Fall from Grace

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Fall from Grace Page 23

by Danielle Steel


  “I don’t know if that will look right,” Ed said, concerned with the fashion statement and the visual of two women walking down the aisle together.

  “I’d be happy to, if you’d like me to,” Bob said in a clear, calm voice, and Sabrina was startled, but not averse to it, as Sydney’s eyes filled with tears again. Life had a way of giving them what they needed, even if from unexpected sources. She had no way of knowing if she and Bob would even be dating seven months from now, although she hoped so. But she was very moved by the offer, and Sabrina was too. He was a kind man.

  “That might be very nice,” Sabrina said quietly. “Thank you, Bob.”

  “I like the way that looks much better,” Ed said as the self-appointed wedding planner, and they all laughed again. “And I like small weddings. You never get to talk to anyone at big weddings. It’s just a giant cattle show, with everyone milling around. What kind of cake? What about chocolate with vanilla icing? They had a fabulous one at Jack and Tom’s wedding. I can ask them who their baker was.” He was on a roll, and Sydney leaned over and kissed her business partner on the cheek and couldn’t resist teasing him.

  “You make a fantastic mother of the bride, and wedding planner. I think we should start doing brides.”

  “I’d love it,” he said honestly. “But no one would take us seriously. I’m not Vera Wang,” he said, and everyone laughed. Sabrina had added an element of joy to Thanksgiving with her announcement, and Steve smiled for the rest of the night. He looked happy and proud.

  They all had a little too much to drink, once Bob served the champagne to celebrate the engagement. But they all left in high spirits, and Sydney held her daughter tight for a minute and told her how happy she was for her. And she gave Steve a big hug when they left. They were taking Sophie with them and were going to drop her off at home.

  “Well, what a special evening that turned out to be,” Bob said, impressed. They’d all had a wonderful time. “It would be hard to top that. I picked the right year to start celebrating Thanksgiving with you.” He kissed her and searched her eyes for a minute. “You’re pleased about it?” He thought she was but still felt that something was bothering her.

  “I am. I couldn’t be happier. He’s a terrific guy, and they love each other. You never know which marriages will work and which won’t, but I think they’ll be a great couple.”

  “You looked worried for a minute, at one point, or sad.” He wasn’t sure which, and she hesitated, not sure if she should share her most private thoughts with him, to that degree, and she didn’t want him to think she wanted his help.

  “I can’t give her the kind of wedding she’s always wanted, even if she says she wants a small one now. She’s wanted a big, elaborate wedding since she was a little girl. But I can’t do that now, and I don’t want her paying for it herself. I think she’s keeping it small to be considerate of me.” She felt like a failure again, not being able to make her daughter’s dreams come true.

  “May I help you?” he asked gently, and she shook her head.

  “I can’t let you do that. It wouldn’t be right. But thank you.” She smiled gratefully at him. “And thank you too for offering to walk her down the aisle. That was incredibly sweet of you.” She was very moved by his kindness and generosity.

  “I don’t want to overstep any boundaries, but I’ll do whatever you allow, and she wants,” he said, and she could see that he meant it. “Maybe she’s changed her mind about a big wedding,” he said thoughtfully. But either way, there was no other choice. And even a small wedding would be a stretch. It would be a big help that Ed would make their dresses. Beautiful wedding gowns, and especially the kind Sabrina would want, cost a fortune.

  Bob pulled Sydney into his arms then and held her for a long moment. He knew she was too proper and too proud to accept any financial help from him, but he would have helped gladly. Just knowing that was a gift to her, and having him at her side at her daughter’s wedding. Big or small, it was going to be a joyous event.

  They cleaned up the debris from dinner the next day, and were both startled by how much wine they had consumed, but it had been a celebration, and no one had gotten sloppy or visibly drunk. The evening had been a big success. They had the apartment neat again by lunchtime. Bob was always a big help. The snow had continued all day and had brought the city to a dead stop with two feet of it on the ground, and they were happy to be indoors, reading and watching movies and playing games. They lived on the leftovers from dinner for three days. Ed sent her emails all weekend with possible wedding dress designs, which made her smile. He was ecstatic about the wedding and doing Sabrina’s wedding gown.

