Danielle Steel - Journey

They talked for a few more minutes then, and the doctors wanted to do some more tests on her, just to be thorough in their evaluation, and she and Bill agreed that he should leave, in case Jack came to see her. Bill didn't want to cause her any trouble at this point.

“I'll come back in a few hours,” he said, as he leaned over and kissed her. “Take it easy.”

“You too. Get some sleep.” She kissed him again, and could hardly bring herself to relinquish his fingers. As soon as he left, the doctors took her away and completed their examination. And when she was brought back to her room, Rafe came in with a news crew. Jack had sent them. Rafe didn't tell Maddy what a bastard he thought Jack was for not coming to see her himself, and he didn't ask her about Bill. He didn't need to. Whatever else might have been happening between them, it was obvious to the producer of her show that the guy really loved her, and just as obvious to him now that Maddy loved him.

She told them what she could about what had happened, from her perspective, and told them, on camera, how brave Annie had been. “She's sixteen years old,” Maddy said, impressed and proud, and then she saw an odd look in Rafe's eyes, and when they turned the camera off, she asked him a question.

“She's okay, isn't she, Rafe? Did you hear something?”

He hesitated, wanting to lie to her, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. She'd find out anyway, and it didn't seem fair not to tell her. “The baby is going to be okay, Mad. But they couldn't get his mom out.”

“What do you mean, they couldn't get her out?” She was almost shrieking as she said it. She had kept her alive for fourteen hours and now they were telling her they couldn't free her? That was impossible. She refused to believe it.

“They'd have had to use dynamite. She was in a coma when they took you out, Maddy. They gave her life support, but she died half an hour later. Her lungs were crushed, and she had bled so much internally the rescue docs said they could never have saved her.” Maddy made a sound like an animal as she heard him. It was a keening, groaning sound, as though the girl had been her own child. She couldn't bear to think of it. And what was going to happen to her baby? Rafe said he didn't know anything about that, and they left her to rest shortly after. But not before he told her, choking on sobs himself, how glad he was that she had made it.

Everyone was. Lizzie cried hopelessly when Maddy called her in Memphis to tell her she was all right. Lizzie had stayed up all night to watch the news coverage and when she didn't see Maddy on camera with the news crews, she called her at home, but no one answered. She had sensed somehow that Maddy was trapped there.

And Phyllis Armstrong called her and told her how relieved she and Jim were, and what a tragedy it was, particularly the deaths of all those children. They both cried, thinking of it, and after she hung up, Maddy asked a nurse about the baby. Andy was still at the hospital, being observed, as he would be for the next few days. The child protection authorities hadn't picked him up yet. And after the nurse left the room, Maddy got up quietly and went to the nursery to see him. He barely looked like more than a newborn, and Maddy asked a nurse if she could hold him. They had bathed him and combed his hair. He was blond and had big blue eyes, and they had wrapped him in a blue blanket. He looked immaculate and Maddy could see how pretty Annie must have been as she looked at her baby. And as she held him, all she could think of was Annie, asking her to take care of her baby. And soon he would be left to the same fate her own had been, going from orphanages to foster homes into the hands of strangers, with no real parents to love or claim him. It made Maddy's heart ache as she held him.

And as she did, he looked at her intently and she wondered if he recognized her voice as she crooned to him. He seemed to lose interest after a while, and drifted off to sleep in her arms. And Maddy cried as she thought of Annie. It had been an odd turn of fate that had left them together in the rubble. She set the baby down gently in the hospital bassinette and went back to her own room, still crying over Annie.

Maddy was stiff and achy, and incredibly tired, but she didn't have any serious injuries and she realized how incredibly lucky she had been. She was staring out the window and thinking how odd it was that life spared some, and took others, with no seeming rhyme or reason. It was hard to guess why she had been one of the lucky ones, and Annie wasn't. She had had so much more life left to live than Maddy. And as she thought about the mysteries of life, Jack walked into the room with a solemn expression.

“I guess I don't need to ask where you've been all night for once.” The “for once” was unnecessary, but typical of him. “How are you doing, Maddy?” He looked and felt awkward. He had never really believed she was in the wreckage in the first place. It sounded like hysteria to him, and he was surprised to learn she had been, but relieved to know she had survived. “That must have been pretty rough,” he said, as he leaned over and kissed her, and a nurse brought a huge vase of flowers into the room, from the Armstrongs.

“Yeah, it was pretty scary,” she said thoughtfully. He was the master of understatement, and dismissal. But this was a tough one to belittle. Being trapped in a bombed building for fourteen hours definitely qualified as a major trauma, however Jack called it. She thought about telling him about Annie and the baby, and how much it had touched her, but she decided not to. He wouldn't have understood.

“Everyone was worried about you. I figured you were out somewhere. I just didn't think you were in there. Why would you be?”

“I went to buy wrapping paper,” she said simply, eyeing him. He had retreated to the other side of the room, as though he needed to keep his distance, and so did she now, for her own safety.

“You hate malls,” he said, as though that would change it all now, and she smiled at him.

“I guess now I know why. They're fucking dangerous,” she said and they both laughed. But the tension was high between them. She hadn't sorted it all out yet after the night before, but she had even thought about it while she was trapped in the debris, trying to keep Annie going. It occurred to her that if she ever survived what she'd just been through, she would have faced the greatest terror in her life. She didn't need to face any more than that, or impose it on herself, or risk herself again. She would have faced the greatest enemy, looked death in the eye. She didn't need to punish herself anymore, and she had promised herself she wasn't going to. And seeing him there, sitting awkwardly across the room from her, she knew she couldn't. He couldn't even have enough love in his heart to walk across the room and hold her in his arms and tell her he loved her. He couldn't. He probably loved her as much as he could, she realized, but that didn't say much. And as though sensing something strange happening between them, he stood up and walked over to her, and handed her a gift-wrapped box. She took it without a word, and opened it, and there was a narrow diamond bracelet inside. It was very pretty, and she thanked him. What she didn't know was that he had bought two of them at the Ritz Carlton when he checked out that morning. One for her, for what she'd gone through at the mall, and the other for the girl he'd spent the night with. But even without knowing that, Maddy handed it back to him with a serious expression.

“I can't accept it. I'm sorry, Jack,” she said, and his eyes narrowed as he watched her. He could sense the prey slipping slowly away from him, and for an instant she thought he was going to grab her, but he didn't.