Danielle Steel - Lightning

“You could say that.”

“I like it,” he said admiringly, and Alex felt embarrassed suddenly at the way he looked at her. They had gotten so close over the last two months, but they were just friends. Yet once in a while she thought she saw something different in Brock's eyes, as though he was looking at her like a woman, not just a buddy, and it surprised her.

They went right to work and she got a good morning in, and then she lay down on her couch and dozed at lunchtime. Other people were going to Christmas lunches and parties with friends, but all Alex had the energy for was work, and spending time with her daughter.

She worked alone at her desk for the rest of the afternoon, and she met with two of her partners before she went home. Brock was going Christmas shopping again, and when she got home, Carmen was wrapping her presents. It made her feel useless and helpless, but she was too exhausted even to offer to help her.

Sam came home with a Christmas tree that night, and he stuck around long enough to decorate it, and then he left. And she sat alone, feeling depressed, remembering the Christmas before Annabelle was born, only four years before, and countless others. It all seemed so long ago, and like part of another world. It was incredible how much had changed since then. She sat in her bed that night, reading her mail, and trying not to think of Sam, when she noticed an invitation he had left open on the table. It was a Christmas party given by friends, and she put it aside to regret it. She didn't have the energy to go anywhere, certainly not to parties.

It took everything she could muster to take Annabelle to see Santa Claus at Macy's on Saturday, and by the time she got home, she was vomiting again, she was so exhausted. Carmen wasn't there, and after a little while Annabelle wandered into the bathroom to find her. Alex was lying there, on the floor, with her wig off, and her eyes closed. Almost all of her hair was gone now. It had fallen out in a matter of days, and the day before she had cut most of it off, there were just little tufts now, but even those were coming out daily. There was almost nothing left now.

“Mommy! Your hair fell off!” Annabelle screamed, seeing the wig on the floor next to her, and Alex jumped up with a start, she hadn't wanted her to see it. And Annabelle was crying as she looked at her, clutching her own head in terror, as Alex tried to console her.

“It's just a wig, sweetheart, it's okay. It's okay.” And then she saw Annabelle looking at her in horror. It wasn't a pretty sight, there was something sick about it, as the little sparse tufts stuck out here and there, and you could see her scalp all around them. Alex had almost wondered if she should shave it. “Remember, I told you Mommy's hair might fall out. It's okay, it'll grow back.” She was on her knees, holding her, but the little girl only sobbed harder. “I love you, please don't cry …” She hated the wig, and the reason for it. Everything was so wrong in her life suddenly. She wanted to blame it all on Sam but she knew she couldn't.

It took a long time to settle Annabelle down again, and when Carmen came in in the afternoon to babysit, she was still upset and Alex told her what had happened.

“It's all right, she'll get used to it.” Carmen patted Alex's arm. Alex had already put the wig on. She put on the shorter one that afternoon, and while Annabelle took a nap, Alex decided to get some air and go for a walk. Christmas was two days away, and she felt as though she had barely acknowledged it. Liz and Brock had done all her shopping for her, except for a beautiful dresser set she had Tiffany's send her for Sam, and an art book she'd been saving for him for ages. She hadn't been to any parties, or seen any friends. Other than their visit to Santa Claus, and the tree Sam and Annabelle had decorated, she hadn't paid any attention at all to Christmas.

“Will you be all right, going out, Mrs. Parker?” Carmen asked her with a look of concern.

“I'll be fine. I just want to walk up Madison for five minutes.”

“It's very cold, wear a hat!” she called out, and Alex smiled. She was wearing one of her wigs.

“I don't need one!”

She took the elevator downstairs, and thought about Christmas Eve. Sam had said he would be with them, but she'd hardly seen him all week, and she assumed he was going to the usual parties. He hadn't asked her to join him. He knew she wasn't up to it anyway, and they weren't going anywhere together. She had even declined an invitation from their closest friends to go caroling in Greenwich Village.

She stopped and looked at the shop windows on Madison, and the windows were especially pretty at Ralph Lauren. She was standing there looking at them, when a particularly striking girl came out the door and down the steps, laughing and talking in an English accent. She was wearing a short black coat, and she had fabulous legs in tall black suede boots. And she was wearing a huge sable hat that made her look very romantic. And then she turned to someone and Alex smiled as she saw him stoop to kiss her. It reminded her of years before, and her and Sam. He even looked a little like him. He was wearing a well-cut navy blue coat, and their arms were full of packages wrapped in bright red paper with gold bows. There was something achingly bittersweet about the pair, they looked so young and so in love. They kissed again, and then Alex saw the man looking down at the girl in the hat, and as she looked, she realized who the man was. It was Sam. Her mouth opened and she stared at him, realizing suddenly what had happened. He was in love with someone else, and she couldn't help wondering how long it had gone on, and if it had happened even before she got sick. What if it was all a setup? What if he'd used her sickness as an excuse to leave her?

She wanted to tear her eyes away from them, but she couldn't bring herself to, as he tucked a hand into the woman's arm and they crossed the street to another store as Alex watched them. They had no idea she was there, and Sam had no clue that she had seen him.

They walked into another shop, and Alex felt tears rolling down her cheeks as she realized that it really was all over between them. She couldn't compete with that. The girl looked twenty-five, and even Sam looked suddenly younger. At first, looking at him, she had thought he was thirty, not fifty. She hurried back up Madison then, not hearing the carolers, or the Santa Clauses ringing bells, or seeing the people or the Christmas trees or the windows. She saw nothing except her own life, lying in shards around her.

She was back at the apartment half an hour after she'd left it, looking worse instead of better. She was deathly pale, and her hands shook violently as she hung up her coat, and walked somberly into her bedroom. She closed the door and lay down on the bed, wondering how she would ever face him again. That was why he had wanted his freedom. It had all been a sham, a game, saying that he needed time. What he had needed was a new woman. And he had one.

She walked into the bathroom then, and stood looking at herself in the mirror. To her own eyes, she looked a hundred years old, and as she slowly pulled the wig off, she saw what she had become. She was disfigured and bald. She had cancer, she had lost a breast, and her hair. She thought of the girl she had seen with him, and knew the ugliest of truths. She was no longer a woman.

Chapter 15

Sam came home to them early on Christmas Eve, after he put Daphne on a plane to London. She was going to visit her parents, and her little boy, and Sam was going to join her in Gstaad after he took Annabelle to Disney World and then brought her back to her mother.

He had given Daphne a spectacular diamond bracelet before she left, and a ruby heart pin that he had bought for her at Fred Leighton. Sam had always been generous and he had bought something pretty for Alex too, though nothing quite as important. He had bought her a very handsome Bulgari watch that he knew she'd wanted for a while, but none of the thoughtful little things that expressed his interest and affection. He didn't want to mislead her.