Remembrance

by Danielle Steel

  The pregnancy had been surprisingly easy, and the only thing that worried her now was that the same thing might happen with this baby as had happened with Vanessa, and if she started to give birth at home, she knew that Vasili didn't have Teddy's cool head. He was already a nervous wreck at the prospect, and every time she moved in bed, he leaped up, his black eyes starting, a look of shock on his face. “Is it now? Is it now?”

  “No, silly, go back to sleep.” Serena would smile at him, and she lay in bed, thinking of their baby and the years ahead. Everything was peaceful between them and the episode of his heroin use seemed like a distant nightmare now, until one day in the first week of July Vasili didn't come home at night. At first she thought that something awful had happened, like a car accident perhaps, and then as the hours ticked by she began to wonder if it was all happening again. She was racked by terror and anger as she waited up for him until four thirty in the morning, and at five o'clock she heard him come up the front steps. The door slammed soundly behind him, and on bare feet she tiptoed down the front stairs, trembling, with the baby seeming to leap inside her. She was afraid of what she would see, but she had to see it and know if he was using drugs again. All the old terrors had started again, in only one night.

  As she stood halfway down the stairs and he stood in the front hallway, his eyes met hers, and he attempted a false bravado, with an enormous movie-star smile.

  She could see instantly from the way he looked that he was high on something, and he looked nervous and foolish as he raced toward her, trying to pretend that there was nothing extraordinary about coming in at 5 A.M.

  “Hello, darling, how's the baby?” His voice sounded hoarse and she had noticed that during his drug use before Christmas too. He always sounded different when he used heroin, and she couldn't bear to think now that he had done it again. She didn't answer him, she just stared at him, and he ran up the stairs and tried to give her a kiss. But she shrank from him in horror, knowing full well what he had done.

  “Where were you?” It was a stupid question and she knew it. The point wasn't where he had been, but what he had done. And without waiting for an answer, she turned on her heel and walked up the stairs as quickly as she could. She felt as though at any minute she might have the baby. She felt so tense and she was having so many contractions from her long night awake that she wasn't sure if she was in labor or just feeling ill.

  “Don't be so goddamn square,” he shouted at her as she reached their bedroom, and she turned to him with a look of fury.

  “Be quiet or you'll wake Vanessa.” But it wasn't anger she felt so much as terror and despair. Vasili's private demon had entered their life again.

  “To hell with Vanessa, she's a little bitch anyway.” But at the very sound of the words Serena lunged toward him. With a rapidly flailing hand she attempted to slap him, but he caught her wrist first and flung her backward against the wall. She stumbled as she fell, and she groaned as she reached the floor, but more than hurt, she was stunned. He stood over her, and when she looked up at him with tears in her eyes, she saw that his eyes had the mad nervous gleam they had had before when he used heroin. It was like reliving the same nightmare and she felt as though she couldn't bear it. She felt a rage rise up within her that was almost beyond control.

  “You make me sick!” She rose to her feet, with every inch of her body trembling, and she reached back as though to slap him again, and this time he beat her to it. He caught her across the face with the back of his hand and sent her reeling. She came crashing to the bedroom floor, and it was at this moment that Vanessa came running in. “Go back to your room!” Serena said it quickly, not wanting the child involved, but before Vanessa could leave, Vasili pushed her, and she landed in a heap beside Serena.

  “There, two whimpering women. You belong with each other.” He turned away and then spat over his shoulder. “Fools!”

  Serena whispered to the child to go back to her room, but Vanessa refused, with a look of panic in her eyes. “He'll hurt you.”

  “No, he won't.” She was afraid he would too, but she didn't want Vanessa to see it.

  “Yes, he will.” Vanessa began to sob and clutch at her mother.

  “Darling, please.” Carefully she stood up and led the child to her room, and it was half an hour before she returned to Vasili. He was sitting in a chair, his head on his chest, a cigarette burnt out in his fingers.

  “What?” He picked his head up as though she had just spoken and squinted in her direction. “I heard you.”

  “I didn't say a damn thing.” She closed the door softly behind her, hating him with every ounce of her soul. “But I'm about to. I just want to let you know now, you son of a bitch, that when you come to tomorrow morning, I'm going to my lawyer, and then I'm going back to the States.”

  “And what will that prove? Who will support your baby?”

  “I will.”

  There was something evil and vicious about him when he used drugs, and as Serena saw him that way she began to hate him. It was as though it canceled out all the good she had seen in him, all the hopes, all the dreams. All she wanted to do was run away. She began to leave the room then, but even in his seemingly sleepy state he suddenly sprang from his chair and leaped toward her.

  He grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the bed and then he pushed her onto it. “Go to bed.”

  “I don't want to sleep here.” She was shaking but trying not to show it. And the contractions were so fierce that she could barely stand up straight. And then, in spite of herself, she began to try and pull away from him. “I don't want to be near you.”

