Danielle Steel: Granny Dan

In my eyes she had always been old, always been mine,

always been Granny Dan. But in another time,

another place, there had been dancing,

people, laughter, love. …

She had had another life before she came to us,

long before she came to me. …

GRANNY DAN

PRAISE FOR

DANIELLE STEEL“A LITERARY PHENOMENON …and not to be pigeonholed as one who produces a predictable kind of book.”— The Detroit News “THE PLOTS OF DANIELLE STEEL'S NOVELS TWIST AND WEAVE as incredible stories unfold to the glee and delight of her enormous reading public.”—United Press International“Ms. Steel's fans won't be disappointed!”— The New York Times Book Review “One counts on Danielle Steel for A STORY THAT ENTERTAINS AND INFORMS.”— The Chattanooga Times “Steel writes convincingly about universal human emotions.”— Publishers Weekly “STEEL IS AT THE TOP OF HER BESTSELLING FORM.”— Houston Chronicle “FEW MODERN WRITERS CONVEY THE PATHOS OF FAMILY AND MARITAL LIFE WITH SUCH HEARTFELT EMPATHY.”— The Philadelphia Inquirer “It's nothing short of amazing that even after [dozens of] novels, Danielle Steel can still come up with a good new yarn.”— The Star-Ledger (Newark)

a cognizant original v5 release october 14 2010

PRAISE FOR DANIELLE STEEL'S

GRANNY DAN“Steel pulls out all the emotional stops…. She delivers.”— People (Beach Book of the Week)“STEEL'S STORY WILL NOT DISAPPOINT.”— Kirkus Reviews “This fairy tale is fully outfitted with dreamy details such as ermine-trimmed gowns, covered sleighs and royal balls in glittering palaces.”— Publishers WeeklyA MAIN SELECTION OF

THE LITERARY GUILD

AND

THE DOUBLEDAY BOOK CLUB

Books by Danielle Steel

To Great Loves,

and small ballerinas,

each cherished separately,

and carried in the heart

forever.

And to Vanessa,

most specially,

so much loved child,

and extraordinary

ballerina.

May life treat you with

grace, kindness, and

compassion.

With all my love,

d.s.

PrologueThe box arrived on a snowy afternoon two weeks before Christmas. It was neatly wrapped, tied with string, and was sitting on my doorstep when I came home with the children. We had stopped in the park on the way home, and I had sat on a bench, watching them, thinking of her again, as I had almost constantly for the last week since her service. There was so much about her I had never known, so much I had only guessed at, so many mysteries to which only she held the key. My greatest regret was not asking her about her life when I had the chance, but just assuming it wasn't important. She was old, after all, how important could it be? I thought I knew everything about her.She was the grandmother with the dancing eyes who loved to roller-skate with me, even into her late eighties, who baked exquisite little cookies, and spoke to the children in the town where she lived as though they were grown up and understood her. She was very wise, and very funny, and they loved her. And if they pressed her to, she did card tricks for them, which always fascinated them.She had a lovely voice, played the balalaika, and sang beautiful old ballads in Russian. She always seemed to be singing, or humming, always moving. And to the very end, she was lithe and graceful, loved by all, and admired by everyone who knew her. The church had been surprisingly full for a woman of ninety. Yet none of us really knew her. None of us understood who she had been, or where, or the extraordinary world she had come from. We knew she had been born in Russia and that she arrived in Vermont in 1917, and that she had married my grandfather sometime later. We just assumed she had always been there, part of our lives, just as she was. As one does about old people, we assumed she had always been old.None of us really knew anything about her, and what lingered in my head were the unanswered questions. All I could ask myself now was why I had never thought to ask her. Why had I never sought the answers to the questions?My mother had died ten years before and perhaps even she hadn't known the answers or wanted to know them.My mother had been far more like her father, a serious sort, a sensible woman, a true New En-glander, although her father wasn't. But like him, she was a woman of few words and impenetrable emotions. Little said, little known, and seemingly uninterested in the mysteries of other worlds, or the lives of others. She went to the supermarket when there were specials on tomatoes and strawberries, she was a practical person who lived in a material world, and had little in common with her own mother. The word that best described my own mother was solid , which is not the word anyone would have used to describe her mother, Granny Dan, as I called her.Granny Dan was magic. Granny Dan seemed to be made up of air and fairy dust and angel wings, all things magical and luminous and graceful. The two women seemed to have nothing in common with each other, and it was always my grandmother who drew me to her like a magnet, whose warmth and gentleness touched my heart with countless unspoken graceful gestures. It was Granny Dan I loved most of all, and whom I was missing so desperately that snowy afternoon in the park, wondering what I would do without her. She had died ten days before, at ninety.When my mother died at fifty-four, I was sorry, and knew I would miss her. I would miss the stability she represented to me, the reliability, the place to come home to. My father married her best friend the year after she died, and even that didn't particularly shock me. He was sixty-five, had a bad heart, and needed someone there at night to cook him dinner. Connie was his oldest friend and a sensible stand-in for my mother. It didn't bother me. I understood. I never pined for my mother. But Granny Dan … the world had lost some of its magic for me, knowing she was no longer in it. I knew I would never hear her sing again, in the lilting Russian…. The balalaika was long gone by then. But with her went a special kind of excitement. I knew that my children would never understand what they had lost. She was just a very old woman to them, with kind eyes, and a funny accent … but I knew better. I knew exactly what I'd lost, and would never find again. She was an extraordinary human being, a mystical kind of soul. Once one had met her, one could not forget her.The package sat on the kitchen table for a long time, while the children clamored for dinner and watched TV as I prepared it. I had been to the supermarket that afternoon, and bought what I needed to make Christmas cookies with them. We had planned to make them together that night, so they could take them to school to their teachers. Katie wanted to make cupcakes instead. But Jeff and Matthew had agreed to make Christmas bells with red and green sprinkles. It was a good night to do it, because Jack, my husband, was out of town. He was in Chicago for three days of meetings. He had come to the funeral with me the week before and had been warm and sympathetic. He knew how much she meant to me, but as people do, he had tried to point out that she'd had a good, long life, and it was reasonable that she move on now. Reasonable to him, but not to me. I felt cheated to have lost her, even at ninety.