Family Album

by Danielle Steel

  She looked up at him, still wearing a frown, but it wasn't meant for him. “What are you doing today?”

  “Having lunch at the club.” That was another thing that would have to go, all his club memberships, but she didn't say anything to him now. She merely nodded her head, and a moment later he left the room. He didn't come back until six o'clock and when he did he was in a very good mood. He had been playing backgammon all afternoon and had won nine hundred dollars from one of his friends. But what if you'd lost? Faye thought the words silently and said nothing to him, as she went upstairs quietly. She didn't want to see him playing with the twins, knowing he was drunk, knowing all that she knew now. And there was so much to do. Tomorrow she would have to begin Bring the help … they still had the cars to sell … and after everything was done here there would still be the house in Palm Springs … tears filled her eyes at the thought of it all, not so much with regret, but more with the sheer weight of it all, and the weight was entirely resting on her. There was no avoiding it. It was like a nightmare, or a very, very strange dream. In a mere twenty-four hours, their entire life had fallen apart, she could barely allow herself to think of it. If she did, she might scream. It was so strange, only days ago, her head had been filled with other things … the new baby being born … another spectacular gift from Ward. They were thinking of spending a few weeks in Palm Springs, and now suddenly it was over … forever … gone. It was totally incredible. As she walked up the stairs with a heavy heart, wondering what they would do, the nurse waylaid her again, as she had already done several times that day. But Faye had no time for the baby now. There was just too much going on. The woman in white stood at the head of the stairs looking at Faye ominously, a bottle of formula in one hand, as she clutched the newborn babe to her breast, wrapped in an embroidered pink receiving blanket Faye had bought for the twins.

  “Would you like to feed the baby now, Mrs. Thayer?” The fancy British nanny stared malevolently at her, or at least that was how Faye saw her now, thinking of her salary and also of how she had attempted to make her feel guilty all day.

  “I can't, Mrs. McQueen. I'm sorry …” She turned away, feeling the knife of guilt slice at her heart. “I'm too tired …” But it wasn't that. She wanted to go through her jewelry before Ward came upstairs. She had made an appointment with Frances Klein the following day, and she had to decide now what she wanted to sell to them. She knew that she would get a fair price from them. And there was no turning back now … and also no time for little Anne, poor tiny frail child. “Maybe tomorrow night,” she murmured to the nurse as she hurried to her room, averting her eyes. It would be easier if she didn't see the child, so recently sprung from her womb. And a week or two before, that was all she had to think about. But not anymore … not now … with the tears spilling from her eyes, she hurried into her room and closed the door, as Mrs. McQueen watched her go, shook her head, and headed for the nursery upstairs.

  CHAPTER 6

  Christie's picked up the furniture in February. They took all the significant antiques, the six sets of fine antique china Faye and Ward had bought in the last seven years, all of the crystal chandeliers, the Persian rugs. They took almost everything except the bare necessities. And Faye arranged it all so that the children would be in Palm Springs with their nurse, and she urged Ward to go away as well.

  “Trying to get rid of me?” He looked at her balefully over the standard glass of champagne he always seemed to hold, except that the glasses were larger nowadays.

  “You know better than that.” She sat down next to him with a sigh. She had been labeling furniture all day. Red tags for everything that went, blue for what stayed, and there wasn't much of that. She wanted to sell everything valuable they had. The simpler things they could use when they moved on. It was depressing for everyone, but it had to be faced. They were words Ward had come to hate, but she was merciless. Now that she knew the truth, she wouldn't let him hide from it anymore. She was doing everything she could to help, but she wouldn't allow him to lie to himself or to her. It was Faye who dealt directly with the lawyers now, and privately it worried her. She knew that what she was doing was, in some hidden way, emasculating him. But what could she do? Let him go on living the lie? Running up more debts? She shuddered at the thought. To her, it seemed better to face the music now, and then build a new life again. They were still young enough. They had each other, and the kids. Now and then, she was as terrified as Ward. It was like climbing a steep mountainside, but she rarely allowed herself to look down. That was another luxury they could no longer afford. They just had to move on. “I sold the carousel yesterday.” It was the only subject they talked about anymore, what had been sold, what had not. The house still hadn't moved, and it was beginning to worry her. “I sold it to a hotel, for a decent price.”

