Until the End of Time: A Novel

by Danielle Steel

  “Come on, Lucy, help us … we want to help you … let’s get the baby out. It will help us if you push,” the doctor said gently, but she was in too much pain to listen or care. She felt like she was dying. And finally they used the forceps, which only made her scream more. There had been no time for an epidural, and it was too late now to give her anything for the pain.

  “Can’t you do something for her?” her mother begged, wishing that Jenny were there too. It might have helped. But she’d obviously been delayed on the way, or stopped by the roadblock.

  “We can give her a C-section,” the doctor said quietly, “but I’d rather not do that. It’ll be an issue for her in subsequent births, I’d rather she deliver naturally the first time.” But it was infinitely harder for her. Then finally, agonizingly, slowly, with the help of the forceps, as Lucy continued to scream, the baby’s head emerged, with a look of surprise and a mass of dark hair like Lucy’s and Jenny’s. The baby looked like both of them. Then they delivered the rest of the body—it was a baby girl—and Lucy lay there sobbing as her mother stroked her cheeks. They gave Lucy something for the pain then as they sewed her up and took the baby away. Jenny was supposed to be there, but she wasn’t, and they carried the baby to the nursery, to wait for her, while Maggie stayed with Lucy until she drifted off to sleep, still whimpering. It had been a terrible night that her mother knew she would never forget. And all for a baby they were giving to someone else. It made Maggie sad to think about it. Lucy was still asleep when they rolled her out of the delivery room and into a room where Maggie sat in a chair, dozing all night. In the morning, Jenny still hadn’t come.

  Maggie called her house, and no one answered. And when Gretchen arrived to make breakfast for her, she saw that she had left, and her truck was gone. She didn’t know who to call or where she went, as she looked around. Jenny hadn’t left a note. She was about to leave, when the phone rang and Gretchen picked it up. It was Maggie calling again to see where Jenny was. Gretchen thought it odd that she was calling and then wondered about the baby again and if it was Lucy’s. “Her truck’s not here,” Gretchen said simply. Bill’s was in the driveway, but the yellow Chevy was gone.

  “I was expecting her last night,” Maggie said without explaining, “and she never came.” It had been a long ordeal, and she was exhausted. “There was an accident on the road,” she told Gretchen, and then her voice trailed off into nothing, and there was silence on the line.

  “Oh my God,” Gretchen said. “I’ll call Clark.” He would know if something had happened to Jenny, and who was involved in any accident in the area. She called the sheriff’s office, and he came on the line a few minutes later and confirmed Gretchen’s worst fears.

  “She lost control of her truck,” he said, sounding devastated. “She got in a head-on collision with an eighteen-wheeler coming around the bend. She must have died instantly.” He felt sick as he said it. She had died four days after Bill, and for an instant, Gretchen knew it was what she would have wanted. They were meant to be together, forever. Her life would never have been the same without him, even with the baby. She hung up, feeling shaken, and called Maggie back and told her. The two women cried and then hung up. And Gretchen called Azaya in New York and told her. She promised to call Helene, and Bill’s family, to tell them. She couldn’t imagine telling Jenny’s mother. Tragedy had struck twice in one week.

  Maggie sat for a long time, thinking about it, while she waited for Lucy to wake up, and it was almost noon when she did. Lucy’s voice was hoarse from screaming, and she looked at her mother with blank eyes. She hadn’t even seen her baby after it was born, and had planned not to, since she was giving it up. But now Jenny wasn’t coming to take it. Maggie told Lucy as gently as she could what had happened to Jenny the night before. Lucy lay there, sobbing silently, with tears streaming down her cheeks. She had loved Jenny, and now her baby had no one to adopt her. She looked at her mother with agony in her eyes. But they were the eyes of a woman now, not a child.

  “Mama, can I keep her?” she begged, and without hesitating, her mother nodded, as Lucy sobbed in relief. It made everything that had happened to her the night before worthwhile. She could keep her baby. “What about Dad?” she asked with panic in her eyes. And with the same certainty she’d had a moment before, Maggie knew that it was time. She was ready.

