Danielle Steel - Daddy

He smiled at her. She had great stature in many ways, and lots of style, and he almost forgot how tiny she was. She was a terrific woman, and once again he found himself wondering why she had never married. Too busy perhaps, or too wrapped up in her work. It happened to a lot of them, and then suddenly at forty they panicked. But she didn't look as though she was panicking. She seemed content and self-possessed, and her eyes were kind as he sat back in his chair with a sigh and shook his head. “I don't know, Daph … I guess you've heard …” His eyes bore into hers like two pools of green pain and she had to resist an urge to put her arms around him. “Sarah left last month to go back to school … in Boston …”

“That's not the end of the world, you know. I thought it was worse than that.” She had heard they were getting a divorce, but she didn't say that to Ollie.

“I think most likely it is worse than that, but she hasn't got the guts to admit it. We haven't seen her in almost five weeks, and the kids are going nuts on me. So am I. I go crazy every night trying to get out of here, and it's six or seven o'clock most nights. Eight before I get home, and by then everyone's out of control, my dinner's turned to sock, we yell at each other, they cry, and then it all starts again the next morning.”

“It doesn't sound like much fun. Why don't you take an apartment in New York for a while, at least you'd be closer to work, and the change might do the kids good.” He hadn't even thought about it, but he couldn't see the point of doing that now, putting them through the trauma of changing friends and schools. And he knew they all needed the comfort of familiar surroundings.

“I'm just barely managing to keep our heads above water, let alone think of moving.” He told her about Mel's fury at him, Benjamin's disappearing act, and Sam's wetting the bed on and off, and sleeping with him every night.

“You need a break, kid. Why don't you take them somewhere? Why don't you go to the Caribbean for a week, or Hawaii, someplace hot and sunny and happy?” Was there such a place? Would any of them ever be happy again? It seemed difficult to believe and he was faintly embarrassed to be dumping on her, but she didn't seem to mind it.

“I guess I keep hoping that if we stay right where we are, she'll come back, and we can turn the clock back.”

“It doesn't usually work like that.”

“Yeah.” He ran a tired hand through his hair. “I've noticed. I'm sorry to bore you with all this. It just gets to me sometimes. It makes it hard to concentrate on work. But at least it's nice to get out of the house. It's so depressing being there at night, and weekends are worse. It's as though we've all been smashed apart and don't know how to find each other anymore. It wasn't like that before. …” But now he could barely remember how it had been. It seemed as though they had been living through the agony of her absence for a lifetime.

“Can I do anything?” She'd never met his kids, but she would have been willing to. She had a lot of free time on her hands on the weekends. “I'll be happy to meet them sometime. Maybe it would do them good, or do you think they'd feel I was trying to grab you from their mother?”

“I'm not sure they'd even notice.” But they both knew that wasn't the case. He smiled at her, grateful for the sympathetic ear. “Maybe you could come out sometime for the day. It might be fun for all of us, when things settle down a little bit, if they ever do. My mother's been sick lately too. It's like when one thing goes wrong, everything falls apart all at once. Did you ever notice that?” He grinned the boyish smile that melted women's hearts and she laughed.

“Are you kidding? It's the story of my life. How's the dog?”

“The dog?” He looked surprised that she would ask. “Fine. Why?”

“Watch out for him. This'll be the time he'll develop distemper and bite fourteen of your neighbors.” They both laughed and he sighed again.

“I never thought anything like this would happen to us, Daph. She took me completely by surprise. I wasn't ready for this, and neither were the kids. I thought we had the perfect life.”

“It happens like that sometimes. People get sick, they die, things change, they suddenly fall in love with someone else, or do some other crazy thing like this. It's not fair, but that's the way it is. You just have to make the best of it, and one day you'll look back, and maybe you'll understand why it happened.”

“It was me, I guess.” He still believed that, it had to be. “Maybe she felt neglected, or ignored, or taken for granted.”

“Or stifled, or bored, or maybe she just wasn't such a great person after all.” She was closer to the truth than she knew, but Oliver wasn't ready to admit that. “Maybe she just wanted her own life for a change. It's hard to know the reasons why people do things. It must be even harder for your kids to understand.” She was a wise woman for her years, and Oliver remembered again how much he had always liked her, not in a flirtatious way, but she offered the sound, valuable stuff that solid friendships were made of. It had been years since he'd had a woman as a friend, not since he had married Sarah.

“If I don't understand it myself, it's not surprising that they don't. And she isn't helping matters by staying away. When she left, she promised to come home every weekend.”

“That's rough, too, but maybe this is better for all of you. By the time she comes back to visit, you'll all be more settled.” He laughed bitterly at the thought. It seemed an unlikely prospect.

“There is no such thing at our house. Everyone starts complaining at breakfast, and when I come home they're still at it, or they're not there at all, which is worse. I never realized the kids could be such a handful. They've always been so easy and so good, so well adjusted and happy. And now … I hardly recognize them when I go home at night, the complaints, the moodiness, the arguments, the whining. I can hardly wait to get back here.” And once in the office, he couldn't stand being there either. Maybe she was right. Maybe they should take another vacation.

“Don't let this become your life.” She said it with a knowing look in her eyes. “You pay a price for that too. Give her a chance, if she comes back, great. If she doesn't, get your life squared away. Your real life. Not this bullshit. It's no substitute for a real live person. I speak from experience. Believe me.”

“Is that why you never got married, Daphne?” Un- der the circumstances, it no longer seemed quite so rude to ask her.

“More or less. That and a few other complications. I swore to myself I'd build a career until I was thirty, and after that some other things happened to keep me occupied, and I took refuge in my work again. And then … well, it's a long story, but suffice it to say this is it for me. I love it, it works for me. But it's not much of a life for most folks. And you've got kids. You need more than just this in your life. Your kids will be gone one day, and that desk isn't much company after midnight.” Everyone knew that she stayed as late as ten o'clock some nights. But it was also why she made the best presentations. She worked like a dog on what she did, and she was brilliant at it.

“You're a wise woman.” He smiled at her and looked at his watch. “Think we should take another stab at that stuff you brought in?” It was almost five o'clock, and he was thinking about going home, but it was still a little bit too early.

“Why don't you go home early for a change? It might do your kids good, and you too. Take them out to dinner somewhere.”

He looked surprised by the idea, he had never even thought of it, he was so desperately clinging to their old routines. “That's a great idea. Thank you. You don't mind if we do that stuff again tomorrow?”