Danielle Steel: Kaleidoscope

“I've lived your life, Hilary Walker, for months now. I've cried for you. I've been to Charlestown, to Jacksonville, I've talked to the neighbor who found you near death on her doorstep, I've been to your foster homes. I know how badly he hurt you … I know what a rotten deal you got,” and there were tears in his eyes as he looked down at her and spoke, “but please God, please don't do this … don't turn your back on them now. They need you, and you need them … Hilary … please … go to the meeting. I'll be there to help you. I'll do anything I can.” She was looking up at him in amazement, wondering how he had known all that. “Just be there … please …” And with that he squeezed her arm gently, and left her office, as she stood there, staring after him, all the old pain of the past revived in her, along with a new confusion. She didn't want to go and see them … she didn't want to remember Axie's bright red curls and Megan's little cries in the night. They were gone now. Gone forever. And she couldn't go back anymore. Not even for John Chapman.

Chapter 29

“You're really going?” Henri stood looking at her across their bedroom. In Cap-Ferrat they shared one bedroom, or they had, until Alexandra had confessed everything to him. He had moved into the guest room that night. And the gesture needed no explanation.

“I am.” She looked serious and firm. The girls were dressed and ready. Their bags were downstairs, and Margaret was meeting them at the airport in Nice. They had managed to book a direct flight to New York without going back to Paris.

“You won't reconsider?”

She shook her head slowly. “I'm sorry, darling, I can't.” She walked toward him in the hope that he would let her touch him, but when she reached his side, he took a step back from her, and it cut her to the quick when he did it.

“Please don't,” he said quietly. “Have a good trip then.”

“I'll be back no later than the tenth.” He nodded. “And I'll be at the Pierre in New York, if you need me. I'll call you.”

“That won't be necessary. I'll be very busy.” He turned away and walked out onto the terrace, and with a last look at his back, she left and went downstairs. She didn't see him watching her as they drove away, or the tears in his eyes as he stared out at the sea and thought about her. He knew he loved her a great deal and now he felt as though he had lost her. It was incredible to him … all that had happened … he just didn't understand it. How they could have let it happen … in a way, he realized, she was as much the victim of circumstance as he. But to him it was so much more important, and now she was off on this wild-goose chase to meet two unknown sisters. He only wished he could have stopped her, but it was obvious that he couldn't.

Margaret had insisted they take first class on the flight, and the girls were enchanted as they ordered Shirley Temples, and blew at each other through the little red straws.

“Girls, please!” Alexandra admonished, still thinking of her husband, and Margaret told her to let them have some fun. And then as the two little girls walked down the aisles to see if they could find any children to play with, Margaret asked her how Henri had taken the news. Alexandra had told her only briefly several days before that she had told him the entire truth before leaving.

“He didn't say so in so many words,” Alexandra said solemnly to her mother, “but I think it's over. I'm sure I'll come home to find he's contacted his attorneys.”

“But you didn't have to tell him, either. You could have just told him I was dragging you to New York.”

“He knew it was something else, Maman. I had to tell him something, so I told him the truth.” And despite the price to pay, she didn't regret it. At least she had a clear conscience.

“I think that was a great mistake.” And she didn't tell Alexandra, but she suspected that her daughter's suspicions were right. Henri would almost surely ask for a divorce. Not even ask for it, demand it, and Alexandra would never put up a fight. Margaret just prayed he left her the children. None of it was pleasant to think about, and it distracted her when Axelle and Marie-Louise came back to announce that in spite of the fact that every seat was sold, and packed, there was “no one” on the flight.

“In other words, there are no children?” Margaret inquired with a grin, and they laughed. “Then you'll just have to put up with us.” She played Old Maid and Fish and War and taught them gin rummy, and they watched the movie, as Alexandra sat lost in her own thoughts. She had a great deal to think about … her parents … her sisters … and her husband, if she still had one when she went back to France. But she was still sure she had made the right decision, and the next morning, after a good night's sleep at the Pierre, she called the concierge and made an appointment. She went only a few blocks away to Bergdorf's, and she was very pleased with the results. When she met her mother and the girls for lunch, they were stunned. She had had the blond rinse stripped off her hair, and she was once more a redhead.

“Maman, you look just like me!” Axelle squealed in delight and Margaret laughed as Marie-Louise clapped her hands.

“What on earth brought that on?” Margaret inquired over the girls' heads.

“I've wanted to do it for a long time. Maybe it's that I am who I am now, for better or worse. But I'm not hiding anymore.” And it felt good to her, as Margaret watched her.

“I love you,” Margaret whispered as she touched her daughter's hand.

They had lunch at “21,” and stopped at Schwarz's for a “little gift” from Grandma. As usual, she spoiled both the girls. And as planned, at four o'clock, Alexandra's limousine was waiting. She had explained to the girls that she was spending the weekend with some old friends in Connecticut, and they were staying in the city with their grandmother.

“I'll call you tonight.” She promised as she got into the car with one small suitcase, wearing a very chic black linen dress from Chanel.

“We're going to the movies with Grandma!” Axelle shouted.

She held her mother tight, hugged the girls, and then blew kisses to all three of them, and her eyes held her mother's for a long moment as they drove away. She was sure she could see tears on her mother's cheeks while she was waving, and tears stung Alexandra's eyes as well. It was frightening to be going back into the past, and ahead into the future, all at the same time. But it was also very exciting.

Chapter 30

The drive to Stonington on the Connecticut shore took slightly less than two hours, and Alexandra sat in the backseat, thinking of the people she had left behind her. Margaret, and the love she had lavished on her for thirty years, Axelle and Marie-Louise, so infinitely precious to her, perhaps even more so now … and Henri, so angry at her seeming betrayal of him. She had thought of calling him that morning, before she left, but she couldn't think of what to say. In fact, there seemed to be nothing left to say at all. She knew how he felt about her trip to the States. He had forbidden her to go, and for the first time in their married life, she had disobeyed him. And suddenly, as she drove along in the back of the hired limousine, she felt oddly free, and different than she had in a long time … almost the way she used to feel when she was a little girl, running with her father in the fields near their country house, with the wind in her hair, totally sure of herself, and completely happy. She felt as though he were with her now, as she took the journey back into the past that she felt so compelled to take. And without thinking, she ran a hand through her hair and smiled to herself. She was Alexandra de Borne again … Alexandra Walker, she whispered in the silent car. And for the first time in fourteen years, she was once more a redhead.