Lightning (38 page)

“Mommy and I just think it's better, sweetheart,” he said, trying to calm her down and explain it simply. “I'm not here much anymore anyway. I travel a lot. And Mommy and I think …” How could you explain it to a four-year-old? They weren't sure they understood it themselves, how could they explain it to her now? “Mommy and I think we'll all be happier if she has her apartment, and I have mine. You can come and visit me anytime you want, and lots on weekends. We can do lots of fun things. We can even go to Disney World again if you like.” But she was smarter than that, and her mother's girl. Bribery didn't fix it.

“I don't want to go to Disney World. I don't want to go anywhere.” And then, the killer, “Don't you love us anymore, Daddy?”

He almost choked as he heard the words, and was quick to reassure her. “Of course I love you.”

“Don't you love Mommy anymore? Are you still mad at her for getting sick?” The correct answer would have been yes, but he wasn't that honest.

“Of course not. Of course I'm not mad at her. And yes, I love her. But we …” he had to fight back tears again, as Alex held her, “we don't want to be married anymore. Not like we used to be. We want to live in separate places.”

“Are you getting divorced?” She looked genuinely shocked. She had heard about that in school, from Libby Weinstein. Her parents were divorced, and her mommy had remarried and had twins, and Libby didn't like that.

“No, we're not getting divorced,” Sam said firmly, though Alex wasn't even sure why they weren't. What was the point of dying by inches? But neither of them seemed ready to take the final step yet, and there was no rush. So they could reassure Annabelle at least for the moment. “We're just going to live in separate houses.”

“I don't want you to.” Annabelle glowered at him, and then with a sudden jerk she spun around in Alex's arms and glared at her mother. “It's all your fault, for getting sick. You made him mad at us, and now he's moving out. That was mean of you! You made him hate us!” She spoke with such vehemence that neither of her parents was prepared for it, as she broke from Alex's arms and ran to her room and slammed the door, and inside, she lay sobbing on her bed, beyond consolation. They both tried talking to her, to no avail, and finally Alex decided to leave her alone for a while, and walked silently into the kitchen. Sam was already standing there, staring at her, mute with grief and guilt. He had never felt worse in his life than now as he looked at Alex.

“As usual, it's all my fault,” Alex said unhappily, and he shook his head, feeling no better than she did.

“She'll get around to hating me eventually, don't worry about it. It's neither of our faults, it's just the way it is. It's what happened.”

“She'll get over it,” Alex said, sounding unconvinced. They all would. “She'll see that you're not that far away, and if she sees enough of you, she'll be all right about it. You're going to have to make that effort.”

“Obviously,” he said, annoyed at the lecture. “I want her with me as often as you'll let me have her.”

“You can have her whenever you like,” Alex said generously, but uncomfortable with the feeling, as if they were dividing up candlesticks, and not their daughter. And then she looked at him, remembering their plans. “What about this weekend?” He had wanted to take Annabelle to the Hamptons with him for the Memorial Day weekend. He had rented a house for four days, and he thought it would be fun for her, and Alex had agreed.

“I'd still like to take her, if she'll come.”

“She's mad at me, not you. Remember?” She and Brock were going to Fire Island for the long weekend. “She'll be okay,” she reassured him, and then went to check on her again. Annabelle had stopped crying, and she was lying on her bed, looking like her heart was broken.

“I'm sorry, baby,” Alex said softly to her. “I know it's hard. But Daddy still loves you, and he's going to see you all the time.”

“Will you still take me to ballet?” she asked, confused about who was going where. It was a lot for a four-year-old to absorb. At forty-three, it was a lot for Alex too. And Sam had just turned fifty.

“Of course I'll take you to ballet. Every Friday. I'm not going to be sick anymore. I finished taking my medicine.”

“All of it?”vshe asked suspiciously.

“All
of it,” she confirmed.

“Will your hair come back now?”

“I think so.”

“When?”

“Soon. We can be twins again.”

“And you're not going to die?” That was the crux of it for all of them, and a hard one to promise.

“No.” It was more important to reassure her now than to be completely truthful. There were no guarantees, but there was no sign of a recurrence either. “I'm not going to die. I'm all better.”

“Good.” She smiled at her, almost ready to forgive her for losing her father. “Why does Daddy have to go now?” she asked plaintively. It was so hard to explain it to her.

