Danielle Steel - Lightning

“I miss you terribly, darling,” Daphne reassured him. “I'm not going to be able to bear it without you. You'll have to hurry over. My God, it's cold here.” She had forgotten the miseries of the bitter London winter, and the heat in her flat wasn't working. All she had was the fireplace, she complained, and no Sam to keep her warm.

“Stop,” he said, almost wincing with the pain of missing her, “or I'm going to get on the next Concorde.”

“I wish you would.” But they both knew he couldn't. They both had to fulfill their parental duties. “I can't bear it.”

They hung up finally, and his whole body keened for her, as he lay in bed and thought of the remarkable young woman who had changed his whole life since Thanksgiving. He had never known anyone quite like her. Even Alex, at her best, had never had that much passion.

Annabelle woke at six a.m. on Christmas Day, and it was a long, happy day for her, and a nice one for Sam and Alex. Annabelle loved all her gifts and Sam was touched by the lavishness of Alex's gift to him, and he said he loved it. She liked the watch, although she understood the message he had been giving her, that this was no longer a time for personal gifts between them, and the clarity of it hurt her feelings. But other than that, they had a very nice time together.

She managed to cook a roast beef and popovers for all of them, and to conceal how sick she felt through most of it. But it wasn't nearly as disastrous as Thanksgiving. She lay down afterwards to rest, and just for the fun of it, since they were at home, she wore her short wig, and she and Annabelle looked like twins. Sam even said he liked it.

She wore a red sweater and black suede pants, and she looked surprisingly pretty. Her face had filled out a little bit, and she had gained some weight, but not enough to object to. It was odd, given how sick she had been, but that was what Dr. Webber had predicted.

They went out for a brief walk that afternoon, and Sam hailed a cab and took them to Rockefeller Center to watch the skaters. But looking at them only reminded him again of Daphne.

Alex was exhausted then, and they had to take a taxi home. It was obvious that she couldn't go a step further, and he even had to help her to her bedroom. Her joints were aching, and she was too exhausted to go another step without assistance.

“Is Mommy all right?” Annabelle asked worriedly, and he nodded, torn between sympathy for his wife, and anger over the anxiety she caused their daughter with her illness.

“She's fine,” he said firmly.

“Will she be all right when we're in Florida?”

“She'll be perfect. Carmen will be here to take care of her.” She found his answers very reassuring, and later Alex got up to pack Annabelle's suitcase. It was fun packing all her little things, but suddenly, as she did, Alex felt a wave of panic come over her. What if a day came when she could no longer take care of her, and Annabelle had to go to live with Sam? What if she lost her, too? Just thinking of it made her feel ill again, and as she sat down, her whole body was shaking. She forced herself to get up again after that, and finish packing the suitcase. She was not going to let anything like that happen, she was not going to lose her to Sam, or that woman. Fearing that made her stay up for dinner with them that night, although she was truly exhausted after all the efforts of Christmas. But she had dinner with them, and then went to bed, and slept until her alarm went off in the morning.

She helped Annabelle dress, and reminded her to have a good time, and call when she felt like it, and swim, and have a great time with Daddy. And then she pulled her close to her, and held her as though she were afraid she might never see her again. Sensing her mother's panic, Annabelle started to cry when she left her, and they clung to each other for a long time. Annabelle knew how much her mother loved her, and instinctively felt how alone she was.

“I love you,” Alex called, with tears in her eyes, as they got in the elevator, and Sam looked at her with the familiar annoyance, as Annabelle cried softly.

“She'll be fine,” he reminded Annabelle again as they went down in the elevator with their bags, angry that he even had to reassure her. Alex had no business clinging to her and scaring her the way she did. It brought back all the same feelings of resentment he'd had since October, and ever since his own mother had died years before. For Sam it was a relief to get away from her. Just being around her was depressing, no matter how hard she tried.

They got in a cab for La Guardia, and by die time they were gone, Alex was standing alone in her bedroom, feeling lost without them. She had seen more of Sam in the last two days than she'd seen of him in the past month, and in some ways it had been pleasant, but in others it was very painful. It was like forcing herself to look at something she could no longer have, and reminding herself of all the reasons why she had loved it. Even after he had hurt her so much and failed her so badly, she still had to remind herself to stop loving him now. Caring about him was destructive and having seen him with the English girl, she knew there was no point hanging on. It was a relief now that he was gone.

After a little while, she washed the breakfast dishes and made Annabelle's bed. Carmen was not coming in. Without Annabelle, Alex had said she didn't need any help, and she had given her the day off. Alex wandered aimlessly around the apartment, and finally went to her bathroom to take a shower. She was trying to talk herself into getting dressed, and going out for a walk, so she wouldn't feel so lonely. But even thinking of it reminded her of seeing Sam with the English girl only three days before. And suddenly she didn't want to. She wanted to go back to bed, and sleep all day. She had nothing to do anyway, since she wasn't going in to the office. But a certain Spartan spirit told her to at least take a shower and get dressed. And to that end, she pulled off her wig, and happened to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror. The last of her hair had just come out, and she was suddenly completely bald, without a single hair on her head. The last of it lay in the wig she dropped on her sink, and as she took off her dressing gown, and slipped her nightgown off, she suddenly stood staring at herself, and realized how she must look to Sam. She was bald, she was scarred. The missing breast was a slab of white flesh now, with a narrow pink scar and no nipple. She didn't even look like a man. She was even less than that. She looked like a nothing, like a mannequin, with no hair and one breast, the kind that you find lying disassembled on the floor in department stores on the day that they change the windows.

She started to cry as she saw herself, and realized that not only Sam was gone but Annabelle. She had already lost her husband, and eventually she might lose her daughter. It was as though she were being stripped of everything she had ever been or loved or wanted. The only thing left to her was her work, and she couldn't even do that the way she had once done it. She was like a broken bird, limping to earth, stripped, and dying. She felt ugly, useless, and sick. She almost wondered if it wouldn't be easier to die, to just give up now, before she lost even more than she already had. Why wait until the rest was taken from her? Until Sam told her he wanted a divorce so he could marry that girl, and Annabelle fell in love with her. Why wait for them to kill her? Or leave her all alone.

She just stood crying, staring at herself, and in the distance, she heard the phone, but she didn't bother to answer. Her stomach revolted finally from all the anguish of her illness and her realizations, and naked, she knelt on the floor and began vomiting, and eventually there was only retching. It was all too familiar now. It was what she had become, a broken machine that could only spew bile. There was nothing left of her. And when it was over, she lay on the floor and cried until finally, she went back to bed, just as she was, and lay curled under the covers. She ate nothing all day, and Sam and Annabelle never called. They were too busy having fun at Disney World. They had moved on, toward life, in a world of sunshine, while she lay alone in the dark shadows of her own winter. She lay crying in the dark, until the emptiness in her stomach made her sick again, and she went back to the bathroom. It was an endless day of vomiting and tears, and always the bald ghost she saw in the mirror. She didn't even bother to turn the lights on, but still she saw her.