  “How wonderful.” He got up suddenly and went to fill his glass again. “I'm sure the children will be thrilled with the news.”

  “I can't help that.” … but you could have, she thought suddenly, and then forced the words out of her mind. It wasn't her fault that they were losing everything. But she wouldn't allow herself to blame Ward either. He had never known any other way of life. No one had taught him to be responsible. And he had always been wonderful to her. In spite of everything, she still loved the man, but sometimes it was difficult not to blame him for what was happening now. It had all been such a sham, for so long … if only she had known…. She found him staring at her, a look of despair in his eyes as he held his glass. For an instant, just an instant, she could glean what he would look like as a very old man. Most of the time, he still looked like a boy, a very handsome, debonair, carefree young man, but now suddenly, in the past two months, he seemed to have taken on the weight of the world and it was aging him. She had even noticed a few gray hairs mixed in with the blond, and there were new lines around his eyes. “Ward …” She looked across the room at him, wondering what she could say to ease the pain, to make them both better able to live with the truth. And the questions and terror roared through both their minds like trains. Where do we go from here? What do we do now? What happens when the house is sold?

  “I wish I'd never dragged you into this.” He sat down, feeling sorry for himself, guilty toward her. “I had no right to marry you.” But he had wanted and needed her so desperately, especially after the war, after his first bride's death two months after marrying her … and Faye had been so remarkable. And she still was. That made it even harder now. He hated what he was doing to her.

  She walked slowly to him and sat on the arm of his chair. She was thinner than she had been before Anne, thinner than she had been for years. But she was working hard these days, up at dawn, packing boxes, sorting through mountains of things. She did some of the housework herself, with one of the two remaining maids. The huge staff was reduced to two women who cooked and cleaned for all of them, the nurse who had been with the children for the past six years since Lionel was born, and the baby nurse who had been hired to care for Anne. Eventually, Faye planned to reduce their numbers further to two, but for the moment she still needed these, to help her pack up and close the house eventually. The rest of the staff was long since gone. Arthur and Elizabeth had retired tearfully some six weeks before, leaving Faye after so many years. Both chauffeurs had been fired, the majordomo, and half a dozen maids. Eventually perhaps they wouldn't need anyone at all, if they found a house that was small enough. She hadn't even begun to tackle that yet. She had to sell this one first. And Ward was letting her do it all.

  “Wouldn't you rather just have a divorce?” He stared at her, his glass empty in his hand once again. But not for long. Never for long anymore.

  “No.” She said it loud and clear in the half-empty room. “I would not. As I recall, the man said ‘for better or worse,’ and if things are tough right now, then okay, that's the way it is.”

  “‘That's the way it is’? We have the rugs sold out from under our feet, the roof from over our heads, our la
wyers are lending us money to buy food and pay the maids, and you're just going to shrug it off? And just how do you think we're going to eat after this?” He poured himself another drink, and she had to fight herself not to ask him to stop. She knew he would eventually. Everything would be normal again. One day. Maybe.

  “Well figure something out, Ward. What choice do we have?”

  “I don't know. I suppose you think you'll go back to your movie career, but you're no spring chicken anymore, you know.” She could tell from the way he was beginning to slur his words that he was drunk by now, but she didn't cringe at his words.

  “I know that, Ward.” Her voice was painfully calm. She had been thinking about it herself for weeks. “Something will work out.”

  “For who? For me?” He advanced on her menacingly, which was unlike him. But they were both under such strain that anything was possible now. “Shit, I've never worked in my whole life. What do you think I'm going to do? Get a job at Saks selling shoes to your friends?”

  “Ward, please …” She turned away so he wouldn't see the tears in her eyes, and he grabbed her arm and pulled her back viciously. “Come on, tell me your plans, Miss Reality. You're the one who's been so busy making us face up to it all. Hell, if it hadn't been for you, we'd still be living the way we were before.” So that was it, he blamed her, and not himself, or maybe he only wished he did. She knew him well, but it didn't stop her from lashing out at him.

