Danielle Steel - Lightning

“I'd still like to take her, if she'll come.”

“She's mad at me, not you. Remember?” She and Brock were going to Fire Island for the long weekend. “She'll be okay,” she reassured him, and then went to check on her again. Annabelle had stopped crying, and she was lying on her bed, looking like her heart was broken.

“I'm sorry, baby,” Alex said softly to her. “I know it's hard. But Daddy still loves you, and he's going to see you all the time.”

“Will you still take me to ballet?” she asked, confused about who was going where. It was a lot for a four-year-old to absorb. At forty-three, it was a lot for Alex too. And Sam had just turned fifty.

“Of course I'll take you to ballet. Every Friday. I'm not going to be sick anymore. I finished taking my medicine.”

“All of it?”vshe asked suspiciously.

“All of it,” she confirmed.

“Will your hair come back now?”

“I think so.”

“When?”

“Soon. We can be twins again.”

“And you're not going to die?” That was the crux of it for all of them, and a hard one to promise.

“No.” It was more important to reassure her now than to be completely truthful. There were no guarantees, but there was no sign of a recurrence either. “I'm not going to die. I'm all better.”

“Good.” She smiled at her, almost ready to forgive her for losing her father. “Why does Daddy have to go now?” she asked plaintively. It was so hard to explain it to her.

“Because he'll be happier. And that's important for him.”

“Isn't he happy here with us?”

“Not right now. He's happy with you. But not with me.

“I told you he was mad at you,” she chided, “you should have listened.” Alex laughed then. They were going to be all right. They had all survived. They had made it. Bad things had happened to them, but they had managed to live through it.

She went back out to see Sam again, before he left, and she found him packing a suitcase in the guest bedroom. Most of his things were still there, but he had told her that he'd be moving in the next two weeks. He was going to stay at the Carlyle for a month until the apartment was ready. He hadn't wanted to move into Daphne's apartment, and the Carlyle seemed like a good middle ground, and a nice place for Annabelle to visit.

“She's all right. She's shaken, but she'll adjust,” Alex said sadly.

“I'll pick her up at school on Friday, and take her out to Southampton with me then. I'll bring her back on Monday night.”

“Fine,” Alex nodded, realizing that they had just slipped into” a whole new phase. Despite his comings and goings for the past six months, it had just become official. They had told Annabelle. They were getting separated, not divorced, but separated. It was a whole new world now.

“Poor little thing,” Brock said sympathetically, when Alex told him about it that night. “It must be hard for her to understand. It's hard enough for grown-ups.”

“She blames me for it. She said that if I hadn't gotten sick, he wouldn't have gotten mad at us. There's a certain truth to that, but I guess it was all there, lurking beneath the surface. I guess I didn't have the perfect marriage I thought I did, or it wouldn't have fallen apart so quickly.”

“I think what you went through would strain a lot of relationships,” he said fairly.

She nodded, and then remembered something. “One of these days, I want to meet your sister.” He nodded, but said nothing. And then Alex got distracted when they talked about their plans for Fire Island. It sounded like it was going to be a fun weekend. They were going to stay at a small funky old hotel in The Pines, and she knew from experience, that once you got on the ferryboat and felt the salt air on your face, you left your problems behind you. It was just what she needed.

Sam could have used a little of that kind of weekend too. He picked Annabelle up at school, with her suitcase, and took her for a quick lunch, before they picked up Daphne and headed for Southampton. He had wanted to have lunch alone with Annabelle first, so he could prepare her, but she seemed more confused than ever. The idea that there was another woman in his life seemed more than she could even vaguely imagine.

“She's coming with us for the weekend?” She looked at him blankly. “Why?”

“Oh …” He groped for answers, feeling suddenly very stupid. “To help me with you, so we have more fun.” It was a dumb answer, and he knew it.

“You mean like Carmen?” She looked confused again, and he laughed nervously.

“No, silly. Like a friend.”

“You mean like Brock?” That at least was a frame of reference she understood, and one he immediately clung to.

“Exactly. Daphne works with me at the office, just like Brock works with Mommy.” There were more similarities than he knew, but he had no suspicion of them whatsoever. “And she's my friend, and she's coming with us for the weekend.”

“Are you going to work with her, like Mommy works with Brock?”

“Well maybe …but actually …no, we just thought we'd have fun and play with you all weekend.”

“Okay.” It seemed silly to her, but she was at least willing to meet her.

But Sam's perceptions of their weekend plans were completely different from Daphne's.

“Why on earth didn't you bring a nanny with you?” Daphne stared at him in disbelief when he picked her up at her apartment. Annabelle was downstairs in the car, he had the keys, and he was keeping an eye on her from the window. “Or at least a maid. We won't be able to go anywhere with a child that age. We'll be bloody well stuck all weekend.” It was a side of her he'd never seen, but she was anything but amused as he picked up her suitcase.

“I'm sorry, darling,” he apologized, “I never even thought of it.” He and Alex had always taken care of her when they went away, and it had never been a problem. But then again, she was their child, and they'd been married. “I'll bring Carmen next time. I promise.” He kissed her and she softened a little bit. She was wearing a blue cotton sundress and he could see her breasts through it, and he already knew from experience how little was beneath it. “You're going to love her,” he promised as they went downstairs, “she's adorable.” But as it turned out, she was not particularly adorable to Daphne, and she was extremely suspicious.

The ride to Long Island was fraught with questions and awkward answers and minor lies, and by the time they got there, Sam was perspiring and looking very nervous. He set Daphne's things down in the room next to his, and Annabelle's in a room across the hallway. But Daphne laughed aloud as soon as she saw the arrangement.

“You're not serious, are you, Sam? She's only four years old, she can't possibly know what's going on.” And Daphne really didn't care what she told her mother. But Sam did.

“I thought you could just leave your things in there, she doesn't have to know where we're sleeping.

“And if she has a nightmare?” He'd never even thought of it. But Daphne knew that much about children.

“We'll go in to her.” He solved the problem, and Daphne laughed at him again.

“You'll be sure and tell her not to set foot out of bed, on penalty of death, won't you, darling?”

“All right, all right.” He felt stupid and uncomfortable, and even he had to admit that Annabelle was a perfect brat all afternoon and then she ate too much candy, and spent too much time in the sun without a hat, and threw up her entire dinner all over Daphne.

“Charming,” she said, looking vastly unamused, as Sam attempted to clean it. “My little man does that constantly too. I've tried explaining to him that it's extremely unattractive.”