  “I’m going to leave your father, Lucy. We’ll figure it out, the three of us, you, me, and the baby. What are you going to call her?” her mother asked her.

  “Jenny,” Lucy said with a sad smile, as her mother leaned over and kissed her.

  Chapter 12

  Gretchen made the arrangements for the funeral with Maggie’s help, and Azaya’s advice from New York. It was held at Sts. Peter and Paul. Her mother came back from Philadelphia and looked like a ghost herself, as Gretchen did her best to shepherd her around. Helene was incapable of making any decisions. She was too distraught. She looked very frail as she attended the funeral of her only child.

  All the men and women who had attended her groups were at the funeral, and the teenagers in Jenny’s Girls, everyone she had touched, reached out to, and helped in the eight months she’d been in Moose, which seemed like a lifetime to those who knew her. She had affected so many lives while she lived there, and before that. Two of the designers she had consulted for flew out to Wyoming, and the others sent enormous flowers. There was a memorial page in Women’s Wear Daily that day, with the announcement of her death and a tribute to her enormous dedication, talent, and contributions to fashion. Tom was the only member of Bill’s family who came out, and he looked shocked.

  It was a brilliantly sunny day, and they laid her to rest in the cemetery where she had put Bill less than a week before. They lay together side by side, in the small cemetery surrounded by wildflowers. And afterward people milled around the house, looking lost, and they left quickly. It was just too sad being there with both of them gone now.

  Helene offered to pack up the house, but Gretchen knew she wasn’t equal to it and suggested she go home. It was just too sad and overwhelming for her in Moose. She flew back to Philadelphia that night, and Tom had promised to stay a few days after to pack up their things. He felt he owed it to Bill. He and Gretchen were going to do it together. Helene had been in no condition to help. Tom was planning to take Gus back to New York, as a way to feel closer to his brother. He wanted to keep the dog. Tom and Gretchen sat outside that night, talking about them, and Tom told her how funny his brother had been as a kid, and how different he had been from the rest of the family, even then.

  “He was a much better person than we were,” Tom said quietly. “It took me years to figure that out. I only got it last year. He was ten times the man my brother and I are, and my father. And he was so lucky he found Jenny. He adored her.”

  “And she adored him,” Gretchen added.

  “He had a crazy theory, that people who love each other like that stay together forever. They become stars in the heavens when they die, and then they come back and find each other again. I hope that’s true for both of them. They deserve it.” He was quiet for a while, and then he spoke to the woman who had become his friend through two funerals, of people they both loved so much, although he had hardly known Jenny. “I’ve made some important decisions lately,” he confided to her. “I want what they had someday. I’m going to get divorced when I go back. I think my brother showed me that you really can find someone to love the way he did Jenny. I never understood it till recently, but he was right.” She nodded. She felt that way about Eddy.

  As they sat together, looking up at the night sky, they saw two falling stars shoot through the sky close together, and disappear.

  “I hope that was them,” Tom said softly, and Gretchen smiled, as tears rolled down her cheeks. She hoped so too. That they were in heaven now, two stars together, forever.

  Robert and Lillibet

  2013

  Chapter 13

  The day dawned warm and beautifu
l, with a cameo-blue sky, as carriage after carriage drew up to the plot of freshly prepared land. The men had organized and cut the lumber, and it was stacked and waiting. And the women had been cooking for several days. The younger children would play nearby, while the young girls helped their mothers with meals, and the able-bodied boys would help their fathers with the house raising, which was one of the happiest activities the entire community engaged in. And by nightfall, the family would have a new home. The following day the windows would be put in, the floorboards laid, and the plumbers among them would put in a simple indoor plumbing system, as well as an outhouse. The propane tanks would be put in, to light and heat the house and provide hot water, as there was no electricity.