  “If we were, we'd have five million dollars in debts instead of four.”

  “Christ … you sound just like those two old maids. Gentry and Burford. They don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. So what if we were in debt?” He shouted the words and walked away from her. “We had a decent life, didn't we?” He glared at her in fury from across the room, but it was fury at himself, not her, and suddenly she shouted at him.

  “It was a lie goddammit! It was only a matter of time before they took the house out from under us and carted the furniture out of here.”

  Ward laughed bitterly. “Oh, I see. And just what do you think is happening now?”

  “We're selling it ourselves, Ward. And if we're lucky, we'll have some money left at the end of it. Money we can invest if we're sensible, and maybe live on for a while. And you know what? All that really matters is that we still have each other and the kids.”

  But he didn't want to hear what she had to say. He slammed out of the room, and the door shuddered in the frame from the impact as he left. Her hands shook for half an hour after he had left, but she went on packing their things. And three weeks later, they sold the house. It was a somber day for them, but it was the only way out. They got less than they had hoped for it, but the buyers knew that they were desperate, and it didn't show as well as it once had. The gardeners were all gone and the grounds were already a little run down, the disappearance of the carousel had left some ugly scars. All the really fine furniture was gone, the huge rooms looked barren without the chandeliers or drapes. They got a quarter of a million dollars for the place from a well-known actor and his wife. He wasn't particularly pleasant to Faye, and they never even met Ward. They just strutted around the house, and made comments to their real estate man, as though Faye weren't there. The offer came in the next day, and it took a week of negotiation just to get them up as high as they did. And Burford, Gentry, and Faye all pressed Ward to agree to it. They insisted that he had no choice, and finally in desperation, he agreed with them, signed the offer himself, and then locked himself into his study with two bottles of champagne and a fifth of gin. He sat there staring at the photographs of his parents on the wall, and crying silently, thinking of his father's life and the life that now faced him. Faye didn't even see him until late that night when he finally came upstairs. She didn't dare speak to him as he came into the room. She just watched his face, and she wanted to cry just looking at him. It was the end of his whole way of life, and suddenly she was frightened for him, wondering if he could survive the change. She had been poor before, although admittedly not in a very long time, but she still remembered the realities of it. And it wasn't as terrifying to her as it was to Ward. She felt now though as if she had been running for months, and wondered if she was ever going to be able to stop, if they were ever going to be able to find each other again. It was like the worst nightmare of her life, and all their idyllic moments were gone. They were left with the shock of reality, the tragedy of what he'd done, and the dreary ugliness of the rest of their life. But she refused to let it be like that, refused to let him let go and give up, to become a hopeless drunk.

  He stood staring at her, as though reading her thoughts, and he looked heartbroken as he walked into the room and sat down. “I'm sorry I've been such a sonofabitch about all this, Faye.” He sat staring at her and she felt tears in her eyes as she tried to smile at him.

  “It's been hard on all of us.”

  “But it's all my fault … that's the worst part of it. I'm not sure I could ever have turned the tides, but I could have slowed things down a little bit.”

  “You could never have revived a dying industry, Ward, no matter how hard you tried. You can't blame yourself for that.” She shrugged and sat down on the edge of the bed. “As for the rest …” She smiled sadly at him. “…i t was fun for a while …”

  “What if we starve?” He looked like a frightened little boy. For a man who had lived on credit for all these years, it was an amazing thing to ask. But he had finally faced those thoughts tonight and the one thing he realized was that no matter how angry he was, he desperately needed her. And she didn't fail him now.

  She looked calm when she spoke to him, far calmer than she felt. But she wanted to give him something she knew he didn't have. Faith. Confidence. It was what she could do best for him now. And to her that was what it meant to be his wife. “We won't starve, Ward. You and I can handle this. I never starved before, even though I came pretty close at times.” She grinned tiredly at him. Her whole body ached from the packing and pushing and moving things around.

  “There weren't seven of you then.”