“Because he'll be happier. And that's important for him.”

“Isn't he happy here with us?”

“Not right now. He's happy with you. But not with me.

“I told you he was mad at you,” she chided, “you should have listened.” Alex laughed then. They were going to be all right. They had all survived. They had made it. Bad things had happened to them, but they had managed to live through it.

She went back out to see Sam again, before he left, and she found him packing a suitcase in the guest bedroom. Most of his things were still there, but he had told her that he'd be moving in the next two weeks. He was going to stay at the Carlyle for a month until the apartment was ready. He hadn't wanted to move into Daphne's apartment, and the Carlyle seemed like a good middle ground, and a nice place for Annabelle to visit.

“She's all right. She's shaken, but she'll adjust,” Alex said sadly.

“I'll pick her up at school on Friday, and take her out to Southampton with me then. I'll bring her back on Monday night.”

“Fine,” Alex nodded, realizing that they had just slipped into” a whole new phase. Despite his comings and goings for the past six months, it had just become official. They had told Annabelle. They were getting separated, not divorced, but separated. It was a whole new world now.

“Poor little thing,” Brock said sympathetically, when Alex told him about it that night. “It must be hard for her to understand. It's hard enough for grown-ups.”

“She blames me for it. She said that if I hadn't gotten sick, he wouldn't have gotten mad at us. There's a certain truth to that, but I guess it was all there, lurking beneath the surface. I guess I didn't have the perfect marriage I thought I did, or it wouldn't have fallen apart so quickly.”

“I think what you went through would strain a lot of relationships,” he said fairly.

She nodded, and then remembered something. “One of these days, I want to meet your sister.” He nodded, but said nothing. And then Alex got distracted when they talked about their plans for Fire Island. It sounded like it was going to be a fun weekend. They were going to stay at a small funky old hotel in The Pines, and she knew from experience, that once you got on the ferryboat and felt the salt air on your face, you left your problems behind you. It was just what she needed.

Sam could have used a little of that kind of weekend too. He picked Annabelle up at school, with her suitcase, and took her for a quick lunch, before they picked up Daphne and headed for Southampton. He had wanted to have lunch alone with Annabelle first, so he could prepare her, but she seemed more confused than ever. The idea that there was another woman in his life seemed more than she could even vaguely imagine.

“She's coming with us for the weekend?” She looked at him blankly. “Why?”

“Oh …” He groped for answers, feeling suddenly very stupid. “To help me with you, so we have more fun.” It was a dumb answer, and he knew it.

“You mean like Carmen?” She looked confused again, and he laughed nervously.

“No, silly. Like a friend.”

“You mean like Brock?” That at least was a frame of reference she understood, and one he immediately clung to.

“Exactly. Daphne works with me at the office, just like Brock works with Mommy.” There were more similarities than he knew, but he had no suspicion of them whatsoever. “And she's my friend, and she's coming with us for the weekend.”

“Are you going to work with her, like Mommy works with Brock?”

“Well maybe …but actually …no, we just thought we'd have fun and play with you all weekend.”

“Okay.” It seemed silly to her, but she was at least willing to meet her.

But Sam's perceptions of their weekend plans were completely different from Daphne's.

“Why on earth didn't you bring a nanny with you?” Daphne stared at him in disbelief when he picked her up at her apartment. Annabelle was downstairs in the car, he had the keys, and he was keeping an eye on her from the window. “Or at least a maid. We won't be able to go anywhere with a child that age. We'll be bloody well stuck all weekend.” It was a side of her he'd never seen, but she was anything but amused as he picked up her suitcase.

“I'm sorry, darling,” he apologized, “I never even thought of it.” He and Alex had always taken care of her when they went away, and it had never been a problem. But then again, she was their child, and they'd been married. “I'll bring Carmen next time. I promise.” He kissed her and she softened a little bit. She was wearing a blue cotton sundress and he could see her breasts through it, and he already knew from experience how little was beneath it. “You're going to love her,” he promised as they went downstairs, “she's adorable.” But as it turned out, she was not particularly adorable to Daphne, and she was extremely suspicious.

The ride to Long Island was fraught with questions and awkward answers and minor lies, and by the time they got there, Sam was perspiring and looking very nervous. He set Daphne's things down in the room next to his, and Annabelle's in a room across the hallway. But Daphne laughed aloud as soon as she saw the arrangement.