  On Monday, Sydney got back to work on the collection, and Bob flew to Hong Kong. He sent Sabrina and Steve a beautiful silver frame from Tiffany as an engagement present before he left town. He was coming back to New York in a month, right after Christmas with his children, to spend New Year’s with Sydney, and he hoped to stay longer that time.

  Sydney had a serious conversation with Sabrina on Monday about the wedding, and apologized for not being able to give her a huge event as she had always said she wanted.

  “I don’t want that anymore, Mom.” She sounded sincere about it. “I’ve grown up. I don’t want all that pomp and ceremony and show-off stuff. I just want you and Sophie, our close friends, and Steve’s family. That’s all we need. Please don’t worry about it.” Sydney felt a weight lift off her shoulders when Sabrina said it. She felt even happier about the wedding after that.

  —

  Sydney was working on Monday after the Thanksgiving weekend, when she got an email from her realtor in Paris. She’d had an offer for the apartment, and she said that her tenant was ready to vacate in the next month anyway, by the end of the year. The potential buyer wanted a quick sale for a respectable amount. It wasn’t a fortune, but the price was fair. The buyer was Italian and wanted a pied-à-terre in Paris, and he wanted to take possession of it rapidly with a fast closing. The realtor said that if she accepted the offer, she could have the money in early January. And if she agreed to the amount, they could sign a promesse de vente right away, which she knew was a promise to sell, which established the amount of purchase and the terms and was a binding contract.

  Instead of writing back, Sydney called her, to see if there was any possibility for negotiation to raise the price a little.

  “I can try, but it’s a good offer,” she told her, and Sydney knew it was.

  “It never hurts to try.” The realtor agreed to contact the buyer and called her back an hour later. He had come up another fifty thousand dollars, which satisfied Sydney. “I’ll take it,” she said to the realtor, with a silent prayer of thanks. Now she could pay Sabrina back, pay Steve’s bill, and host an intimate, beautiful wedding for her daughter with all the gracious touches that would make it memorable for them, but not over-the-top or showy.

  “Congratulations, madame,” the realtor said to her, sounding pleased herself. It was a charming apartment, but small and old-fashioned and hadn’t been easy to sell.

  “Thank you, God,” Sydney said as she hung up the phone. The timing was perfect, and her financial needs had been met. And she would have enough to live on modestly for quite some time. Everything was falling into place at last. She had faced the worst, and come through it.

  Chapter 17

  Sydney called Sabrina first to tell her about the sale of the Paris apartment, because she was the most directly affected by it. Sydney was so relieved to be able to tell her she could pay her back now for Steve’s fees and the five thousand she had paid to the bail bondsman in cash. The deed to her apartment had been returned by the bail bondsman as soon as Sydney was sentenced. And now she could pay Steve in full too. He had been patient about it, but it had weighed heavily on her, especially with what she owed Sabrina. In January, with the sale of the apartment, she would be able to pay it all.

  “You don’t need to worry about it, Mom,” Sabrina reassured her. “I’ve been fin
e.”

  “Well, I haven’t been. I’ve been worried sick about taking money from you. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be,” and it never had been before. But getting arrested had turned her whole world upside down. The sale of the Paris apartment would set it to rights again, or start to, and put things back in the order they were meant to be, with a mother helping her daughter, not the reverse. She never wanted to be a burden on her children again.

  “Are you okay about the apartment, Mom?” Sabrina knew how much she loved it, and how sad she must be to give it up. She was, but other priorities were more pressing now, and the sale of the apartment would help her achieve them.

  “I’m sad. I can’t pretend I’m not. But I’m glad in a way too. It was a place for Andrew and me. And now I can pay you back, which is more important to me. It was upsetting me terribly that I couldn’t till now. And I can give you a beautiful wedding, however you want it to be. I want you to have your dream wedding with Steve. So start thinking about where you want to do it.” She sounded jubilant when she said it. It had made her heart ache thinking that she couldn’t do all that she wanted for her, when Sabrina had announced their engagement on Thanksgiving.

