Danielle Steel - Sisters

“Washington, D.C. I just came up from Miami today. I was in St. Barts for a couple of weeks.” A vision of their house there came instantly into her head. She hadn't seen it in five years. It was one of the many properties she had willingly relinquished to him in the divorce.

“Are you coming to New York to see the kids?” She didn't want to tell him that he should. He knew it as well as she did, but he always seemed to have something else to do. Most of the time anyway. Much as he loved them, and always had, they got short shrift, and they knew it too. And yet they all loved him, and in her own way, she did too. There seemed to be no one on the planet who didn't love him, or at least like him. Blake had no enemies, only friends.

“I wish I could come to see them,” he said apologetically. “I'm leaving for London tonight. I've got a meeting with an architect there tomorrow. I'm redoing the house.” And then he added, sounding like a mischievous child himself, “I just bought a fantastic place in Marrakech. I'm flying there next week. It's an absolutely gorgeous, crumbling palace.”

“Just what you need,” she said, shaking her head. He was impossible. He bought houses everywhere he went. He remodeled them with famous architects and designers, turned them into showplaces, and then bought something else. Blake loved the project even more than the end result.

He had a house in London, one in St. Barts, another in Aspen, the top half of a palazzo in Venice, a penthouse in New York, and now apparently a house in Marrakech. Maxine couldn't help wondering what he was going to do with that. But whatever he did, she knew it would be as amazing as everything else he touched. He had incredible taste, and bold ideas about design. All his homes were exquisite, and he owned one of the largest sailboats in the world, although he only used it a few weeks a year, and lent it to friends whenever he could. The rest of the time he was flying around the world, on safari in Africa, or making art forays in Asia. He'd been to Antarctica twice and came back with stunning photographs of icebergs and penguins. His world had long since outgrown hers. She was content with her predictable, well-regulated life in New York, between her office and the comfortable apartment where she lived with their three children, on Park Avenue and East 84th Street. She walked home from her office every night, even on a day like this. The short walk revived her after the hard things she listened to all day, and the troubled kids she treated. Other psychiatrists often referred their potential suicides to her. Dealing with difficult cases was her way of giving to the world, and she loved her work.

“So Max, how's by you? How are the kids?” Blake asked, sounding relaxed.

“They're fine. Jack's playing soccer again this year, he's gotten pretty good,” she said with pride. It was like telling Blake about someone else's children. He was more like their favorite uncle than their father. The trouble was, he had been that way as a husband too. Irresistible in every way, and never there when there was something hard to do.

First, Blake was building his business, and after his windfall, he was just never around. He was always somewhere else having fun. He had wanted her to give up her practice, and Maxine just couldn't. She had worked too hard to get where she was. She couldn't imagine walking away from it, and didn't want to, no matter how rich her husband suddenly was. She couldn't even conceive of the kind of money he'd made. And eventually, although she loved him, she couldn't do it anymore. They were polar opposites in every way. Her meticulousness was in sharp contrast to the mess he made. Wherever he sat, there was an avalanche of magazines, books, papers, half-eaten food, spilled drinks, peanut shells, banana peels, half-drunk sodas, and bags of fast food he forgot to throw away. He was always dragging the blueprints for his latest house, his pockets were full of notes about phone calls he had to return and never did. And eventually, the notes got lost. People were always calling wondering where he was. He was brilliant in business, but otherwise his life was a mess. He was an adorable, charming, lovable flake. She got tired of being the only grown-up around, particularly once they had kids. As the result of a movie premiere he flew out to attend in L.A., he had missed Sam's birth. And when a babysitter let Sam roll off the changing table eight months later, and he broke a collarbone and an arm, and got a hell of a knock on the head, Blake was nowhere to be found. Without telling anyone, he had flown to Cabo San Lucas to look at a house for sale, built by a famous Mexican architect he admired. He had lost his cell phone on the way, and it took two days to locate him. In the end, Sam was okay, but Maxine had asked Blake for a divorce when he got back to New York.

It had just never worked once Blake made his money. Max needed a man who was more human scale, and who was going to stick around, for some of the time at least. Blake was never there. Maxine had decided she might as well be alone, rather than bitching at him all the time when he called, and spending hours trying to track him down when something went wrong for her or the kids. When she told him she wanted a divorce, he had been stunned. And they had both cried. He tried to talk her out of it, but she had made up her mind. They loved each other, but Maxine insisted that it didn't work for her. Not anymore. They no longer wanted the same things. All he wanted to do was play, and she loved being there for her children, and her work. They were just too different in too many ways. It was fun when they were young, but she grew up, he didn't.

“I'll go to one of Jack's games when I get back,” Blake promised, as Maxine watched the torrential rain beat against the windows of her office. And when would that be? she thought to herself, but she didn't say the words. He answered her unspoken question. He knew her well, better than anyone else on the planet. That had been the hardest part of giving him up. They were so comfortable together, and loved each other so much. In many ways, they still did. Blake was her family, and always would be, and the father of her kids. That was sacred to her. “I'm coming in for Thanksgiving, in a couple of weeks,” he said, and Maxine sighed.

“Should I tell the children or wait?” She didn't want to disappoint them yet again. He changed plans at the drop of a hat and left them in the lurch, just as he had done to her. He was distracted easily. It was the one thing she hated about him, particularly when it impacted their children. He didn't have to see the look in their eyes when she said Daddy wasn't coming after all.

Sam didn't remember their living together, but he loved his father anyway. He had been one year old when they divorced. He was used to life as it was, relying on his mom for everything. Jack and Daffy knew their father better, although even their memories of the old days had grown dim.

“You can tell them I'll be there, Max. I won't miss it,” he promised in a gentle voice. “What about you? Are you okay? Has Prince Charming showed up yet?” She smiled at the question he always asked. There were a lot of women in his life, none of them serious, and most of them very young. And there were no men in her life at all.

She didn't have the interest or the time.

“I haven't had a date in a year,” she said honestly. She was always honest with him. He was like a brother to her now. She had no secrets from Blake. And he had no secrets from anyone, since most of what he did wound up in the press. He was always in the gossip columns with models, actresses, rock stars, heiresses, and whoever else was at hand. He'd gone out with a famous princess for a short time, which only confirmed what Max had thought for years. He was way, way out of her league, and living on another planet from the world in which she lived. She was earth. He was fire.