Danielle Steel: Lone eagle

And when he did, she looked shocked. “Can't you tell them it's Thanksgiving here? This is important, Joe.” She was near tears when he explained it to her, and they were both trying not to get into a fight. Things had been better for a while.

“My business is important too, Kate,” he said in a calm voice.

“I need you here this year, Joe. This is hard for me.” She was still upset about the twins, although she was better than she'd been in months. “Don't leave me alone.” It was the plea of an anguished child, a child who had lost her father to suicide, and a woman who had recently lost not one, but two babies that she had wanted so desperately. Joe knew he couldn't change any of that, and he expected Kate to be an adult.

“Do you want to come with me?” It was all he could think of at that point. But she shook her head.

“I can't leave the kids on Thanksgiving, Joe. What would they think?”

“That you need to take a trip with me. Send them to the Scotts'.” But she didn't want to do that. She wanted to spend Thanksgiving at home with them, and with him. She tried everything she could to talk him out of going, and he kept explaining to her that he wanted to be with her, but he had to go. “I'll come home in a week. No matter what.” But that didn't do it for her. She felt as though he was putting his business first again, and putting her last. She looked like a child as she sat in their bed crying the morning he left. “Kate, don't do this to me. I don't want to leave. I told you, I have no choice. It's not fair for you to make me feel guilty over this. Make this work for both of us.” She nodded and blew her nose, and kissed him before he left. She wanted to understand, but she was feeling abandoned anyway. Joe had invited her to go with him, and he wanted her to, but she wouldn't. She took the kids to Boston instead.

And in the end, he was gone for twice as long as he said. He came home in two weeks instead of one. He didn't even stop in California on the way home. But when he got back to New York, Kate was icy cold. Her mother had worked hard on her in the two weeks that he'd been gone. She seemed to have a huge investment in convincing Kate that he was rotten to her and didn't give a damn. She had never forgiven him for taking five days to come home when Kate had the accident and lost the twins. And she had hated him long before that. She had never approved of him from the first, because he hadn't married Kate, and when he had it had cost her her marriage to Andy Scott, whom Liz loved. It was as though she wanted to destroy what he and Kate had, at all costs. And she was doing a good job of it. In two short weeks, she had turned Kate around again, and they hardly spoke the night he came home.

He didn't apologize to her, he didn't explain it again, he didn't defend himself for having been gone. He was tired of doing that, he had been doing it for months. He played with the kids that night, and read quietly when they went to bed. He wanted to give Kate time to calm down and readjust. He knew that his comings and goings were hard for her, and she needed time to warm up to him again sometimes, particularly if her mother had been talking to her a lot.

He told her about Japan when she came to bed, and acted as though nothing was wrong. Sometimes that worked too, if he didn't react to her. It was hard for him when he was tired after a long trip. But he tried to be as patient as he could. He didn't want things to revert to the way they had been for the six months before he left. Things had improved for a while, and he wanted them to continue to head that way. But he could tell that he'd lost ground with her while he'd been gone. The holidays were a big deal to her and her family, and his not being there for Thanksgiving meant a lot, more than it did to him. To him, it meant a badly timed business trip. To her, it was a slap in the face, or worse, it meant that he didn't love her as much as she'd thought, or perhaps at all. Her mother had tried to convince her of that.

Things calmed down a little in the next few days, and he was home for more than two weeks. He and Kate went to buy a Christmas tree with Stevie and Reed, and decorated it. And for the first time, he saw Kate laugh and smile like the old days. Her spark had finally come back. It had been a tough year for them, particularly for her, but she was finally out of the woods, and he could see light up ahead. And it felt very good to him. It was about time. It had been a very hard time for him too.

Three days before Christmas, he got a call telling him he had to go to L.A. But he wasn't worried about it. He wasn't going to stay long, he only had to attend meetings for a day, and after that he'd fly home. He promised to be home on Christmas Eve. And even Kate didn't react this time. She was so used to his comings and goings. L.A. seemed like a short hop to both of them. She was relaxed and friendly when he left, and for once he didn't feel guilty about a trip. They even made love the morning he left.

Everything went fine in L.A. It was far less fine in New York. It had been snowing since he left, and one of the worst blizzards in history hit the city the morning of Christmas Eve. He was still confident they could land in it and he would be home on time, with any luck. And then they closed Idlewild, and canceled his flight minutes before they took off. The plane taxied back to the gate. There was nothing he could do. He was stuck.

He went back to the house and called Kate, and she understood. Nothing was moving in New York. There were two feet of fresh snow in Central Park.

“It's okay, sweetheart. I understand,” she said, much to his relief, and she did. Even Joe couldn't pull it off, and she didn't want him risking his life to get home. He would have had to land as far away as Chicago or Minneapolis and then take the train home. It didn't make sense. She promised to explain it to the kids. And they had a nice Christmas anyway. But when she thought about it afterward she realized that in three years of being married to him, he had missed two Christmases out of three. And when she explained to her parents on the phone on Christmas Day that Joe was stuck in L.A., her mother said, “Of course.” It made it hard for Kate. She was always making excuses for him, explaining why he couldn't be there at times that were important to everyone else, and particularly to her. She wondered sometimes if he avoided their holidays intentionally, because Christmas and other holidays had been so depressing for him as a kid. But whatever the reason, she always felt hurt when he didn't make it home for some major event, no matter how good his intentions were or his efforts to be there. The only one who never seemed to mind was Reed. Joe could do no wrong in his book. Or in Kate's most of the time. But she was disappointed anyway.

And as long as Joe was stuck in L.A., he decided to stay and do some work. He came home a week later on New Year's Eve. They were supposed to go out with friends, but when she saw how tired he was, they canceled and went to bed. It didn't seem fair to make him put a tuxedo on and go out. It was just the way their life was. They lived around Joe's trips and his inability to stick to plans. He was always either coming or going or away. She didn't even complain, but somehow it took a toll nonetheless.

They celebrated their anniversary, and then it all started again. He was gone for most of January, half of February, all of March, three weeks in April, and four in May. She complained about it repeatedly and when she sat down and counted in June, they had been together three weeks in six months. And she was beginning to wonder if he was doing it to escape her. It seemed inconceivable to her that anyone had to be away as much as he was. And she said as much to Joe. All he could hear was her criticism, and all he could feel was the guilt that was a primal part of him. She was beginning to seem like a mother he had failed. It was beginning to seem impossible to run his business and meet her needs as well. And she was refusing to understand that it was just the nature of his work, and what he loved to do. He had to be in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Madrid, Paris, London, Rome, Milan, L.A. Even if she had gone with him, he never stayed in any city for more than a few days. She went on a couple of trips with him that year, but she was always sitting in a hotel room waiting for him, and eating room service alone. It made more sense for her to stay home with her kids.