The Right Time

by Danielle Steel

  “I’ll pay them if they want it,” Alex said nobly. She couldn’t work now. There was no question of it. She wanted to take care of him.

  “Let’s wait till they ask,” Rose said kindly. “Take care of yourself, Alex.”

  “I need to take care of Miles,” she said firmly.

  “Take care of both of you,” Rose said, and Alex thought, “All three of us.” There were three of them, whether Miles knew it or not.

  She spent two weeks agonizing over the decision, and lay in bed awake every night after he went to sleep. She could feel the baby moving, now that she knew what it was.

  Miles had a bad reaction to a treatment two days later, his heart stopped and they started it again and kept him in the hospital for three days. He rallied and they let him go home, and at some point while Alex watched them use the defibrillator on him, and when he opened his eyes and smiled at her, the decision was made. She wanted his baby. She told him about it that night. He looked panicked.

  “Can you manage that right now? I don’t want you to get sick. How can you be pregnant now? I can’t do anything to help you.” Tears of frustration and sadness ran down his cheeks, and hers.

  “I want our baby. I love you,” she said, sobbing.

  “I love you too. You’re a brave woman.”

  “We’re brave together.” She put his hand on her belly and he could feel the baby move, and he smiled through tears of joy this time, and then he kissed her.

  —

  She had no time to focus on the pregnancy, only on him, but the checkups were fine and the baby was growing. She hadn’t told the sisters yet or anyone, and at Easter Miles looked at her with her big belly. He was looking haggard and was still on chemo but he was hanging in. It had been nine months since his diagnosis. He was defying the odds, but he was not getting better. And she was seven months pregnant.

  “I think I have to make an honest woman of you,” he said quietly, and then he pulled himself out of their bed and got down on one knee. “Alexandra Winslow, will you marry me? Do I have to propose to Alexander Green too?” he teased her, and she dragged him back into bed.

  “Yes, I will marry you.” She was smiling at him. “Where and when?”

  “Well, you look like you’re going to pop any minute, so I think there’s no time like the present. Name the day and the place and I’ll be there.” She was touched that he’d asked her. She called Mother MaryMeg and told her and she was relieved. She told her again that they were praying for Miles every day. And then Alex told her about the baby, which made MaryMeg doubly glad that they were getting married.

  They got married at the registry office, an old school friend of Miles stood up with him, and Fiona was Alex’s witness as her oldest friend in London. Fiona was heartbroken to see the condition Miles was in, and shocked to realize that Alex was pregnant.

  “Will you be able to manage afterward?” Fiona whispered after the ceremony.

  “I’ll have to, won’t I?” Alex said in a strong voice. Things had been even harder recently. Her publisher had finally asked for the return of their million-dollar advance, which Alex had sent them, and she never stopped signing checks for the farm, which cost a fortune. There was always some repair or problem, especially without Miles to oversee it. Money was getting tight. He was desperately sick. She wasn’t writing and hadn’t in months, he had run out of money and his only asset was the farm, which Alex had sunk her savings into, and she was having a baby and had no idea when she could work again.

  But they celebrated their marriage that night quietly at home in bed. He had a sip of champagne, and she lay next to him, and he ran a hand over her belly and felt the baby. All she wanted now was for him to be alive when she was born. They had already picked out a name. Desiree, which meant desired. She never wanted there to be any doubt in her daughter’s mind later about whether or not they had wanted her. Desiree Erica Mila, for Alex’s father and Miles. They had gotten it all in since there would never be another.

  —

  Miles slid slowly downhill in the next two months. There were no brutal changes, but many subtle ones, as he ran out of time. He slept most of the day, as Alex sat next to his bed and watched him. They diminished the dose of chemo he was getting since it wasn’t helping and made him so ill. Alex never gave up and wouldn’t let the doctors give up either, but Miles seemed ready to let go, and he was very peaceful. Their focus was on the baby about to be born, less than what was happening to him, and he rubbed Alex’s back when she was tired. She was with him every night.

