adored, and now all the good memories returned as she put away the others. She remembered times she had had with her mother, and seeing Charlie brought it all back to her. She dared now to touch the past, like a magic blanket she had brought with her over the years and always hidden.

It was during the second week that Charlie had come back that Vanessa got up one morning and Andreas didn't come to breakfast. She was worried when he didn't come down as he always did, trim in his English suits, and his perfectly starched white shirts, his hair impeccably in place, and smelling of lavender and spices.

“Is he all right, do you suppose?” Vanessa looked at her sister with a worried frown. He had seemed all right the night before, but she didn't mention that to Charlie. They were keeping their love affair a secret.

Charlie looked troubled too as she buttered a piece of toast. “I think it may be one of his bad days. If it is, we can call the doctor after breakfast,” The ravishing child swung her hair over her shoulder and began to munch on her toast.

“One of his bad days?” Vanessa looked confused.

“Sometimes he has them.” She looked at Vanessa strangely, a question in her eyes, but Vanessa seemed not to understand her. “Was he all right while I was gone?”

“He was fine.” Vanessa felt worry begin to tighten her chest. “Is he ill?”

For a long moment Charlotte said nothing. She sat in all her silky black splendor, her enormous green eyes piercing into Vanessa's. They were bright with tears when she spoke again, but her voice was calm. “He hasn't told you?” Vanessa shook her head.

“He has cancer.” For an instant Vanessa felt as though she could feel the room twirl, and then clutching the breakfast table, she stared at her sister.

“Are you serious?”

Charlotte nodded quietly, with all the dignity of her mother. “He's had it for two years. He told me almost right away. He said I had to know, because there was no one else to take care of me afterward. He said I would have to grow up quickly because of that.” The tears began to slide down her face and it was difficult to continue. “I could live with any of his children, but”—she gulped —”it wouldn't be the same. And he's right.” She was crying openly now, looking at Vanessa. “It wouldn't.”

“Oh, my God.” Vanessa went around the table to where she sat, and sat down with her arm around her. “Oh, poor baby.” But her thoughts were in a jumble as she cradled her sister on her shoulder. “Can't they do anything for him?”

Charlie sniffed loudly. “They have. They've done wonders. We almost lost him last year.” Her English was precise and Vanessa loved her accent. She loved everything about her. “But then he got better again. He wasn't too well just before I left, but then he seemed to be all right, and he promised me that if he got sick he'd call me on the boat and I'd come back. It's in his liver and his stomach.” Vanessa thought over the meals they had shared, and remembered noticing that he ate very little. She thought at the time that it was vanity and that was why he ate so little, to keep his figure. Now she felt heartsick at what she had heard. The man that she loved was dying. For an instant she felt sorry for herself, remembering that she was about to endure another loss in her life, but almost at the same moment she could hear Andreas's voice telling her that they had to grab the moment … and now Vanessa had Charlotte to think of. The loss of Andreas would be a tremendous blow to her. The two girls sat that way for a long time, and then Vanessa looked at her watch as she saw the chauffeur in the hallway.

“You'll be late for school.”

“Will you go in and see him? And don't believe a word he tells you. If he looks sick, call the doctor.”

“I promise.” She walked Charlotte to the door, waved at the retreating limousine, and hurried back to the door to Andreas's bedroom. She knocked softly and went inside when he answered her knock. She found him lying in bed, looking deathly pale, but trying to look cheerful as she entered. “Andreas …”She didn't know what to say. He wanted to play a game, and she didn't know how to play it with him.

“Sorry, I overslept.” He sat up with a wan smile, and overnight he seemed to have radically altered. Charlotte had warned her that that was how it was on his “bad days,” and then suddenly he would seem better again and look like himself for a while. But the doctor had told her the month before that the good days would be coming to an end soon. “You must have worn me out last night.”

“Darling …” Her voice trembled as she sat down, and he smiled at her. She had become a woman in one short month. There was nothing left of the frightened girl she had been when she arrived in Athens. “I …” She didn't know how to say it, but she knew that she had to. The pretense would be impossible to keep up. And as long as Charlie knew, there was no reason why she shouldn't too. With enormous gray eyes she looked at him and held his hand. “Why didn't you tell me?” There were tears in her eyes and he looked startled for a moment, as though she had caught him unprepared.

