The Good Fight

by Danielle Steel

  “I feel like Thaddeus. I have so much work. I really shouldn’t. Ever since Angela left, I’ve been drowning, and I have two big cases I should be preparing.”

  “Oh, I hate to go alone.” She sounded so disappointed that Merrie felt bad about it. She didn’t want to let her down.

  “All right, I’ll go for an hour, but then I have to come back to work. Where is it?” The book signing was at Barnes & Noble downtown, not far from her office.

  “We can’t have dinner afterward?” she asked hopefully, and Meredith laughed.

  “Don’t push. I have to work.”

  “That’s all you ever do,” Claudia scolded her, as she had for a long time. “You need to get out and have some fun once in a while.”

  “Fun? Fun? What is that? My work is fun, so don’t be a pain in the ass. Give the kids my love. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She promised to meet Claudia at six, and then go back to her office.

  The next day, she groaned when she had to leave her office at five-thirty to get there. Her mother had been nagging her to spend time with her too. There just wasn’t time to do everything, and her work was all-consuming. She could never figure out how women with jobs, a husband, and kids did it. There were never enough hours in her day, even single.

  She hailed a cab when she left her office, it immediately got stuck in rush-hour traffic, and she arrived at Barnes & Noble ten minutes late. Claudia was already there.

  “Sorry I’m late. I walked the last five blocks to get here, or I wouldn’t have been here for another half hour.”

  Claudia was happy to see her and introduced her to the author, who was sitting at a table autographing a stack of books. She was an attractive Eurasian woman about their age, who had written two books about the war in Vietnam, and this was her third. Her bio said that she had been a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, based in Shanghai, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Peking, and Bangkok. She was half Vietnamese and half French, had left Saigon as a child, and grew up in London and Paris. And her father was a Pulitzer Prize–winning author. Meredith was fascinated by her, and Claudia bought her one of the author’s books.

  “She’s certainly no slouch,” Meredith said, reading about her. “How did you discover her?”

  “I interviewed her once for the Herald Tribune. I’ve been following her ever since. Her views about the war are very interesting. She sees it more from the French point of view. They don’t think we have a chance of winning, since they didn’t, and I think she’s right.”

  “So do I,” Meredith said seriously and thanked Claudia for the book. “I’ll try to read it when I have a break.”

  “God knows when that will be,” Claudia said as they both saw the author, Louise Li, talking to an attractive, serious-looking man, who appeared to be about forty with graying blond hair. They were deep in conversation and seemed to know each other, and Meredith was surprised when he stopped to speak to them before he left. She and Claudia had stayed to have a glass of wine and chat. Claudia didn’t come to the city much anymore. She was either writing or with Thaddeus and her kids in Connecticut.

  The man who had been talking to the author introduced himself as Peter Watts, and the author came over to join them a few minutes later during a lull.

  “I see you’ve met Dr. Watts,” she said to both of them, and he looked embarrassed. He hadn’t used his title of “doctor.” “We met a long time ago, in my student days. I did a fellowship in Africa, and he was on a study there too. That was another lifetime, and now he’s working with kids in Vietnam.”

  “What do you do with them?” Merrie asked with interest.

  “I bring them to the States for medical and surgical treatment, and find foster parents for them if we can while they’re here. Some of them are orphans, but many of them aren’t and eventually will go back. And some we just don’t know about, at least for a while.” He had gentle eyes and there was something very humble and compassionate about him, as Claudia held up a hand.

  “Please don’t tell me about them,” she said. “If I come home with a Vietnamese foster child, my husband will kill me. We have two children who run rings around us now,” she said, smiling, and he laughed and turned to Merrie then.

  “No, no, me neither. I’m a confirmed child hater and a workaholic. I don’t even have time to take care of a plant.”

  He laughed again. “I was going to ask you what you do.”

  “I’m an attorney. I specialize in discrimination. If anyone discriminates against you, you can call me,” she said, and he looked interested in what she said. “Actually, I’ve been arrested repeatedly for participating in antiwar protests, so I have a criminal record. Hard earned. I’d be a completely unsuitable parent.” She smiled as she said it. Louise Li went back to her table to sign more books then, and Peter Watts chatted with them for a few more minutes. He went to hug Louise before he left, and promised to stay in touch with her.