  “I don’t need a big wedding,” she insisted again graciously. “And I can chip in too. You shouldn’t have to pay for everything.” She didn’t want her mother to spend everything she had for her wedding, or too much, and she had told Steve she didn’t need anything elaborate and expensive, and neither did he. They were going to save money for a house, and with their combined salaries, they could buy a nice one, or an apartment in the city until they had children. And they were in no hurry to have kids yet. Sabrina wanted to concentrate solely on her career for several more years. She wasn’t ready to give that up at twenty-eight.

  “I’m your mother and I love you,” Sydney insisted. “And I’m paying for the wedding, you’re not. So start thinking. We can do something really lovely. Maybe in a garden somewhere outside the city. People rent their homes for that.” They could have done it in Connecticut of course, in the “old days,” but there was no point thinking about that now. She didn’t want to look to the past. She wanted to be happy for Sabrina and stay focused on the present. The past was dangerous ground for her, a minefield of memories that would blow her to bits and break her heart if she let it. She didn’t want to go there anymore. The present was more important now, and moving forward. She still missed Andrew at times, but he had left her such dire problems to deal with that she had to switch her focus rapidly from grief to survival.

  Sabrina promised to think about a location for the wedding, and she thanked her mother for her generosity.

  Sydney called Bob when he arrived in Hong Kong, and told him about the Paris apartment. He was quiet for a minute, knowing that it was a double-edged sword for her, and bittersweet.

  “Will you miss it terribly?” He knew how much the Paris apartment had meant to her. She had told him about it, and he could tell.

  “Yes…no…” she said honestly. “I love it, but I couldn’t go back there now. It’s part of another life, and it’s giving me what I need now. I’m grateful for that. It’ll give me a cushion to live on so things aren’t so tight. I can pay back Sabrina for Steve’s legal fees. And I can give her a lovely wedding.” She sounded immensely relieved about that. “She’s being very sensible about it. She even offered to help, but I won’t let her. So to answer your question, I’m grateful for what selling the apartment will do for me, so I’m a lot less upset than I would have been otherwise.” She was being matter-of-fact about it and he respected her for it. He admired her courage, her spunk, and her style. She had an extraordinary ability to bounce back from events that would have crushed others. They talked about it for a while longer, and he said he’d love to go to Paris with her one day, “when she was no longer wearing her anklet,” as he put it. And then she went back to work.

  She thought about the Paris apartment a few times that night, but reminded herself each time of the benefits she was deriving from the sale, which cheered her up. The realtor had emailed her the papers to sign on Tuesday. She had already signed them, scanned them, and emailed them back to her. All she wanted now was the money and to get on with her life. She had enough to keep her occupied without wallowing in the past.

  But three days later, she felt like she’d been hit by a wrecking ball when she read that Russians had bought their house in Connecticut. She stared at the article and read it again and again, as tears rolled down her cheeks. The twins had gotten their asking price, but whatever the Russians had paid, they had gotten a piece of her heart. It was one thing to lose a pied-à-terre in Paris that had been a toy for them and a luxury, but selling the house that had been their home, with all of her most beloved belongings in it, tore her heart out.

  She sat there and cried for an hour, as she looked out the window, thinking about it. And this time, Veronica didn’t call her. She never did anymore after Sydney told her not to. But their beloved home going to strangers was almost too much. And even worse right on the heels of the Paris apartment. Now everything was gone, only eighteen months after Andrew’s death, and so much of what they’d loved. No one could take the memories from her, but they had taken everything else.

  Bob could hear that something was off when he called her that night, and at first she insisted that nothing was wrong when he asked. She didn’t want to talk about it, and didn’t think she could without crying.