“You're not serious, are you, Sam? She's only four years old, she can't possibly know what's going on.” And Daphne really didn't care what she told her mother. But Sam did.

“I thought you could just leave your things in there, she doesn't have to know where we're sleeping.

“And if she has a nightmare?” He'd never even thought of it. But Daphne knew that much about children.

“We'll go in to her.” He solved the problem, and Daphne laughed at him again.

“You'll be sure and tell her not to set foot out of bed, on penalty of death, won't you, darling?”

“All right, all right.” He felt stupid and uncomfortable, and even he had to admit that Annabelle was a perfect brat all afternoon and then she ate too much candy, and spent too much time in the sun without a hat, and threw up her entire dinner all over Daphne.

“Charming,” she said, looking vastly unamused, as Sam attempted to clean it. “My little man does that constantly too. I've tried explaining to him that it's extremely unattractive.”

“My Mommy throws up all the time,” Annabelle said defensively, glaring at her. She knew they weren't friends, and weren't going to be, no matter what her Daddy said. She wasn't like Brock at all. She was mean and nasty. And she kept touching Annabelle's Daddy and kissing him. Annabelle had seen it. “My Mommy's very brave,” Annabelle went on, as Sam took off her dress and threw it in the sink. He felt her head for a fever, but she didn't have one. “She got very sick, and Daddy got mad at her, and now he's moving to a new apartment.”

“I know, darling, so am I,” Daphne announced before Sam could stop her. “I know all about it. I'm going to live there with him.”

“You
are?”
Annabelle looked horrified and ran to the room they had assigned her. And as soon as she was gone, Daphne unbuttoned the two straps at her shoulders and stepped out of her sundress, and stood in front of Sam completely naked. “She got sick on my dress,” she explained, but he already knew.

“I'm sorry. I think this is a lot for her to stomach all at once,” he said, unaware of the pun, and Daphne smiled.

“Apparently. Don't worry about it.” She kissed him, and he couldn't keep his hands off her, but he knew he had to.

“You'd better put some clothes on. I'll go up to Annabelle.”

“Why don't you let her stew in it for a while, she's going to have to get used to it. It's really not a good idea to mollycoddle children.” Was that how she thought of it? Mollycoddling? Was that why she'd left her son with her ex-husband in England?

“I'll be down in a minute,” he said, and went upstairs, wondering how long the war would go on. But Annabelle was crying when he got there, and she continued to cry until she fell asleep in his arms, and he felt terrible about everything that had happened. He wanted Annabelle and Daphne to love each other. They were both important to him, they were both important relationships in his life, he needed both of them, and he wanted them at least to like each other.

But when Annabelle woke the next day at six a.m., they were still in bed, and Daphne was lying naked in his arms. He had never thought of what might happen in the morning, and he had forgotten to ask her to wear a nightgown. Annabelle wandered into their room without a sound and stood staring at them, her mouth open in horror. Sam was wearing nothing either, and he suggested that Annabelle go downstairs and wait for them, but Daphne was not amused to be woken at that hour, and it put her in a bad mood all morning.

The two “girls” went at each other tooth and nail, and Sam finally took Annabelle to the beach to get away from it, but when he came back to take Daphne to lunch, she was furious that Annabelle had to come with them.

“What do you suggest I do with her for heaven's sake? Leave her home alone?”

“It wouldn't kill her, you know. She's not an infant. I must say, you treat children in America in quite extraordinary ways. They're dreadfully spoiled and the center of everything. It's not even healthy for them. I promise you, she needs to be treated like a child, Sam. She'd be much happier at home, with a nanny or a maid, than dragging around everywhere with you. If her mother wants to do that with her because she has a pathetic little life, then that's fine, but I'm telling you right now, I don't intend to do it. I won't inflict my son on you for more than five days a year, and don't expect me to play nursemaid to yours. I won't have it,” she said petulantly, and for the first time in six months, he was both hurt and disappointed in her, and he wondered if something in her youth had made her so disagreeable about children. It was inconceivable to him that anyone would just dislike them. But when he thought about it, he realized that she had more or less warned him right from the beginning. He only hoped that she'd be willing to change now.