Danielle Steel - The Kiss

“Try to stay out of his way. And I'll call you.” He knew it was best if his phone number didn't appear on her bills. That would have been all Gordon needed. “Only call me if you absolutely have to,” Bill told her. “I'll call you.” She felt lonely and isolated as she realized the situation she was in. She was in disgrace, even more than he knew, and Gordon was prepared to exact the ultimate price for it. To the uttermost farthing.

They talked for a while, and he had to go back to therapy again. He promised to call her later in the afternoon, before Gordon came home from the office.

But this time he surprised her. Instead of late, he came home early. He came home at four o'clock, looking as though he expected to surprise her in some wrongdoing. But Bill had already called her. And she was stretched across Teddy's bed playing cards with him. Teddy had a passion for gin rummy. He liked to play solitaire too, but he much preferred to play games with his mother.

Gordon waved as he walked by the room, but he didn't stop to speak to the boy, or Isabelle. It was exactly the same behavior Sophie had seen all summer. It had given Sophie a new view of her father, and she didn't like it. She hated the way he would talk to her, and completely ignore Teddy, as though he were invisible or had never existed. The boy was inadequate in Gordon's eyes, and severely flawed, and he dismissed him. He wasn't worthy of his attention, and Teddy knew it. For years now, he had had absolutely no respect for his father, and little affection. Gordon showed him none at all, nor did he show Isabelle any, and hadn't for years. Sophie had only just begun to understand that. And Sophie commented on it later that afternoon, when she was visiting her mother before she went out for the evening again with friends.

“Why do you let him treat you that way?” Sophie accused her. She wanted her mother to stand up for herself, and was upset that she didn't. Although she had battled with her for years, Sophie was now potentially her strongest ally.

“He doesn't mean any harm by it, sweetheart. That's just the way he is.” Isabelle was always quick to defend him to the children, no matter how right they were when they complained about him. “He's not a demonstrative person,” she explained, and Sophie looked angry. She had learned a lot about him that summer, more than she wanted. It had destroyed all her illusions about her father. Her sympathies were now entirely with her mother. Isabelle had become a hero to her.

“He demonstrates indifference and rejection and meanness constantly. He's awful to you, and he doesn't care about Teddy,” Sophie said angrily.

“Of course he does, Sophie.” Isabelle looked nervous as she listened to what Sophie was saying, although she knew there was a great deal of truth to it.

“He only cares about himself. He doesn't care about me either.”

“He's very proud of you.” Sophie didn't challenge her about that, but she also didn't believe her.

“Even if he is, he has no right to treat you that way, or Teddy.” He was slightly better to Sophie than the others, but he had been less nice to her lately, and it hadn't gone unnoticed. He had never thanked her for the efforts she made, the opportunities she gave up, or the love she showered on her brother in their mother's absence. Sophie had come to see her father as a cold, hard, unfeeling, ruthless man, which was precisely what he was. It had gotten him a long way in business, but it definitely wasn't winning him any medals at home with his wife and children.

“Please don't worry about it,” Isabelle urged her. “Your father is a good man.” But even as she said it, she knew it was a lie, and so did Sophie. He was anything but good, or even kind. “Your father and I are used to each other. We know what to expect, and how we feel about each other. It's not as bad as it looks from the outside.” But Sophie knew it was worse. She now understood why they had separate bedrooms, and she realized that her father was out all the time. He had hardly spent an evening at home while Isabelle was in the hospital in London, and more than once she had discovered that he was out for the night, but she didn't tell her mother that. She knew she would have been terribly hurt by it. Sophie didn't think he had a girlfriend. He didn't seem the type. But she had no idea where he went. He never left any numbers with her. “Everything's fine,” Isabelle reiterated, but she didn't convince her daughter. There seemed no point in Isabelle's mind to tell her just how unpleasant the situation was.

“Was he always like that?” Now that she thought about it, and had for the past two months, she couldn't remember her father ever treating her mother any other way. She couldn't remember a time when there had been warmth and affection between them. She couldn't recall her father ever giving her mother a kiss or a hug. And they had had separate rooms ever since Teddy was born. Her mother had said it was so she could take care of Teddy and not disturb their father, but now Sophie realized it was due to far more than that. And she couldn't understand why she herself hadn't been shocked by it sooner. She had always favored her father since her earliest childhood, and now she felt guilty about it. She had learned a lot, and grown up, while her mother was gone. And nearly losing her in the accident made Sophie cherish her more than she ever had. “Was he different when you got married?” Sophie asked, looking sad for her. She felt so tender toward her mother now.

“He was very protective when we got married. Very strong, very determined, I thought it meant he loved me. I was very young. And he was wonderful when you were born. He was so happy.” She didn't tell Sophie that Gordon had wanted a boy. She'd had a miscarriage after that, and then finally four years after Sophie, Teddy was born. And everything had gone sour after that. He reproached her for Teddy's early birth, insisting that she must have done something to provoke it, and it was all her fault.

Gordon had disengaged himself from the ailing baby right from the first. And within months, he had detached himself from Isabelle as well. She had wanted his support and his love, it had been a hard time for her. They had almost lost Teddy several times during the first two years of his life, and it terrified her. He was so tiny and so frail and so much at risk, but Gordon had let her know again and again that he thought it was all her fault. He told her constantly how inadequate she was, how incapable, how wrong. He had completely undermined her self-confidence, and any belief she'd had in herself, as a mother, as a woman, as his wife. And within two years of Teddy's birth, he had completely shut her out. She had never really understood why, but she had somehow come to believe that it was her fault. And she still felt that way now at times. She always had the feeling that if she'd done things better, he would still love her, and all would have been well with them. Just as he had this morning about her behavior and the accident in London, he invariably blamed her, and she was willing to accept both the blame and the guilt. Except finally, thanks to Bill, less so this time. She knew she had been wrong to meet him in London, in a clandestine way, but at that point at least, she had done nothing wrong. She intended it to be an innocent encounter, and she had told him that she honored her marriage. It was only in the hospital, after the accident, that everything had changed. And she loved Bill so much now, she was willing to bear the guilt, just to have him in her life. There was no way she could give him up now.

“I don't know why you married him, Mom,” Sophie said as she got ready to leave and meet her friends. What she had discovered that summer about her father, among other things, was that he was mean to the point of being cruel at times. And she hated that about him.