“Tell you what?”

“I spoke to Charlie this morning—” She faltered and he immediately understood and nodded.

“I see … so you know.” He looked sad for a moment. “I didn't want anyone to tell you.”

“Why?” The sorrow that she felt showed in her eyes and it tore at his heart to watch her.

“You have had enough loss in your life, my love. I was going to send you home while I was feeling well, with nothing but happy memories to take with you.”

“But that isn't real if the reality is this.”

“The reality is both. All that we have shared, all the love, the excitement, the happy moments. Vanessa.” He looked at her gently. “I have never loved any woman as I love you. And if I were younger, and”—he skipped over the words—”things were different for me now, I would ask you to marry me, but I can't do that.”

“I would, you know.”

“I'm happy to know that.” He looked pleased. “But what I want you to take away from here is better than marriage. I want you to take a better knowledge of yourself, an understanding of how much you have been loved. I want you to take not the past but the future with you.”

“But how can I leave you here? And if you're ill, I want to be with you.”

He shook his head with a gentle smile. “No, my darling, that I cannot allow. What we lived was that brief moment I talked to you about before. Perhaps it will come again, perhaps I will be better again tomorrow. But when I am, this time you must go. And when you go—” He hesitated for a moment, obviously in pain. “I want you to take Charlotte.”

Vanessa looked stunned. “Don't you want her here with you?”

“No.” He spoke very clearly. “I want the two people I love to go to their new lives. In your hearts you will take me with you. You have been dear to me, little one, for all of these years that I remembered you as a child. Now you will remember me for a lifetime.” She knew that it was true, but she didn't want to leave him. He shook his head though, vetoing her objections. “My children will be here with me, Vanessa. I will not be alone. And soon,” he said very softly, “it will be time to go.”

She bowed her head then and began to cry, and at last she raised her eyes to his face. “Andreas, I can't leave you. I can't give up what we had.”

“You won't. You will take it with you. Won't you?” He looked at her so gently that it made her cry more. “Won't you always remember?”

“You've changed my whole life.”

“As you've changed mine. Isn't that enough? Do you really want more? Are you so greedy?” His eyes were teasing and she smiled through her tears and blew her nose in the handkerchief he gave her.

“Yes, I am greedy.”

“Well, you can't be. And you must fulfill an important task for me. For two years I have agonized about what will happen to Charlotte. I had thought that she will be with my children. But she needs something more. She is a special child. She needs someone who will love her as I have.” Now his eyes were damp too. “I like watching the two of you together. You are so good to her.” And then, as a single tear slid down his face and tore at Vanessa's heart, “Will you keep her with you?” It was like receiving a sacred gift, the Holy Grail, and Vanessa was dumbfounded that he would ask her.

“Yes, but don't you want her here with you?”

“No, I want her away from all this. I know what it is. It will get very ugly. And”—his face grew stern—”she is not to come back afterward for my funeral. That's barbaric and unnecessary.” He glowered and Vanessa made a face.

“Stop running everyone's life.”

“No, my darling.” He smiled at her more gently again. “Only yours, and that's because I love you.”

“Are you serious? Do you really want me to take Charlie back to the States?” He smiled. Vanessa was the only one who called her Charlie, but Charlotte loved it. “Won't she be terribly lonely?”

“Not with you. Put her in a good school.” He cleared his throat slightly. “She will have an enormous income, run by her trustees. With her father's death she inherited a considerable fortune.” Vanessa nodded.

“I lead a very simple life. Do you think that would be enough? She is used to such grandeur.”

“I think that she would like it. I will see to it that you both have all the necessary comforts.” But Vanessa shook her head.

“I can't let you do that. I have enough as things are. One day I know that Teddy has provided for me. I make enough money from my photography. It's just that—” She looked embarrassed. “It's not fancy.”

“She doesn't need fancy. She needs you. Vanessa, please.” His eyes pleaded with her. “Take her.”

