Danielle Steel - Remembrance

He led them all gently out to his car and then drove them to the furnished apartment he had rented for a month. Serena looked around at the stark little room, clutching the baby to her. There was only one bedroom, but she didn't care. All she wanted was to be three thousand miles away from Vasili. She had almost no money with her, but she had brought the diamond bracelet he'd given her last month and she was going to sell it. With luck it would give her enough funds to subsist until her modeling picked up again. She had already asked Teddy to call Dorothea.

“Well, how does it feel to be back?” Teddy smiled at her, but there was concern in his eyes. Serena looked worn out and Vanessa looked scarcely better.

“I think I'm still numb” was Serena's only answer as she looked around her. The walls were bare and white, and the furniture was Danish modern.

“The Ritz it ain't,” he apologized with a smile, and for the first time she laughed.

“Teddy, my love, I couldn't care less. It's a roof over our heads, and we're not in London.” Vanessa smiled too, and Teddy reached out for the baby.

“How's my little friend?”

“Hungry all the time.” Serena smiled.

“Unlike her mother who looks like she never eats.” She had lost all the weight she'd gained while she was pregnant, along with an additional fifteen pounds. And all in the six weeks, since the birth of the baby.

“If I'm going to model again, it's just as well. What did Dorothea say, by the way?”

“That she awaits you with bated breath, as does every photographer in New York.” Serena looked pleased.

“Well, that's good news.” But the best news of all, to her, was that she had escaped Vasili. There had been a time when she thought she never would, that she would be trapped with him forever. It had been like escaping from a jungle. But it was all over now, and Vasili knew it. She had told Andreas too. And she hoped that she never saw Vasili again. She had listened to enough lies and suffered enough trauma to last her for a lifetime.

“Do you think he'll follow you over here?” Teddy asked when Vanessa had gone to bed.

“It won't do him any good. I won't see him.”

“And the baby?”

“I don't think he'll really care. He's too involved in himself and his drugs.”

“Don't be so sure. From what you said he was crazy about her.”

“Not enough to stop using heroin though.”

“I still can't believe it.”

“Neither can I. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be the same again.”

“You will. Give it time.” She had survived so much in her life that he felt sure she would survive this too. And he thanked God she had left Vasili.

She sighed and closed her eyes before facing him again. “I don't know, Teddy. I guess you're right, but it's been such a nightmare, it's hard to understand what happened. You know … I think that stuff makes him crazy.”

“It's pathetic.” She changed the subject then and they discussed a school for Vanessa. The poor child had been through a great deal in the past six weeks. Serena was almost inclined to give her some time off from school while she readjusted, and all Vanessa wanted to do anyway was take care of the baby. She was totally enamored of her baby sister, whom she called Charlie, instead of Charlotte. Serena could hardly get the baby away from Vanessa when it was time to go to bed, and Vanessa was marvelous with her. “She's a great kid.” Teddy spoke of his niece with obvious pride and Serena laughed.

“Yes, she is.”

He left them alone then to settle into the apartment, and Serena fell into bed after feeding the baby. She slept a deep dreamless sleep and woke up feeling slightly less exhausted.

She went to the Kerr Agency a few days later, and Dorothea looked at her pointedly with a hand on one hip.

“I told you, didn't I?” She grinned at Serena. “But I sure am happy to have you back.”

“Not as happy as I am to be here.” They had a cup of coffee, and Dorothea gave her the latest gossip around New York. There was a new girl in town who had been the rage since the summer. She was German and looked a little like Serena, but Dorothea felt certain that there was still room for “The Princess” too. “They've missed you, there's no doubt about it.” She could also see that there was something new and interesting in her face since she'd had the baby. She was even thinner than she had been, and there was something wiser and more serious about her eyes. It was that that told Dorothea she had been through an ordeal with Vasili.

“And what about Vasili? It's all over?”

“Finished.”

“Forever?” Serena nodded and said nothing. “Want to tell me why?”

But she only shook her head and patted her old friend's hand. “No, love, I don't. And you don't want to know. It was like going to a place I thought I would never come back from. And now that I'm here, I don't want to remember or reminisce, or even think about going back. My only pleasant memory of the past year is Charlie, and she's here with me.”

“Thank God.” Dorothea looked impressed. Serena's year with Vasili had apparently been worse than she had suspected.

By the end of the week Vasili had started calling the agency, and Dorothea thought she was going to go nuts. He wanted to know where Serena was, where he could find her, how he could call her. Serena had given out strict instructions not to tell him. It was only when one of the models happened to answer the phone for someone, as a favor, that Vasili struck pay dirt. She looked up Serena's number and address among the file cards, and gave it to him without a second thought, having no idea of what she had just done.

The next day he flew to New York to find her, and when he reached her apartment, he found her about to go out. “Serena …”She opened the door and heard her name and almost jumped out of her skin when she saw him. She could tell by his eyes that he was still using and obviously half out of his mind and she backed slowly into the apartment. The children were in the living room with the baby-sitter and she wanted to slam the door but he shoved his way past her, muttering darkly that he had to see his baby and that she couldn't do this to him, and she slammed down her portfolio and watched him look down at Charlie, as she felt the old fear and anger well up inside her. All the ugliness of the past year seemed to dance before her eyes as he turned to face her, his eyes cloudy and wild.

“How the hell did you find me?” Her voice was sharp and her eyes were blazing. She had come three thousand miles to escape him and now here he was again.

“I had to.” He stared at her blankly. “You're my wife.” The baby-sitter sat there staring at him, looking frightened, and Vanessa instinctively reached over and took the baby protectively into her arms. She was watching her mother grow angrier by the moment and Vasili looked as though he were totally crazed. “Why didn't you come back?”

“I'm not ever coming back. And I don't want to discuss this here.” She glanced worriedly at the children. Vanessa had seen enough of this in the past, and she didn't want her seeing more now.

“Then, let's go in there.” He pointed to the bedroom, and Serena followed him into it with long angry strides. “I want you to come home!” He turned to face her, and she shook her head from side to side.

“No. Do you understand? No! I am never coming back to you, Vasili. Now get out of my house and get out of my life.”

“I won't!” He was shrieking. “You took my baby, and you're my wife, you have to come home to me if I tell you.”

“I don't have to do a damn thing. You're a bloody junkie and you almost destroyed me and my children—”

“But I didn't, I didn't …” he interrupted her. “I love you … I love you … I love you.…” And as he said the words he advanced on her, his maddened black eyes flashing into hers, his hands instinctively closing on her throat and squeezing harder and harder and harder, and she suddenly began to choke and then turned purple as he shouted, “I love you! … I love you! … I love you!” In the room beyond, Vanessa heard him, but after a few minutes she didn't hear her mother, and suddenly terrified, sensing that something was amiss, she burst through the door, with the baby still in her arms. What she saw in the bedroom was Vasili, kneeling, sobbing, on the floor, his hands still around Serena's neck, as she lay with her head twisted at an odd angle, her eyes open, her portfolio spilled out on the floor.