  The smell of fresh lumber was everywhere in the air, as the men began working. There was shouting and singing, and people calling to one another, and by mid-morning, the women had a hearty meal set out on long tables, and poured lemonade and cold tea from pitchers into tall glasses, to quench their mighty thirst.

  Lillibet had loved house raisings since she was a child. All of her brothers would be helping that day, and she joined the other women in serving food onto plates. The men ate heartily and went rapidly back to work in order to finish by day’s end.

  The house was standing by dusk and finished on the second day. It had been a good weekend. They had returned back to work on it after the Sunday meeting. Vast amounts of wholesome foods were consumed that weekend, and Lillibet was tired but happy when she went back to their own home on Sunday afternoon. She had cooked six chickens to add to the lunch table, and ten the day before. She had made hardboiled eggs and several salads with lettuce from their farm. The chickens were from their henhouse, and she still had to prepare dinner for her own family, her father and younger brothers, that night. Her four much older brothers from her father’s first marriage were all married and would go home with their children and wives. Lillibet had her chores to do when she got home—the cows had to be milked as always, the chickens fed, and the goats fed and watered.

  She chafed at her chores sometimes, but never during house raisings—there was always something so exciting about it. In this case, it had been for a family that had outgrown their old home with the birth of their sixth child, whose mother had gone to school with Lillibet, until they both graduated from the one-room schoolhouse in eighth grade. Their lives were not too dissimilar now, since Lillibet cared for her three younger brothers and father but had no husband or children of her own. She had no need of a new house, and the two young women had chatted amiably at the lunch table as her old school friend watched her new home materialize in a matter of two days. Her eyes had glowed as she held her baby in her arms.

  When Lillibet went to bed that night, she was tired from her own contributions to the busy two days, but satisfied at having been part of it. Her brothers and father had been exhausted from hard labor and had gone to bed early. Lillibet lay in bed that night and thought about the life they all shared. She loved their community, and the way they helped one another. It gave her a sense of being part of something more important than just her own family. As she drifted off to sleep, she found herself thinking about her brother Markus and how warm he had been when she touched his cheek before he went to bed, and she wondered if he was falling ill. She’d have to check him more closely in the morning.

  And the next day, shortly after she got up, she had her answer. All three of her brothers had come out in spots. She had acted as their mother for long enough to know that it was chicken pox, so she wasn’t overly worried, but now all their chores would fall to her as well. That was not good news—she had enough to do without taking on their work too. But caring for them was all part of the duties that had fallen to her when her mother died, and she had acted as mother and female head of the household for the past seven years. After checking on her brothers and bringing them all breakfast, she went out to the barn to milk the cows. The boys were miserable with their chicken pox, which had burst forth during the night. She knew they had exposed others the day before, but there was nothing to do about it now.

  Lillibet was a wisp-thin young girl with white blond hair poking out from under her black bonnet, and she pushed the last of the cows away as she finished milking. Usually her younger brothers helped her. They were eleven-year-old twins, Josiah and Markus. But since both were sick today, as was Wilhelm—Willy, her fourteen-year-old brother—all the chores would fall to her. Their sister Bernadette, who would have been nineteen now, had died before their mother, when she was ten. She had died of pneumonia during a flu epidemic. Now Lillibet was her father’s only surviving daughter, and he relied on her to run their home.

  Lillibet’s father, Henryk Petersen, had married her mother when she was a mere girl of sixteen, after his first wife died, leaving him with four sons who were all older than his new bride. Rebekah, when Henryk married her, had been a studious, quiet young woman, who had turned out to be more strong-willed than he had expected, but a good woman who had borne him five children and was respectful of him, although she had her own ideas and always had her nose in books, more than he liked. She had shared her passion for literature with their children, but only Lillibet took after her, and read voraciously, under her mother’s tutelage, and despite Henryk’s objections. She gave Lillibet the classics to read as she was growing up: Jane Austen, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Balzac, Proust, Henry James, Alexandre Dumas, all the greats of literature, which Lillibet devoured. Henryk preferred that they confine their studies to readings of the Bible, but Rebekah had been very brave in standing firm in her beliefs of what her children should read. The boys were more like their father, while Lillibet took after her. They worked hard on the farm, as did Lillibet in their home. She was a dreamer, but also a bright, hard-working girl.

