Danielle Steel: Lone eagle

“I'm there when you need me, Kate. I stayed home for as long as I could. I have a business to run. You're welcome to go with me if you want.” His voice sounded cold and withdrawn.

“I don't.” She was restless and unhappy and argumentative, and it only made things worse between them. “When are you coming home?” she spat at him, and for the first time ever he could imagine hating her. He didn't want to, but she was giving him no other choice. Whoever she had once been seemed to be long gone. He knew she was upset about the twins, but she was killing him, and beginning to seem dead herself. And the worst part was that she wanted him desperately, needed him to make it better for her, but she was so lost in her own miseries, she didn't know how to reach out to him. Every time she wanted to, her own despair and the anger it produced only drove him away. They couldn't find each other anymore, and all she wanted was him. She had never stopped loving him, the person she really hated now was herself. She replayed it in her head a thousand times, driving the car, losing the twins, wondering why she had volunteered to drive Reed to Greenwich that night. If she hadn't, the babies would have been born by then. And now she would never have Joe's child. He had been firm with her that he didn't want to try again. She hated him for that too, and when she couldn't find the words to express her pain, she turned her fury on him. All Joe knew was he no longer had a wife. They were strangers and enemies living under the same roof. And he was rarely there.

In October, Joe was home for a total of four days. And the more he stayed away, the worse Kate got. His absences made her feel abandoned and desperate and betrayed, and only fueled her rage, and her mother goading her constantly didn't help. As far as Liz was concerned, Joe was using Kate, he just wanted her as a figurehead wife. Kate was even beginning to think he didn't love her anymore, and instead of loving him to bring him back again, all she did was slam the door in his face. After a while, he didn't approach her anymore. They hadn't made love since her accident, and by late October, it had been six months, and Joe had had enough.

“Kate, you're killing me,” he tried to explain as gently as he could. He was only home for the weekend that time, and she correctly sensed that all he did now was run away. He couldn't stand the anger, the accusations, or the guilt anymore. “I can't come home to this every time. You have to get over it. I know it's painful for you, and it's terrible that you lost the twins, but I don't want to lose us.” He hadn't seen the woman he loved in six months. All she had become was an angry ghost. “You have two great kids, why can't we just be happy with them? Why don't you come to L.A. with me? You haven't been out to the house in months.” He was trying everything he could think of to pull her back.

“I don't want to go anywhere,” she snapped at him, and this time he snapped back. He had tried to be patient with her, but it didn't get him anywhere, except angry and hurt.

“No, you don't, do you, Kate? You just want to sit here, feeling sorry for yourself. Well, for chrissake, Kate, goddamn grow up. I can't sit here holding your hand all the time. I can't bring those babies back, and who knows, maybe it was for the best, maybe we weren't meant to have more kids. It wasn't our decision, it was God's.”

“That's what you wanted anyway, wasn't it? You wanted me to have an abortion so you didn't have to be bothered coming home more than ten minutes a month. Don't tell me how much you've done for me, or how lucky I am, or whose decision it was to let my babies die… don't tell me a goddamn thing, Joe, because you're never here anyway. It took you five goddamn days to come home when they thought I was going to die. So where the hell do you get off telling me to grow up? You're out there flying your damn planes and having a good time all over the goddamn world, while I sit here with my kids. Maybe you're the one who needs to grow up!” He looked like she had taken a blowtorch to him, and he said nothing to her. He walked out of the apartment and slammed the door, and stayed at the Plaza that night. And all she did was lie on her bed and sob. She had said everything she hadn't wanted to say to him. But she was so filled with misery and grief, and so lonely for him all the time. And all she had done was make it worse. She wanted him more than anything, wanted him to fix it for her, and she hated him because he could not. He couldn't bring her babies back, couldn't stay home with her, couldn't turn back the clock. She had wanted them so much, and still wanted him, and she knew she was doing everything she could to drive him away, and didn't know why. There was no one she could talk to about it. It was as though she had fallen into a black hole six months before, and couldn't find her way back up. And there was no one to rescue her. She knew she had to do it herself, but she had no idea how.

He came back to the apartment the next day, but only long enough to pack a bag and leave for L.A. And just seeing him pack panicked her. Joe seemed icy cold, and unnaturally controlled.

“I'll call you, Kate,” he said quietly. He didn't know what else to say to her. He thought she hated him. And she didn't know how to tell him she hated herself. In spite of all the fire and debris she threw at him, he was still the one she loved. But it would have been hard to convince Joe of that. She had said such terrible things to him, and been so unkind to him that for the first time he was beginning to wonder if they would ever find each other again. And the guilt she had engendered in him only made him want to escape. Joe felt overwhelmed and he had never been as lonely or as miserable in his life.

He stayed in L.A. for a month, and ran the company from there. He even had Hazel fly out so he didn't have to go home. It was nearly Thanksgiving when he finally came back. He opened the door gingerly when he came home, and was startled when Reed flew into his arms.

“Joe! You're back!!” He was happy to see the boy. The children were one of the things he loved most about Kate, particularly these days, and he missed them when he stayed away.

“I missed you, ace,” Joe said with a broad grin. And he had missed Kate too. A lot more than he'd expected to, which was why he'd come home. “Where's your mom?”

“She's out. She went to a movie with friends. She does that a lot.” Reed was five, and he thought Joe was the best. He hated it when Joe was gone, and his mom cried all the time. She had for a long time. Stevie was only three, and asleep by the time Joe got home.

And when Kate came back from the movies, she was surprised to see Joe. She looked calmer than she had when he left, and he cautiously took her in his arms. He never knew when she was going to attack. They hardly ever spoke on the phone anymore when he was gone.

“I missed you,” he said, and meant every word of it.

“Me too,” she said as she clung to him and started to cry. She seemed better this time, as though she were slowly coming back from the terrible place she had been.

“I missed you before I left too,” he said, and she knew what he meant.

“I don't know what happened to me…. I must have hit my head harder than I thought.” She had been through a lot. The accident, losing the twins, it all seemed too much. And her mother was constantly whipping her up. He wished Kate would stop talking to her, but he knew it was something he couldn't ask.

She was much better this time, and they both finally began to relax. They agreed to stay home for the holidays, and not spend Thanksgiving with her parents in Boston this year. He thought it would be more than he could take, but he didn't say that to her. He just said he thought it would be good for them to stay home, and she agreed, which was a huge relief to him. But by sheer bad luck, three days before Thanksgiving he got a cable from Japan. Everything was in a mess there, and they insisted he had to come. It wasn't what he wanted to do, but for the sake of his future dealings with them, he knew he had to go. He hated to tell Kate.