Vanessa looked at him then. “I want to ask her first. That seems only fair.” He looked doubtful, but finally he agreed.

And that afternoon when she came home from school, Vanessa quietly put the question to her. She seemed shocked for a moment. “He wants me to leave?”

“I think so.” Vanessa looked at her sadly. “But I won't take you if you don't want to go. You can stay in Athens with him if you want to.” He couldn't force her to take the girl away, after all. And she could always come back for Charlie later.

“No.” She shook her head. She knew Andreas better than Vanessa. “He'll send me to Paris or somewhere. He doesn't want me here in the end.” They had talked about it for two years. And then slowly she nodded at Vanessa. “I want to come with you.” Vanessa said nothing more, she only took the girl in her arms and held her. All the mothering that she had thought she would never have had come out and was pouring forth for this child, who looked so much like her mother. It was like returning something she had been given a long time before. They had come full circle.

They told Andreas that night that Charlotte had agreed, and he said that he would have his lawyers arrange for transfers of funds and whatever else would be needed. His secretary would see about schools in New York. He thought that a Catholic school run by nuns would be a good choice, and Charlie was not overly delighted about it. She wanted to go to something “free thinking and American,” not more nuns, which was where she went to school in Athens. But she was so delighted at the prospect of going back to the States that it eclipsed all her complaints about the school. But on the whole the atmosphere in the house for the next two weeks was bittersweet, all of the excitement was tempered with sorrow.

Three days before they were to leave, Vanessa called Teddy and Linda and told them that she was bringing Charlotte. She had written them long letters about how it had been and how happy she was in Athens. And she told them how marvelous Andreas had been, but she didn't tell them that she had had an affair with him. She felt private about that, and Linda had sensed that there was something she wasn't telling.

“Will you meet our plane?” Vanessa sounded tired but not totally unhappy. She had explained about Andreas's illness and they understood only too well how hard it was on her. But they couldn't know fully how hard it had hit her. They didn't know how much she loved him.

“Of course we'll meet the plane.” Teddy sounded ecstatic. “We'll even bring the baby.” And then he had a thought. “Do you want me to call John Henry?”

“No.” Her answer was instant.

“Sorry.”

“That's all right. Don't worry about it. I'll call him when I get back.” But she sounded vague.

“He's called here a couple of times, wondering if we had news. I think he was worried.”

“I know.” She had only sent him two postcards in the beginning of her trip, and nothing at all since she had reached Athens. But she couldn't write to him. She couldn't concentrate on them both. She had become totally involved with Andreas. “I'll take care of it.” But Teddy suspected that it was over and told Linda so when he hung up the phone.

“I think she's still not ready.”

“Maybe not.” Linda looked worried but had to go look after the baby.

And in Athens the preparations went on, until at last the valises were packed. Several boxes had been filled with things to ship, like Charlotte's stereo. Andreas had told her once that she could come home in five months for Easter, but very little was said about that. In the past few days it had become apparent that his cancer was moving very quickly.

The night before they left, Vanessa sat next to Charlie's bed and told her about her life in New York, Teddy and Linda, the baby. “Don't you have a boyfriend?” Vanessa shook her head, and she looked disappointed. “Why not?”

“I just don't. I have friends.” She thought of John Henry and felt a little shiver of guilt. She owed it to him, in a way, that she had come to Athens. He had made her promise to do it. “And there is one nice man I see.”

“What's his name?”

“John Henry.”

“Will I like him? Is he handsome?” She looked suddenly very much sixteen as she snuggled in her bed and Vanessa smiled at her.

“He's sort of handsome, I guess. And I think you'll like him.”

“I'm going to find a boyfriend.” She said it with determination, and Vanessa grinned and stood up.

“Well, first get some sleep.” They had said very little about Andreas. It seemed odd to Vanessa, but Charlie seemed as though she had made her peace with the situation. There was something fatalistic about her, as though she were wise well beyond her years. Andreas had prepared her well. “Sleep tight. I'll see you in the morning.”

“Good night.” And then as Vanessa stood in the doorway, “Are you going to Andreas?” Did she know? Vanessa looked stunned.