  “No.” She looked at him tenderly for the first time in weeks. “But I'm glad there are now.”

  “Are you really, Faye?” His own misery had sobered him hours before. He just couldn't seem to stay drunk tonight, and now he was just as glad. “Doesn't it frighten you to have all of us pulling on your skirts, and me most of all, I'm more frightened than the kids.” She walked slowly toward him and touched the thick sandy blond hair. It was strange how much he looked like Gregory, how much alike they were, and sometimes he seemed even more a little boy than their son.

  “It'll be okay, Ward … I promise you that.” She spoke in a whisper as she kissed the top of his head, and when he tinned his face up to her, there were tears pouring slowly down his cheeks and he had to gulp down a sob.

  “I'm going to help you now, babe. I promise … I'll do whatever I can …” She nodded, and he pulled her face down toward his, and for the first time in what seemed like years, he kissed her lips, and moments later, he followed her to bed, but nothing happened there. It hadn't in a long time. There were too many things on both their minds. But at least the love was still there, battered but not gone. It was all they had left now. Everything else was gone.

  CHAPTER 7

  They moved out of the house in May with tears streaming quietly down Faye's and Ward's cheeks. They knew that they were leaving a world and a life that would never come again. Lionel and Gregory were crying too. They were old enough to understand that they were leaving the house for good. It had been their childhood home, and it was beautiful and safe and warm. And there was something frightening about the look in their parents' eyes. Everything was suddenly different somehow, but the children weren't entirely sure how. Only Vanessa and Val seemed less affected by the move. They were only three years old and they didn't seem to mind as much, although they felt everyone else's uneasiness too. They thought it was exciting that they were all going to the ho
use in Palm Springs.

  Ward drove them all down in the only car they had left. It was an old Chrysler station wagon they had kept for the help, but it served the purpose now. The Duesenbergs were all gone, Faye's Bentley coupe, the Cadillac, and the rest of the fleet of cars they had had.

  For Faye and Ward it was like leaving their youth behind them for good. The house in Palm Springs had to be vacated by June. But in the meantime, it gave Faye and Ward a place to leave the children for a few weeks. She had leads to several houses to rent, and the furniture would wait in storage until then. She was going to drive down to Palm Springs with all of them, and then go back to Los Angeles alone to find a house, while Ward oversaw the packing up of the house in Palm Springs. He insisted that it was the least he could do, after all she had tackled alone in L.A. She didn't have to touch a thing this time, she just had to find them a decent place to live. And she knew it wasn't going to be easy to do. With the sale of the shipyard, the house in Beverly Hills, all their furniture, their art, the collection of rare books, the cars, and the house in Palm Springs with most of its contents too, they would have just enough to pay off all of their debts, with about fifty-five thousand to spare, which, carefully invested, would eke out barely enough to support them all. They were going to rent a house, and Faye was hoping she could find something cheap. And as soon as they were all settled in, and the children went back to school in the fall, she was going to see about getting a job. Of course Ward was talking about getting one too. But she had more faith in her own abilities to find work, and it would be easier for her. She had worked before, and even if she was thirty-two, she certainly wasn't over the hill yet, not for what she wanted to do. And Lionel would be starting first grade, Greg would begin kindergarten, the twins would be in nursery school, she would have plenty of free time. She was keeping only their nurse to keep an eye on all of them, and the baby as well, and do the housework and cook. Baby Anne was only four months old and not much trouble yet. It was a perfect time for Faye to leave home. And as she thought of it on the drive to Palm Springs, she felt suddenly guilty about the baby again. The others had all spent so much time with her at the same age, but this time she hadn't had a moment to spare for her. She had barely seen the baby since she'd been born. But disaster had struck so immediately after her birth, it was impossible to even think of her more than now and then, she had so many other things on her mind. Ward glanced over at her several times as they drove, noticed the frown and patted her hand. He had promised her he would drink less once they got to Palm Springs, and she hoped he would keep his word. The house was smaller there and the children would have been much more aware of it if he was drunk all the time. Besides, he had a lot to do, and Faye hoped it would keep him occupied.