  “He’s nice looking,” Claudia commented after he left, and Meredith agreed that he was, and then said she had to go back to her office. If she stayed any longer she wouldn’t want to go back to work, and she had mountains of files on her desk and a brief to write.

  They shared a cab and Claudia dropped her off on her way to Grand Central Station to go home, and Meredith thanked her for an enjoyable interlude and the book. She had been very impressed by the author too.

  “You should come into the city more often,” she said to Claudia.

  “And you should work a lot less,” Claudia responded, and then they hugged and Merrie got out and waved as she drove away. It had been a nice break from her work, and half an hour later, she was buried at her desk. She stayed until midnight, but she got a lot done.

  It was a hectic few weeks with several court appearances for old and new clients, and fully three weeks later Charlie told her there was a Peter Watts on the phone for her.

  “I don’t know one,” she said, distracted by what she was doing. “Find out what he wants and take a message.” And then suddenly she remembered his name from the book signing, and signaled to Charlie that she would take it, and picked up the phone.

  “Dr. Watts?”

  “Yes…Peter…I’m sorry to bother you. I’m sure you’re busy.”

  “Are you being discriminated against?” she teased him and he laughed.

  “Not lately.”

  “What can I do for you then?”

  “I wondered if you’d like a tour of our center. We keep the kids there for a short time until they go to their foster homes. It’s a happy place and they’re amazing children.” There was love in his voice when he said it.

  “I’m not in the market for a foster child. I’m the last person you’d want to leave a child with. I’m single, I have no kids, I’ve never wanted any. And I work till midnight almost every night.”

  “That’s not good for you, Miss McKenzie,” he said, sounding like a doctor.

  “Actually, I’m in love with my friend Claudia’s children. You met her at the book signing. She was my college roommate. Other than that, children usually scream and hide when I walk into a room.” The truth was she never saw any except Sarah and Alex, and didn’t want to. She had no urge to have children of her own.

  “You might have some ideas for us if you come to see the center. Maybe someone you know would be interested in fostering one of our children while they get treatment here.” She didn’t want to tell him she didn’t have any friends either. He’d think she was crazy or weird. She didn’t want to see the center, but she didn’t want to be rude either, and he was very persistent, which was something she understood and admired, for a cause he believed in. “Could you maybe spare an hour of your time?” he asked cautiously. He could sense how busy she was, but he had a feeling about her, that she was a woman who cared about some things deeply, and you never knew when someone like that would open the right doors.
He hoped she would, if he could get her to the center and interest her in what they were doing.

  She glanced at her schedule while she was talking to him, and saw that her six o’clock client had canceled. She had a thousand other things to do with the spare time, but she didn’t have the heart to turn him down. He sounded so earnest and sincere.

  “Would today at six o’clock work for you?” she asked him, and he thanked her profusely. In fact, he had an appointment somewhere else, but was going to cancel it for her.

  “That’s perfect.” He gave her the address and she jotted it down. “See you then,” he said, sounding cheerful and victorious, and Meredith hung up, wondering what she was doing, and scolding herself for being such a bleeding heart. She reminded herself that she had no room in her life for Vietnamese orphans, but at least she could take a look, thank him, and come back to work. There was no harm in that.

  Chapter Seventeen

  At five-thirty, Meredith took a cab to the small brownstone they had rented for their project. Peter Watts had said it was privately funded, except the medical care, which was paid for by the U.S. government.

  The building in the East Eighties looked plain and a little shaky when she got there. Peter Watts was waiting for her downstairs, and she could hear the squeals of children on the floors above them. They didn’t sound like children who were suffering, they were laughing and playing. And two of them almost knocked Peter and Meredith over as they raced down the stairs, chasing each other. Peter spoke to them in Vietnamese and redirected them gently up the stairs. One of them had a bandage over her eye, and the little boy only had one arm.

  “Bottom line, they’re just kids. They’ve been through a lot, and they have some hard times ahead of them, medically. But some of them are in pretty good shape and in surprisingly good spirits. They’re brave.” As he said it, Merrie saw the warmth in his eyes. He was a gentle man who put his compassion into action, not just words.