  “Why not? Do I disgust you?” The evil eyes gleamed at her.

  “Let me go. You're hurting my arm.”

  “That isn't all I'll hurt if you don't start behaving.”

  “What in hell does that mean?” She knew better than to argue with him when he'd been using and yet she couldn't stop. She wanted to shake him. “Do you expect me to take this and stick by you? Well, I won't, damn you. You can go to hell. I'm getting out of here in the morning.”

  “Are you?” He took a step toward her again. “Are you?” She trembled uncontrollably as he stood over her, and then, as though the effort had been too much, she lay back on the bed and began sobbing. She cried for over an hour and he didn't come near her, and when her tears were spent, she fell asleep on the bed, and when she awoke, it was eleven o'clock and he was still snoring. She tiptoed out of the room to go and find Vanessa, but Marianne had taken her for a walk, and Serena walked around the house slowly. She knew that she had to leave, that she had to get Vanessa out before things got too far out of hand again, and she had to go for the sake of the baby, yet she felt a strange panic at the thought of going. Maybe he was right. Who would help her? Where would she go? She couldn't expect Teddy to help her with this baby. And there was no one else left. She felt trapped as she sat at the foot of the stairs, and didn't hear him approach her. She only felt the touch of his hand on her shoulder and she leaped off the step with a little scream. As she turned to face him she saw his ravaged face. This time the damage of the drug was apparent after only hours. The time before it had taken weeks to look as bad as he did now. He already looked haggard and ferret-faced and seedy.

  “Are you all right?” The wan face wore an expression of terror. She nodded, looking at him with dismay, and was almost unable to keep from crying. He lowered his voice. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No.” She spoke very softly. “But you terrified Vanessa.” It was as though she herself no longer existed, as though the only two people who mattered anymore were Vanessa and the unborn baby. For herself, suddenly she didn't care if he killed her. She just didn't want him to harm her children. And it all seemed so exhausting to defend them. She was at a time in her life when she needed someone to take care of her, and instead she was suddenly having to deal with this nightmare with him. “What are you going to do?” She stared at him with beaten eyes. He was no longer the man she knew. A
lready, in one night, he had vanished.

  “I don't know. I can handle it myself this time. I've only used a few times.”

  “A few times?” She looked shocked. She hadn't noticed, and she was surprised that he was being so honest. In Athens, the previous spring, when she and Andreas had once discussed it, he said that Vasili was never honest about using drugs once he started. So if he said “a few times,” how many did that mean? She looked at him in despair. “Why now?”

  “How do I know?” He sounded irritable and nervous.

  “Will you go into the hospital again?” She looked at him imploringly and felt her swollen belly begin to contract again.

  “I don't need to this time.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I know, dammit.” She was making him very nervous. “Why don't you go upstairs and rest?” She noticed then that he was wearing jeans and his shirt from the night before and shoes without socks.

  “Are you going somewhere?”

  “I have to pick up some film.”

  “Really. Where?”

  “None of your goddamn business. Why don't you go lie down?”

  “Because I just got up.”

  “So what? Aren't you supposed to rest? Don't you care about the baby?” As though, in attacking her, he could free himself. In spite of her haranguing and nagging he left the house five minutes later and he didn't come back until after midnight. She had spent the day pacing and wondering and hating him, and in spite of her threats the night before, she didn't call her lawyer. She ended up screaming at Vanessa, bursting into tears, and having contractions that almost made her call the doctor. And when Vasili came in at last, she saw that he had once again been using drugs.

  “How long is this going to go on?” Her voice was near hysterical and he nodded out as he pretended to listen to her.

  “As long as I want to, if it's any of your business.”

  “Last time I looked I was your wife, and we were having a baby. It's my business.”

  He smiled evilly at her. “Such a little square lady.”

  She felt her stomach churn with horror as she watched him. “Why don't you get yourself put on one of the state heroin programs then, list yourself as an addict and do it that way?” What a thought. As she listened to herself she almost shuddered, but maybe then it would regulate him to a dose he could live with and they wouldn't have to go through quite the same hell.

  But he was sneering at her. “What? And lose all my work? That would be interesting.”

  “Can you work like this?” They both knew he could not. Whenever he went on a binge, his assistants covered for him.

  “Mind your own fucking business, bitch.” This time she didn't get up to slap him, she only turned her back to him and lay there in bed, wondering why she hadn't moved out that morning. It was as though she were unable to move, unable to function, as though she thought that if she stayed with him long enough he'd straighten out again. But he didn't. The nightmare only grew worse every day, as Serena helplessly sat by and watched it, feeling herself sink into a quagmire of despair. At the end of the first week every day he promised her that he would get help, and every day he went out and used again. He was always going to get help the next morning, she was always going to call her lawyer and leave for the States at a moment's notice. It was a merry-go-round of threats and promises and fear. But she realized in the first few days that, other than a hotel, she could go nowhere. She couldn't get on a plane to the States, she was much too pregnant. And at last her due date was only days away and she had sat in the same quicksand for almost four weeks, as Vanessa watched her. The child was almost as wide-eyed and pale as her mother.