  Bert had called Rose to see what was happening. He didn’t want to bother Alex. Rose knew about the baby by then and told Bert.

  “Do you think she’ll ever go back to work?” He hated to see her waste a career like hers, and a talent.

  “She’ll have to eventually, but she can’t focus on that now. Her husband is dying and she’s about to give birth.” It couldn’t get much worse in his opinion, and he didn’t want to call her with Miles so sick. He knew all Alex wanted to do was be with him and share each precious moment left to them, so he sent her encouraging emails, just to touch base with her, but not intrude. And Rose did the same.

  Desiree’s timing was perfect. Miles was at the hospital for chemo, and Alex was with him, lying next to him on the bed, when she felt the first labor pains and her water broke a few minutes later. They wheeled her up to labor and delivery on a gurney, with Miles on his own bed wheeled along beside her, and the nurses put his bed next to hers so he could help her. He was holding Alex’s hand as she pushed Desiree into the world, all six and a half pounds of her. She was tiny and exquisite. And the nurses said they had never seen such an easy delivery. Alex had barely made a sound, and she and Miles cried when they saw their baby. She was a beautiful little girl with her mother’s perfect features and her father’s pale blond hair. And every part of her was delicate and lovely. The nurses carefully handed her to her father so he could hold her, as Alex lay next to them and watched them.

  Duncan came to see his sister that night and said she was very pretty. And Fiona came and cried when she saw her. Alex had asked Brigid and Fiona to be her godmothers, and Alex called Brigid and the nuns that night to tell them Desiree had arrived and she was beautiful. And as she held her in her arms, Alex knew she was the best thing she’d ever done, and Miles’s most precious gift to her.

  —

  The three of them went home two days later to the London apartment, with a baby nurse to help them. There were nurses on duty for Miles by then too. He was very tired and slept as much as the baby, while Alex lay in bed with both of them.

  Desiree was five days old on a brilliantly sunny June day. The baby nurse tucked her into her lacy white bassinet and wheeled her away to her room, while Alex held Miles in her arms. He glanced up at her and smiled, and took his last breath as she cradled him, and then he was gone. He looked so peaceful lying there, and she lay with him for a long time until one of the nurses came into the room and saw what had happened. Alex stayed with him until they took him away a little while later, and after he was gone, she held their baby. Desiree was the last gift from Miles. In seven precious years there had been so many gifts and blessings, but she was the sweetest of all.

  —

  They buried Miles in the old cemetery at the farm, and Alex and the baby stayed there afterward, while Alex decided what to do. It would be a good place for Desiree to grow up. Miles had wanted his children to have the farm forever, and Alex knew that she would see to it that she followed his wishes. She knew how much the farm meant to him and how much he loved it. And she loved it too. And after all he had done for her, keeping the farm in his memory seemed like the least she could do, whatever it took.

  Chapter 20

  After Miles’s death, Alex gave up his London apartment, and the money helped her dwindling funds. She and the baby stayed at the farm and after the initial shock that he was finally gone, she met with her financial advisors and learned that the situation was muc
h worse than she had expected. Her stock portfolio had shrunk to almost nothing. She had returned the million-dollar payment to her publishers for failure to deliver the last book. She was nearly a year late when she returned it. And giving them back their money had left a huge hole in her finances. She still got royalties, which helped, but there were no payments for new books, and there wouldn’t be until she started writing again. The money had flowed only out and not in for the past year with Miles so sick, and she had stopped working. She had a half-finished book in her desk, but hadn’t had the time or heart to touch it. And she felt even less able to now.

