Danielle Steel - Family album

“You don't know Bill Stein.” Anne said the words in a calm measured way, as Faye watched her face, and suddenly she was afraid. She was serious about this man, and Faye couldn't help asking her.

“You're not pregnant again, are you?”

She looked at her with hatred. “No, I'm not. I learned that lesson once. The hard way.” No one disagreed with her. And now Ward came forward with a set face and a frown.

“I just want you to know that in ten months or ten years, you are not marrying this man. I am calling my attorney, and the police tonight, and I'm bringing charges against him.”

“For what? Loving me?” She looked at her father derisively. She had no respect for either of them. They had done nothing for her, and she knew she meant nothing to them. Maybe they were just angry that someone did love her, she told herself. But her father went on to explain his plans.

“It is statutory rape to have sexual intercourse with a girl your age, Anne.” Her father's voice was cold. “He can go to prison for that.”

“I'll testify against all of you.” She looked panicked now.

“It won't change anything.”

She was suddenly frightened for him. What if he was right? Why had Bill never said that to her? She had to protect him now. She looked at her father desperately. “Do anything you want to me, but don't hurt him.” The words struck Faye like a blow, she cared enough about this man to sacrifice herself. It was frightening that she loved him so much, and what if they were wrong? But they couldn't be. He had obviously taken gross advantage of her. But Faye looked at Ward.

“Why don't we talk to him first, and see what he says. If he promises never to see her again, maybe it would be simpler not to take any legal action against him.” Ward was difficult to convince, but eventually Faye got through to him. And they forced Anne to call, and demand that he come over immediately. She had to tell him why, and he could hear her crying on the phone.

He entered the Thayer house, to find a kangaroo court waiting for him. Ward let him in and he had to control himself not to attack him then and there. And Lionel was standing by. Bill recognized all the players in the piece, especially Faye. He had come alone, and he faced Anne sobbing hysterically across the room. Instantly, he went to her, smoothed her hair, dried her cheeks, and then realized that they were all staring at him.

He had no excuses to make. He admitted it all. He sympathized totally with Ward, and told him he had a daughter the same age, but he also tried to tell them some things about Anne, about how lonely she had been, how marked by giving up her child, how guilty over what had happened in the Haight-Ashbury. He explained how her earliest memories of their seeming indifference went back to when she was a tiny child, and she had felt rejected by all of them all her life. He made no excuses for himself, but he explained to them who Anne Thayer was, and her parents sat there, realizing what a stranger she had been to them. And this unknown child, who had come to reject them eventually too, had found Bill Stein, and sought everything from him, and in his own loneliness he had nurtured her. Perhaps it was wrong, he admitted with damp eyes, but it was sincere. He echoed exactly what Anne had said to them, though in a kindlier tone. In less than a year, he planned to marry her, with or without their consent, or even GaiI's, once she found out. He would have preferred everyone to wish them well, but this had gone on long enough, and if he could have married her sooner, he would. She could continue school, she could do anything she wanted to, but when her eighteenth birthday came, he would be waiting for her, whether they would continue to let him see her now or not.

And as he quietly said the words, she sat there and beamed at him. He hadn't let her down, and he was willing to risk anything for her. He was exactly what she had always believed him to be, and the three other Thayers were shocked, most of all Ward, who stared at this unexciting-looking man and couldn't understand what his daughter saw in him. He wasn't beautiful or young, handsome or debonair. He was actually rather banal, and his looks were very plain. But he had offered something to their child that they had never been able to give her. And whether they wanted to see it or not, she was happy with him. She sat there now, blooming quietly in the sunlight of his love. They really didn't care what was done to them in the next year. Both were willing to wait, and after that it was clear what their plans were. And suddenly both Ward and Faye believed they would. One couldn't fight them at all, no matter how wrong it might be, or how great the age difference, or how big a fool they thought Anne was.

After he left, and they had lectured Anne, Ward and Faye talked quietly in their room. They didn't know what to make of him, and they had told her they didn't know if there would be charges or not. Bill had gone home to make a clean breast of it with Gail, and would be happy to speak to them at any time. He wasn't really apologetic with them. After two years of loving her, he felt he had relatively little to apologize for. He hadn't hurt her or abandoned her, used her, or done anything terribly wrong. By now she was almost eighteen, and it didn't seem shocking to the lovers anymore. He suspected Gail would be stunned at first, but she would get over it too. And they had their lives to lead, Anne and Bill. Both had made that perfectly clear to everyone.

“What do you think?” Faye sat in a chair and looked at Ward. He still couldn't see what she saw in the man, and she was only seventeen years old. It was mind boggling.

“I think she's a damn fool.”

Faye sighed. This was worse than some of the movies she'd done. “So do I, but that's our opinion, not hers.”

“Apparently.” He sat down across from his wife, and took her hand. “How do they get themselves into these things? Lionel with his damn inclinations to something I don't understand. Val with her crazy career, Vanessa living with that boy in New York, and thinking we don't know about it.” Faye smiled, they had talked about it before. She thought she was so exotic and unusual, and it was so transparent, they all knew what was going on, and they didn't really mind. She was twenty years old and he was a nice boy. “And now Anne with this man…. Good God, Faye, he's thirty-three years older than she is.” It still wouldn't sink in.

“I know. And he isn't even beautiful.” Faye smiled. “If it was someone who looked like you, I'd understand at least.” At fifty-two he was still as handsome as he had been twenty years before, though in a different way. But he was still long and lean and elegant, as was she. This man had none of that. It was difficult to see his appeal, except that he had kind eyes, and he seemed to care a great deal for her. She looked up at her husband then. “Do we have to agree to this, Ward?” She didn't mean legally, she meant practically for the next ten months.

“I don't see why we should.”

“Maybe we'd be smarter if we did. You can't fight City Hall.” They had learned that again and again, with Lionel, with Val … Vanessa … now Anne, They did what they wanted to … except poor Greg. And Ward looked at her now.

“You mean agree to her having an affair with him openly?” He looked shocked. “She's only seventeen years old.” But they both knew that she was far older than that, in her soul, she had been through a lot, and it had weathered her.

“She's been doing it for the last year or so anyway.”

Ward narrowed his eyes at his wife. “What makes you so liberal suddenly?”

She smiled tiredly at Ward. “Maybe I'm just getting old.”

“And wise.” He kissed her again. “I love you, babe.”