  “Tell me, Sydney, what happened?” He said it so gently that she started crying and couldn’t stop, and then told him that the house had been sold, with all their memories and all their history, and everything that had been stolen from her by her stepdaughters. Bob felt terrible listening to her and didn’t know what to say. He wanted to put his arms around her, and hated that he wasn’t with her to do it. They had to content themselves with words for now, and the fact that they loved each other.

  “I can’t even imagine how hard this must be,” he said tenderly. It was almost like a fire or a flood or a hurricane that had swept everything away. “I’m so sorry they took it all away from you. It was so wrong of them.” And the part her husband had played wasn’t right either, but Bob didn’t say that to her. There was no point blaming Andrew now. He just wanted to console her. “It’s easy for me to say,” he said apologetically, “but you just have to go on and make a good new life.” She knew it too, and was doing her best to do so.

  “I’ve been trying,” she said, crying harder, “and then I got arrested, and I wound up stuck in this stupid apartment.” She sounded like a little kid, and he smiled and loved her all the more.

  “I’ll be there soon, in the stupid apartment with you,” he said in a loving tone and she laughed. She hadn’t lost her sense of humor, but occasionally it all got to her. And the sale of the Connecticut house was a hard blow that struck at her heart. It was truly gone now, and would belong to someone else. She wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than the twins owning it and Kellie living there.

  They talked for a while after that, and Sydney sounded calmer and had regained her composure by the time they hung up.

  “I’m sorry I got upset,” she said to him sheepishly.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. That’s what I’m here for. I’d have been in a straitjacket by now after all you’ve been through. Women are much stronger about these things than men. I stayed in bed for a week when Brigid left, and we didn’t even like each other by then,” he said, and made her smile. “I’d be upset about the house too,” he said seriously. And it was hard having it happen at Christmas, when memories and losses were always more acute.

  She thought about it again, late that night, looking out the window, and she missed Andrew fiercely for the first time in a while. She wasn’t as angry at him anymore, she just wished that things were different, and he was still alive. But she knew that she was lucky to have Bob, even if their love was new and they didn’t have much history yet. She was sorry they couldn’t spend Chr
istmas together. But they both needed to be with their children, and lived worlds apart. They still didn’t know how they would manage it in the future. Neither of them could commute between Hong Kong and New York all the time, although some people did. And Bob was coming to see her regularly. But as long as she was still under house arrest, she couldn’t travel too, to lighten the load on him. There was nothing they could do about it. She was grateful that he came to see her as often as he did. Coming to spend New Year’s Eve with her would be her best Christmas gift from him.

  Sophie visited her a lot on weekends now that she didn’t have a boyfriend. Sydney ordered dinner for them, and they watched movies together. She still missed Grayson, but knew the breakup was right. Sabrina was busy with work, Steve, and their plans for the future, although she hadn’t organized the wedding yet. She hadn’t had time.

  Sydney had managed to do some Christmas shopping online. It felt strange shopping that way, but it was all she could manage, unable to get out of the apartment. The girls and Steve were planning to have Christmas Eve dinner with her, and Kevin and Ed. And the day after Christmas, Steve was taking Sabrina to Florida to meet his parents, and after that they were going to spend the weekend alone in Palm Beach for New Year’s Eve. Sophie was going skiing in Vermont with friends. It all sounded like a nice break to Sydney, whose horizons were limited now by a two-room apartment, and a window that looked out on the street. But she was happy they were willing to spend Christmas with her, and she enjoyed the time she was spending with Sophie, before she started dating again.

  —

  Sydney and Ed sent a lot of designs back and forth to each other in the weeks before Christmas. They were going to be closed between Christmas and New Year’s, and after that they’d have six weeks till their show. And she couldn’t be there to help this time. Coincidentally, it was going to be on Valentine’s Day, which seemed a little corny to her. And the time was coming closer. They had most of the designs done and the samples in production, except for a few where, as usual, they were waiting for fabrics from abroad that had been delayed. But there was plenty of time to catch up. And Ed was still sending her sketches of wedding gowns for Sabrina whenever he had time. It was a happy event to look forward to. They’d had too many sad ones in recent years. But finally, the tides had turned.

 

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