“Why?” She stood very still.

“I just wondered. He loves you, you know.”

And then Vanessa had to say it. “I love him too. Very much.”

“Good.” Charlie didn't seem disturbed. “Then we will love him together.” It was as though, as he had said, they would be taking him with them on the morrow.

Vanessa gently closed the door and went down the hall to Andreas, where they spent the night in his bed, holding each other tight, and at last he slept soundly in her arms. She knew at that moment that for the rest of her life she would take him with her.

57

Their parting was brief, heroic, and brutally painful. Charlotte clenched her teeth, held him close, and stood back for a moment, looking at him.

“I love you, Andreas.”

“I love you too.” And then, “Good-bye.”

With Vanessa it took a moment longer. He reached out and held her to him, felt her warmth against him for a moment, and then set her free. “Take what you learned and use it well, my darling. I give you two gifts, that of my heart and that of courage.” He said it so softly that no one could hear him, and when he stepped back, he pressed a small box in her hand. His eyes insisted that she take it. And then suddenly they were being rushed onto the plane and he was gone and she and Charlie were both crying. They boarded the plane with their arms around each other, and it wasn't until after they took off that they felt like talking. Charlie was subdued, and Vanessa looked at her, thinking that she looked absolutely splendid. She was the prettiest girl Vanessa had ever seen, and she had noticed a number of heads turn as they had taken their seats. It was the combination of the ivory skin, the emerald eyes, and the sheet of black satin hair. It was a dazzling combination.

It wasn't until later that Vanessa opened the small package Andreas had given her. A thin gold chain fell into her hand, and at the end of it a starkly beautiful single diamond in a setting that made it look like a star, and as she hung it around her neck she understood its meaning. It was their falling star. As she touched it with her fingers she felt her eyes fill with tears again. She had only known him for six weeks, but it seemed like a lifetime.

The plane landed in London an hour and a half later, and they had to change planes, and discovered that they had to wait for two hours until they could board the plane to New York.

“Do you want something to eat?” Vanessa looked at her sister after they had checked in, and Charlotte looked excited. She had bounced back after leaving Athens, and now there was a fresh spark in her eyes. She had met two English boys and a girl her own age on the plane and had talked to them at length. They were on their way to London, she explained to them that she was on her way to New York. Vanessa marveled at how lively and open she was, at how easily she talked to people. She had none of Vanessa's restraint, no fears at all about being hurt or rejected. She was used to being loved, to spreading joy wherever she went.

They walked into the coffee shop arm in arm and took a table, and Charlie ordered a hamburger and Vanessa ordered tea.

“Don't you want to eat?” Charlie looked surprised, but Vanessa seemed suddenly nervous. “Is something wrong?”

“I don't know.” Vanessa looked strained. “I think it's this airport.” And then as she said it the memories began to flood back, the times she had been there with her mother … with her mother and Vasili on their way to Athens … when they had left London the last time for New York. Vanessa looked into Charlie's eyes and trembling a little, she recalled it all, even the appalling scene in the hospital in London, when she had called for Teddy to come and save her mother's life. “What were you thinking just then?” Charlie looked worried, but Vanessa slowly smiled.

“About when you were born. …”

“Andreas said that Mommy almost died.”

“She did.” Vanessa answered gravely. “My uncle Teddy came and delivered you by Caesarean.” Charlie nodded.

“Where was my father?”

Vanessa looked distant as she answered. “I don't know. He had disappeared.” She sighed deeply then. “He was awful to my mother in those days … to our mother,” she corrected, and Charlie nodded.

“He used to scare me. After a while Andreas wouldn't let me see him.” She had been five when he had got out of the institution, and fourteen when he died. But she had only seen him four or five times over the years. They said nothing more about him, and Vanessa sat lost in her own thoughts.

“What was it like when you were little?” Charlie looked at her with her big green eyes and Vanessa smiled.

“It depends when. Some of it was wonderful… and some of it wasn't.” But she seemed to look at it differently now. She looked at everything differently since she had met Andreas. None of it seemed quite as overwhelming as it had before.

“Do you remember your father?” Charlie was curious about all of it now. She was crazy about her sister in every way.