  “Are you all right?” Teddy called them from Long Island on her due date, and he was even more worried than he had been before. There had been more press of late about Vasili—shots of him at night spots, alone, with speculations that his marriage to “The Princess” was on the rocks. “How is he?”

  “Worse and worse. Oh, Teddy …” She had started to cry.

  “Do you want me to fly over?”

  “No. He'd have a fit and it would just be worse.” Although that was hard to imagine. How could it be much worse?

  “If you need me, I'll come.”

  “I'll call you.” But as she hung up she realized how isolated she felt from him. She felt isolated from everyone, adrift in this nightmare of Vasili's creation, as she waited to give birth to their child. She was afraid all the time and worried and she felt ill. But she had said nothing to her doctor. She couldn't stand the shame of admitting to anyone, except Teddy, what she was going through.

  Teddy called her back a few hours later. He couldn't stand it any longer. He was flying over in a few days.

  Five minutes later Serena went to Vanessa's room and found her staring sadly out the window. “You okay, sweetheart?” Serena was horrified when she saw her. The whole tale of the last month's grim scene was written all over the child.

  “I'm all right, Mom. How's the baby?”

  “The baby's okay, but I'm more worried about you.”

  “You are?” Vanessa's little face brightened. “I worry about you all the time.”

  “You don't have to. Everything's going to be fine. I guess Vasili will eventually get himself straightened out, but meanwhile Uncle Teddy is coming day after tomorrow.”

  “He is?” The child looked as though Christmas had been announced four months early. “How come?”

  “I told him what was happening here, and he wants to come over to keep you company while I have the baby.”

  Vanessa nodded slowly, and then looked into her mother's eyes with eight-year-old eyes filled with confusion and pain. She had seen her mother slapped, pushed, ignored, terrified, worried, deserted, neglected. It was something that no child should ever see and that Serena prayed she would never see again. She hoped most of all that it wouldn't mark her forever. “Mommy, why does he do it? Why does he get like that?” She knew he took drugs. “Why does he want to?”

  “I don't know, sweetheart. I don't understand it either.”

  “Does he really hate us?”

  “No,” Serena sighed, “I think he probably hates himself. I don't understand what makes him do it, but I don't think it has anything to do with us.”

  “I heard him say he was afraid of the baby.”

  Serena looked at her. She had heard so much, and absorbed even more than Serena thought. “Maybe the responsibility of it scares him.”

  “Does it scare you?”

  “No. I love you with all my heart, and I'm sure that we're going to love the baby.”

  “I'm going to love the baby a lot.” Vanessa looked at her mother proudly, and Serena marveled that all that she had seen hadn't also made her hate the baby. Instead all of her bad feelings were for Vasili. “It's going to be my baby, Mommy. And I'm going to be a terrific sister.” She looked at her mother and kissed her cheek. “Do you think it'll come soon?”

  “I don't know.”

  “Sometimes I get tired of waiting.”

  Serena smiled. “Sometimes so do I. But it'll be soon.” She could tell from all the contractions she'd been having in the past few days that it could come at any moment. “Maybe it'll wait for Uncle Teddy.” Vanessa nodded, and they hugged each other close for a minute, and then Serena went upstairs to call Andreas and tell him what was happening to Vasili. Andreas was horrified when she told him, and sympathetic to her.

  “Poor girl, he's doing that at a time like this? He should be shot!” He sounded very Greek and Serena smiled.

  “Do you want to come and try and talk him into the hospital, Andreas? I have no effect on him anymore.”

  “I'll try. But I can't come for a few days. Alecca is sick, and I can't leave her.” His wife had been ill for several months, Serena knew, and everyone was beginning to suspect it was cancer.

  “I understand. I just thought that maybe you could influence him.”

  “I'll do my best. I'
ll be there by the end of the week, Serena. And you take care of yourself, and little Vanessa. No baby yet?” He smiled gently and she felt sad. She hardly had time to think about the baby. Vasili's addiction was the only thing on her mind.

  “No, not yet, but soon. I'll let you know.”

  “I'll try to come before you have it.”

  That night she felt calmer than she had in weeks, knowing that Teddy and Andreas were both coming. She knew that Vanessa would be cared for, and with any luck at all Vasili would be put away for a while. Now all she had to do was try not to have the baby before they got to London. She lay thinking about it all night and Vasili did not come home, and as she began to doze off just before dawn she felt something damp and warm on her legs, as though she were swimming in very warm water. She tried to fall asleep in spite of the impression, not wanting to know what it was, and then suddenly she felt her whole belly seized as though in a giant vise, and she awoke with a start, knowing instantly what she was feeling.