  Miles’s horse-breeding operation ate up all her cash, and every time she turned around, she had to write another check. The obvious solution was to sell the farm and the horses, get an apartment in London, and start writing again. Most of what she had saved was gone. She had been lending Miles money for years, and helping to keep the farm running. His production company had been failing, either through bad management or lack of work. He had never made the kind of money she did, and she had never begrudged him a penny of what she’d given him. She knew she could barely squeeze by with what she had left, and then she discovered that Miles had left two million dollars’ worth of debts, some of them attached to his production company and some of it from the racehorses he’d bought, and the stallions he’d used for his breeding lines, all of which had cost far too much. It was why he had never wanted to marry her, so she wouldn’t be saddled with his debts, but now she was anyway, and she had to figure out a way to pay them. There was no way she was going to sell the farm, she had already made that decision, and she loved it as much as he did. It was their home, and she wanted to preserve it for the children. But she had to find a way to support it, and to pay his debts, and for her and Desiree to live in the meantime.

  She found a local girl, Maude, to help her with the baby, and contacted the dealers Miles had used to purchase his horses. She sold those she could privately through agents, and put the rest up for auction. She kept five of the Thoroughbreds to ride, but got rid of all the others, and she reduced the staff to two young stable hands who were knowledgeable about horses. It took six months to sell the horses, but she was amazed by how much money it brought her.

  She got a mortgage on the farm, since the property was valuable, and little by little and month by month she paid off his debts. It took her two years to do it. She tried writing once or twice, but she just couldn’t concentrate. All she did was go over figures and numbers, bank statements and bills. She dreamt of them at night or woke up at four A.M. to calculate it all again. And every time she tried to get back to work, her mind went blank and she sat staring at the paper, and she went back to the stack of bills again.

  It was three years after Miles’s death before she could see her way clear, and didn’t panic every time she saw a bill come in. She had enough money in the bank to support them for a while. Desiree was a chubby three-year-old by then, running everywhere and chattering to her mother.

  Alex hadn’t had a book published in almost three years. There had been countless stories at first about why Alexander Green had stopped writing. Was he ill? Was he dead? Had he been killed? Was he the victim of a crime? Did he have a stroke? There were avid fans pleading for answers. And Alex offered none.

  She spoke to Bert from time to time, and he begged her to start writing again.

  “I can’t, Bert. I don’t know why. Something stops me.”

  “You went through too much,” he said kindly. “It will come back. Just give it time.” But how much time? Miles had been gone for more than three years, and it had taken that long to get a handle on his debts and right the ship again. “It will start again when you stop pushing.”

  “What if it never comes back and it’s gone forever?” She had no ideas anymore. She couldn’t concentrate. All she could do was run the farm and take care of her daughter. Alexander Green appeared to be dead. Her publishers were shocked.

  “Go somewhere, take a trip, come back to Boston. Get some air,” Bert suggested. But it felt overwhelming to go anywhere without Miles.

  “I shouldn’t really spend the money to travel,” she said to him. She had to be careful, there was no money coming in except for a few remaining royalty payments on the old books that continued to sell. She was relieved to have sold the horses. Even if Miles had loved them, they needed the money more. At least she had been able to preserve the property, the land he loved so much.

  She hadn’t spoken to Rose Porter in a year, because she had no book to sell, and Alex hated disappointing her. She felt like a has-been. The ideas for her thrillers had stopped coming. Bert said that when it came back, the books would be better than ever, but she no longer believed him. The dry spell had gone on for too long. She no longer had a burning desire to write. She couldn’t.

  The joy of her life was Desi now. They went on long walks. She traded a mare for a pony and taught her how to ride, holding her in the saddle. She called Brigid from time to time late at night, and her children sounded like hellions, but at least she had stopped at four, and was enjoying them immensely. Alex talked to Fiona occasionally too, but hadn’t been to London in two years, and didn’t want to go. She had retreated from the world.

  —

  Miles had been gone for four years when she started having ideas again. She just had bits and pieces and snippets. She jotted it all down in notebooks, and put them away in a locked drawer. Maybe she would write again one day, although it seemed unlikely.

