Danielle Steel - Remembrance

“Don't be so goddamn square,” he shouted at her as she reached their bedroom, and she turned to him with a look of fury.

“Be quiet or you'll wake Vanessa.” But it wasn't anger she felt so much as terror and despair. Vasili's private demon had entered their life again.

“To hell with Vanessa, she's a little bitch anyway.” But at the very sound of the words Serena lunged toward him. With a rapidly flailing hand she attempted to slap him, but he caught her wrist first and flung her backward against the wall. She stumbled as she fell, and she groaned as she reached the floor, but more than hurt, she was stunned. He stood over her, and when she looked up at him with tears in her eyes, she saw that his eyes had the mad nervous gleam they had had before when he used heroin. It was like reliving the same nightmare and she felt as though she couldn't bear it. She felt a rage rise up within her that was almost beyond control.

“You make me sick!” She rose to her feet, with every inch of her body trembling, and she reached back as though to slap him again, and this time he beat her to it. He caught her across the face with the back of his hand and sent her reeling. She came crashing to the bedroom floor, and it was at this moment that Vanessa came running in. “Go back to your room!” Serena said it quickly, not wanting the child involved, but before Vanessa could leave, Vasili pushed her, and she landed in a heap beside Serena.

“There, two whimpering women. You belong with each other.” He turned away and then spat over his shoulder. “Fools!”

Serena whispered to the child to go back to her room, but Vanessa refused, with a look of panic in her eyes. “He'll hurt you.”

“No, he won't.” She was afraid he would too, but she didn't want Vanessa to see it.

“Yes, he will.” Vanessa began to sob and clutch at her mother.

“Darling, please.” Carefully she stood up and led the child to her room, and it was half an hour before she returned to Vasili. He was sitting in a chair, his head on his chest, a cigarette burnt out in his fingers.

“What?” He picked his head up as though she had just spoken and squinted in her direction. “I heard you.”

“I didn't say a damn thing.” She closed the door softly behind her, hating him with every ounce of her soul. “But I'm about to. I just want to let you know now, you son of a bitch, that when you come to tomorrow morning, I'm going to my lawyer, and then I'm going back to the States.”

“And what will that prove? Who will support your baby?”

“I will.”

There was something evil and vicious about him when he used drugs, and as Serena saw him that way she began to hate him. It was as though it canceled out all the good she had seen in him, all the hopes, all the dreams. All she wanted to do was run away. She began to leave the room then, but even in his seemingly sleepy state he suddenly sprang from his chair and leaped toward her.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the bed and then he pushed her onto it. “Go to bed.”

“I don't want to sleep here.” She was shaking but trying not to show it. And the contractions were so fierce that she could barely stand up straight. And then, in spite of herself, she began to try and pull away from him. “I don't want to be near you.”

“Why not? Do I disgust you?” The evil eyes gleamed at her.

“Let me go. You're hurting my arm.”

“That isn't all I'll hurt if you don't start behaving.”

“What in hell does that mean?” She knew better than to argue with him when he'd been using and yet she couldn't stop. She wanted to shake him. “Do you expect me to take this and stick by you? Well, I won't, damn you. You can go to hell. I'm getting out of here in the morning.”

“Are you?” He took a step toward her again. “Are you?” She trembled uncontrollably as he stood over her, and then, as though the effort had been too much, she lay back on the bed and began sobbing. She cried for over an hour and he didn't come near her, and when her tears were spent, she fell asleep on the bed, and when she awoke, it was eleven o'clock and he was still snoring. She tiptoed out of the room to go and find Vanessa, but Marianne had taken her for a walk, and Serena walked around the house slowly. She knew that she had to leave, that she had to get Vanessa out before things got too far out of hand again, and she had to go for the sake of the baby, yet she felt a strange panic at the thought of going. Maybe he was right. Who would help her? Where would she go? She couldn't expect Teddy to help her with this baby. And there was no one else left. She felt trapped as she sat at the foot of the stairs, and didn't hear him approach her. She only felt the touch of his hand on her shoulder and she leaped off the step with a little scream. As she turned to face him she saw his ravaged face. This time the damage of the drug was apparent after only hours. The time before it had taken weeks to look as bad as he did now. He already looked haggard and ferret-faced and seedy.

“Are you all right?” The wan face wore an expression of terror. She nodded, looking at him with dismay, and was almost unable to keep from crying. He lowered his voice. “Did I hurt you?”

“No.” She spoke very softly. “But you terrified Vanessa.” It was as though she herself no longer existed, as though the only two people who mattered anymore were Vanessa and the unborn baby. For herself, suddenly she didn't care if he killed her. She just didn't want him to harm her children. And it all seemed so exhausting to defend them. She was at a time in her life when she needed someone to take care of her, and instead she was suddenly having to deal with this nightmare with him. “What are you going to do?” She stared at him with beaten eyes. He was no longer the man she knew. Already, in one night, he had vanished.

“I don't know. I can handle it myself this time. I've only used a few times.”

“A few times?” She looked shocked. She hadn't noticed, and she was surprised that he was being so honest. In Athens, the previous spring, when she and Andreas had once discussed it, he said that Vasili was never honest about using drugs once he started. So if he said “a few times,” how many did that mean? She looked at him in despair. “Why now?”

“How do I know?” He sounded irritable and nervous.

“Will you go into the hospital again?” She looked at him imploringly and felt her swollen belly begin to contract again.

“I don't need to this time.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know, dammit.” She was making him very nervous. “Why don't you go upstairs and rest?” She noticed then that he was wearing jeans and his shirt from the night before and shoes without socks.

“Are you going somewhere?”

“I have to pick up some film.”

“Really. Where?”

“None of your goddamn business. Why don't you go lie down?”

“Because I just got up.”

“So what? Aren't you supposed to rest? Don't you care about the baby?” As though, in attacking her, he could free himself. In spite of her haranguing and nagging he left the house five minutes later and he didn't come back until after midnight. She had spent the day pacing and wondering and hating him, and in spite of her threats the night before, she didn't call her lawyer. She ended up screaming at Vanessa, bursting into tears, and having contractions that almost made her call the doctor. And when Vasili came in at last, she saw that he had once again been using drugs.

“How long is this going to go on?” Her voice was near hysterical and he nodded out as he pretended to listen to her.

“As long as I want to, if it's any of your business.”

“Last time I looked I was your wife, and we were having a baby. It's my business.”