  Rebekah’s own mother had favored education, and her father, like Henryk, had been an elder of the church, with traditional and extremely conservative ideas. And Henryk was much like him, and hadn’t mellowed over the years. If anything, he got sterner and more traditional as he grew older, particularly so after his wife Rebekah’s death, which had nearly broken his spirit. Like the others in the community, he had declared his forgiveness of the man who had killed her and five little girls, in a shooting at the West Nickel Mines School seven years before. But he had wrestled with his own sense of peace about it ever since.

  Lillibet had been seventeen when her mother was killed and had graduated from the school four years before the shooting. Her mother frequently helped the teacher at the one-room schoolhouse, which went through eighth grade, and Rebekah happened to be there that day when a crazed gunman entered the building, took several hostages, shot ten little girls, five of whom had ultimately survived, and then killed himself. The school had been torn down ten days later, and the New Hope School replaced it six months after, in a nearby location, constructed to look entirely different from the building where the tragedy had occurred. The entire surrounding community of non-Amish people had been deeply sympathetic and supportive, having experienced the kindness and observed the decency of their Amish neighbors for many years. It had been the first and only act of violence against their community in history.

  Lillibet and her family were members of the Old Order Amish Community of Nickel Mines, in Bart Township of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. They lived almost exactly as their forefathers had when they established the community over three hundred years before, with no modern conveniences, no electricity, no telephones, and they drove no vehicles. Their transportation was by horse and buggy, and they cultivated the land with the help of tools and implements that had been used for centuries. The only change that occurred after the shooting was that there were two phones in the community now, kept in boxes at the edge of the farms, to be accessed only in emergency, in case another tragedy should happen.

  They wore somber clothes in the same style as their ancestors, with no zippers or buttons. Lillibet’s gray apron, as she milked the cows, was held to her black cotton d
ress, which covered her to her ankles and wrists, with straight pins. And her black bonnet, tied loosely beneath her chin in the heat, was identical to what her female ancestors had worn. Her only accessories were high laced-up boots and heavy black cotton stockings. Her father and the men in the community wore strict black Amish garb, long coats on Sundays, and the flat black wide-brimmed beaver or felt hats that were traditional, and straw hats in summer. Young men were clean-shaven until they married, and then they wore beards. Mustaches were forbidden. Women never cut their hair, wearing it in braids, or buns, with their bonnets.

  Observing the Amish in her community, and the way they lived, there was no hint that they existed in a modern century. They were untouched by the modern world, lived in seclusion on their farms, and kept to themselves.

  They were a devout, upstanding people, attached to their families. They took no charity from government agencies, no welfare, Social Security, or unemployment, and they were helpful to the communities around them. Several of the younger men in the Old Order served as volunteers in local fire departments. But other than that, the Amish stayed among themselves and did not mingle outside their community. And Lillibet’s father Henryk was a particularly staunch believer that the “English,” as the Amish referred to outsiders, had their world, and the Amish had their own. There was no place for the English in their lives. They respected them, and did business with them when necessary, but always in a distant way. Their community was not open to English visitors or friends. History and their religious beliefs had taught them that the two worlds did not blend. The rare young people who left their Amish homes, under strong ostracism from their families, did not return and were not encouraged to do so. Once tainted by the outside world and the English, they became outcasts from their former homes, sometimes officially “shunned.” They were governed by a strict set of rules called the Ordnung, which told them what they could and could not do, and which they lived by rigorously. Young people in the Amish community were expected to remain among their own kind, follow the traditions, and carry them forward to future generations, and most Amish did. They could not intermarry with the English, only Amish.