Danielle Steel - Crossings

The trip across the country was both monotonous and peaceful. The girls played and read, kept each other amused, and sometimes fought, which kept Liane busy. But much of the time she slept. She felt as though she were regaining her strength after almost five agonizing months of tension, not to mention the months of tension before that. In truth, life hadn't been normal for them for over a year. It never had been since they arrived in Paris nearly eighteen months before. And now suddenly she was able to relax and think of absolutely nothing. Only when they stopped in various stations and she read the papers was she reminded of the rest of the world, and their troubles. The British were being bombed day and night, and the streets were apparently filled with rubble. Children were still being evacuated whenever possible, and Churchill had ordered the RAF to bomb Berlin, which only redoubled Hitler's efforts to destroy London.

But all of that was hard to believe as they rolled through the snow-covered fields of Nebraska, and watched the Rockies appear in Colorado. And at last on Thursday morning, they awoke, within hours of San Francisco. They pulled into the city from the south, through the ugliest part of town, and Liane was surprised that it still looked so familiar. Very little had changed since she had come back for the last time after her father's death eight years before.

“Is this it?” Marie-Ange looked shocked. The children had never been to San Francisco. There had been no reason to bring them here. Her father was gone, and Uncle George had passed through the various cities where they had lived over the years.

“Yes.” Liane smiled. “But it's much prettier than this. This isn't a very nice part of town.”

“It sure isn't.”

Uncle George and the chauffeur were waiting for them at the station, and they were escorted to his home in grand style, in a Lincoln Continental. It had just arrived from Detroit and the girls thought it a very luxurious car. She could tell that they were suddenly excited to be here. And George had brought them each a new doll, and when they reached the house on Broadway, Liane was touched to see the trouble he had gone to, to arrange rooms for the girls. They were filled with toys and games, and there were pictures of Walt Disney characters on the walls. And in Liane's old room, waiting for her, there was an enormous vase of flowers. Even though it was the first of December, the weather was balmy, the trees were still green, and there were flowers in the garden.

“The house looks wonderful, Uncle George.” He had made some changes after her father's death, but on the whole the place had actually changed less than she had feared, and everything was well run and well staffed. He had settled down in his old age, abandoning the wild party days of his youth. He had done well by Crockett Shipping too. And in a funny way it was nice to come home. After the painful rejection they'd met in Washington for nearly five months, it was a blessed relief to be here, or so she thought until after dinner. The girls had gone to bed and she was sitting in the library, playing dominoes with George, as she often had with her father.

“Well, Liane. Have you come to your senses yet?”

“About what?” She pretended to concentrate on the game. She was stalling.

“You know what I'm talking about. I mean about that fool you married.”

She raised her eyes to his, with a cold, hard look, which surprised him. “I'm not going to discuss that with you, Uncle George. I hope I make myself perfectly clear.”

“Don't take that tone with me, girl. You made a mistake and you know it.”

“I know nothing of the sort. I've been married for eleven and a half years and I love my husband very much.”

“The man is practically a Nazi. And maybe ‘practically’ is being too kind. Could you really live with him again after knowing that?” She refused to answer. “For God's sake, he's almost six thousand miles away and you belong here. If you filed for divorce now, they would grant it to you under special circumstances. You could even go to Reno and have it over in six weeks. And then you and the girls could start a new life here where you belong.”

“I don't belong here. I'm here because I have nowhere else to go while France is occupied. We belong with Armand, and that's where we'll be as soon as the war ends.”

“I think you're crazy.”

“Then let's not discuss it anymore, Uncle George. There are things about the situation that you don't know.”

“Like what?”

“I'd rather not discuss it.” As usual, her hands were tied. And she didn't thank Armand for that. But she was growing used to living in silence.

“That's crap and you know it. And there's plenty I do know. Like what drove you out of town on a rail—the girls were kicked out of school, no one invited you anywhere, you were a pariah.” Her eyes looked sad as they met his. What he said was true. “At least you had the sense to come here, where you can have a normal, decent life.”

“Not if you go around calling my husband a Nazi.” Her voice was tired and sad. “If you do that, the same thing will happen here, and I can't pull up stakes every five months. If you talk like that, the girls will pay for it just like they did in Washington.” She didn't ask him where he'd gotten his information, he had connections and associates everywhere, and it really didn't matter. What he said was true, but what she was saying now was also.

“What do you expect me to say? That he's a nice guy?”

“You don't have to say anything, if you don't like him. But if you do, mark my words, you'll cry, the way I did, when the girls come home with paint in their hair, and their dresses torn off their backs, with swastikas painted on them.” There were tears in her eyes as she spoke, and he looked at her with fresh compassion.

“They did that to the girls?” She nodded. “Who?”

“Other children in school. Little girls from nice families. And the headmistress said she wouldn't be able to do anything to stop it.”

“I'd have killed her.”

“I would have liked to, but that wouldn't have solved the problem. As she put it, parents talk and children listen, and she happens to be right. So if you talk, Uncle George, so will everyone else, and the girls will end up paying for it.” That she did by now seemed normal. He was pensive for a long moment after she had spoken and he nodded slowly.

“I understand. I don't like it, but I understand.”

“Good.”

He looked at her gently then. “I'm glad you called me.”

“So am I.” She smiled at him. They had never been close, but she was oddly grateful to be with him now. He was giving her shelter at a time when she desperately needed it. And here life seemed so civilized and so far away from the war, one could almost pretend that it wasn't happening. Almost. But not quite. But it seemed blissfully distant.

They chatted on for a little while then, on safer subjects, and at last they went upstairs to their respective rooms, and when Liane went to bed that night, she fell into her old bed and slept as she hadn't in years. “Like the dead,” she told George the next morning. And after he left the house, she made several calls, but not to old friends. She hardly knew anyone here anymore, and he had already arranged a school for the girls. They were going to Miss Burke's and they were starting the following Monday. But there was something else Liane had in mind, and by late that afternoon, she had arranged it.

“You did what?” George asked in consternation.

“I said that I got a job. Is that so shocking?”

“I think so, yes. If you're anxious to do something, why don't you join the Metropolitan Club, or a women's auxiliary or something?”