  She called Bert and told him what she was doing, writing in her notebooks and saving them. He told her that the sleeping giant was waking up. And she would know when the time was right to start writing again. She still didn’t believe him and ignored what he said.

  “What makes you think I can still do it? I think I’ve lost it, Bert.” She was sure of it.

  “You can’t lose it, Alex. Your talent is too big to disappear like that. It’s all about timing. And it’s all cooking somewhere inside. Something will get you going again.” She wanted to think it was true but she didn’t. She missed the days of being able to write effortlessly, but that was long gone.

  When Desiree turned five, Alex hadn’t talked to Bert in a while so she called him, just to say hello. There was no answer. She called him the next day, and still got nothing. She wondered if he’d gone on a trip, but he never did. She got an odd feeling about it, and called Rose Porter the next morning. She came on the line quickly.

  “I was just going to call you,” she said in a subdued voice.

  “Have you talked to Bert lately? I’ve been calling him for two days. The message machine isn’t on and he’s not answering.” Rose was silent for a moment at her end.

  She didn’t know how to tell her, but she knew she had to. “I wanted to talk to you today. I was worried about him too. I don’t know why, but I have his landlady’s phone number. I called her yesterday. He had an accident two days ago. He slipped on the sidewalk and hit his head on the curb. It was a freak accident.” Alex felt sick as she listened.

  “Where is he now?” she asked, sounding panicked, but not wanting to know the end of the story. “Is he at the hospital? Is he okay? Did he have a concussion?”

  “Alex,” Rose said in a strong firm voice. “It’s over. Bert is gone. He died instantly when his head hit the curb.” There was silence at Alex’s end as she tried to process what Rose had told her, but her brain didn’t want to. What Rose had just said couldn’t be true. He couldn’t be gone. She needed him. She loved him like a father. She was thirty-eight years old and had known him for exactly half her life.

  “Are you sure?” she said in a whisper.

  “Yes, I’m sure…I’m so sorry.” Alex was more than sorry, she was devastated. She couldn’t imagine a world without him, any more than she could a world without Miles, and now they were both gone. They had left her alone, just like her father.

  “I have to go,” Alex said, unable to talk to Rose any longer. She sat in a chai
r in her room crying for a long time, and Desiree came to find her. She was just back from playing in the garden, and saw Alex with tears running down her face.

  “Mama’s crying?” her beautiful little blond child asked, and Alex nodded. There was no point hiding it from her. She couldn’t. Another of the most important people in her life had disappeared.

  “Mama’s sad,” she said, pulling the child onto her lap and holding her in her arms. Desi was all she had now. Everyone else was gone, except people who were so far away. She hadn’t seen the nuns in years, or Brigid, not since Miles died, and now Bert was gone forever.

  “Don’t be sad, Mama,” Desi said and kissed her where the tears were, and Alex smiled at her, and went to make her lunch. She thought about Bert all day, and fell asleep thinking about him, and in the middle of the night, she sat bolt upright, as though he was sitting in the room with her, and she knew what she had to write. The story came out in one piece, already finished in her head, and she hadn’t even begun it.

  She sent Desi out to play with Maude the next day, sat down at her desk, and pulled out her Smith Corona. The case was dusty. She hadn’t touched it in years. For five years the sleeping giant in her, as Bert called it, had been in a coma, and now it was wide awake, turned into a dragon in her chest, fighting to get out, and nothing could stop it. She wondered if Bert was doing it to her, if he had willed it to happen, or if it was simply time. He had said something would get her going again. And ironically the something was him. She couldn’t stop writing from the moment she sat down.

  She wrote day and night for three weeks, and then she sent Rose Porter two chapters. She called Alex as soon as she read them.

  “That is one fantastic story.” She sounded thrilled and so was Alex. It felt like the best book she’d ever written.

  “I started writing the night you told me about Bert. I think he gave me the story.”

  “No, you gave you the story, Alex. It’s all in there, you just have to find it again.”