Vanessa shook her head. “Not really. Just from pictures. The only man I really remember from my childhood is my uncle Teddy.” But now she remembered Vasili too. It was odd now that she remembered him so clearly, he seemed ugly to her, in the things he had done to her mother, but he didn't frighten her as he had before. When she thought of him, it was with anger and sadness at what he had done, but she thought also of Andreas and the love she had just shared with him. Vasili was only one man now. He no longer represented all men. And as she thought of it she looked at Charlie, and then glanced at her watch with a sudden thought.

“Are we late?” Charlie still wanted a milk shake.

“Go ahead. I want to make a phone call.”

“To who?” The sixteen-year-old eyes were always curious and Vanessa laughed.

“A friend in New York.”

“From here? It will be so expensive!” Andreas had made her a speech about not being too extravagant in New York. “Why don't you call from there?”

“Because I want him to meet us at the airport, Miss Nosy, that's why.” She grinned at her sister and went to the phone booth just outside the restaurant, as Charlie ordered a chocolate milk shake and a piece of pie, none of which showed on her figure.

The phone rang twice and he answered it, and her voice sounded strained at first. She told him that she was fine and that she was arriving with Charlie. And then after an awkward pause, “I'd like to see you, John.…” She didn't know what else to say, how to tell him. …”

“At the airport?”

“Yes.”

“I'll be there.”

And when they landed in New York, he was. Vanessa and Charlie came off the plane, looking rumpled and tired and expectant. They came through customs, and as they did Vanessa looked up high at the glass-enclosed deck, and she pointed them all out to Charlie.

“There they are, love, waiting for us.” There was Teddy and Linda and the baby, and John Henry standing beside them, looking terribly serious, as his eyes never left Vanessa's face. She looked different to him as he watched her, more sophisticated, he thought, and somehow more womanly than she had before. And as she stopped to speak to a customs officer, he looked down at her neck and saw something sparkle. It was the diamond Andreas had given her when she left.

“Are you ready?” She looked at Charlie with a smile as they prepared to leave the customs area.

“Yes.” Charlie said it almost breathlessly.

Hand in hand they were going into their new life. The doors opened automatically and they stepped into the terminal, and for an instant Vanessa could see Teddy catch his breath. Seeing Charlotte for the first time was like seeing Serena return to life. Only the hair was different but even that seemed not to matter as one looked into the familiar green eyes. Teddy stood very still, looking at her, his eyes filled with tears, and then with a sudden gesture he brushed them aside and hurried toward her, he took her into his arms and he held her, remembering the last time he had seen her, when she was only an infant in court. And now she was back with them, sixteen years later. And he held her, knowing that Serena's baby had come home at last.

Linda watched him and held their baby, as Vanessa walked slowly toward John Henry. He only looked at her and he said nothing. There were no words that had to be spoken between them. She had gone to Athens as he had told her, she had touched her past, found her sister, and she had come back. She felt his arms tremble for a moment as he held her, and when he looked into her face and saw her smiling, he knew that all was well. John held tightly to Vanessa's hand, and Teddy slipped an arm around Linda, and Charlie walked between the two couples, with a broad smile.

“Welcome home.” John Henry said it over his shoulder.

And Teddy whispered softly, “Welcome back.”

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Copyright © 1981 by Danielle Steel

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eISBN: 978-0-307-56676-8

August 1989

v3.0

Table of Contents

Cover

Other Books By This Author

Title Page

Dedication

Book 1 - Serena: The Early YearsChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21Chapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25Chapter 26Chapter 27Chapter 28Chapter 29Chapter 30

Book 2 - Serena: The Survival YearsChapter 31Chapter 32Chapter 33Chapter 34Chapter 35Chapter 36Chapter 37Chapter 38Chapter 39Chapter 40Chapter 41Chapter 42Chapter 43Chapter 44Chapter 45Chapter 46Chapter 47Chapter 48Chapter 49

Book 3 - Vanessa and CharlieChapter 50Chapter 51Chapter 52Chapter 53Chapter 54Chapter 55Chapter 56Chapter 57

Copyright