  They went upstairs then, and she saw a number of children sitting on cots, several nurses and volunteers playing with them, and a few children who looked withdrawn. A few were toddlers or even too young to walk. “All of these kids will be in their new homes by next week, or even in the next few days,” he explained. “They just arrived. They’re here to adjust until they seem ready to us. I’m going back to Vietnam next week, to bring back twelve more.” She was impressed. It was a serious operation, and he explained that he had set it up himself with four other doctors, and raised the funding on his own.

  “How did you get into this?” she asked him.

  “I’m a pediatrician and I couldn’t stand the photographs in the news of injured children in Vietnam with nowhere to go, or unable to get the medical care they needed. And many would be scarred for life or handicapped because of it. It’s taken me a year to put it together, and it’s working well,” he said, smiling at her.

  “It looks like you’re doing a good job.” She was touched by what she was seeing, more than she had expected, and he was so earnest, and kind with the children. It was obvious that they loved him.

  “A lot of these kids will be adopted by their American hosts. Some won’t. People are coming from all over the country to help us out. The kids with living families will have to go back.”

  They toured the rest of the facility, and Peter Watts walked her back downstairs. He was tall and appealing, and a few years older than Merrie. “Will you give some thought to anyone you know who might foster our kids?” he asked her, pleading with his eyes.

  She nodded. “I will. But I honestly can’t think of anyone offhand.”

  “I appreciate your coming anyway,” he said sincerely, and she left then and thought about the Vietnamese children she’d met that night, even the little boy with one arm. She couldn’t get them out of her mind, and was sorry she had no one to recommend.

  Her mother was driving her crazy with calls all day long. Charlie and Peggy had an argument over cleaning the coffee machine. It was an annoying week. Nothing went the way she wanted. And three days after her visit to Peter Watts’s center, she was still haunted by what she’d seen there, and she picked up the phone and called him. He sounded pleased to hear from her.

  “Did you have an idea for a host for any of our kids?” He sounded hopeful.

  “Yes,” she said, sounding tense. “I had a totally crazy idea. You should hang up on me now.” He waited. And she spat it out. “I’ll take one.” He could barely hear her, and was sure he’d heard wrong.

  “Sorry?”

  “I’ll take one of your kids. I know nothing about children and my work life is crazy, but I’m not doing anything important, other than fighting with my mother and trying to teach her to run her own life without my father. I can spare a year to take care of someone else.” All her life she had been determined to do the right thing, and this was part of it. It was different from what she normally did, but there was a need. And she had no social life to give up, and no love life. Why not make a difference to a child for a year? She’d been thinking about it since she’d seen them. And there was something so compelling about him and how much he cared.

  “Are you sure?” He seemed amazed.

  “No, but I’ll give it a shot. If I can’t do it, you’ll have to find another home.”

  “We have a seven-year-old girl on the manifest for the next trip, with severe napalm burns. You might do better with a child that age than a really little one.”

  Meredith agreed and felt panicked. She was certain that she was truly out of her mind. She was about to foster a seven-year-old Vietnamese girl with severe burns. This was much crazier than getting arrested on a march. She wished she could talk about it with her father, or grandfather. Or someone. Her mother was too distraught to be of any help.

  She called Claudia as soon as she hung up, and told her what she’d done. “We now know that I’m certifiably insane,” Merrie said nervously.

  “I think you’re fantastic!” Claudia was bowled over, and full of admiration for her.

  “I think I’m nuts.” Meredith was overwhelmed by panic.

  “When will she be here?”

  “I don’t know. I think in about three weeks.”

  “I’m sure that’s how the Steinbergs felt when they adopted me. They had never laid eyes on me or even seen a picture when I arrived.”

  That put it in perspective for Meredith. And she had never thought to ask Peter Watts if the little girl was an orphan or not. It didn’t really matter. She was going to foster, not adopt. “Did you ever hate being adopted?” she asked Claudia then, who laughed in response.

  “Only when they wouldn’t let me date at fifteen or wear lipstick at twelve. The rest of the time, I loved it. They never made me feel like an outsider or less important to them than my sisters. They did it well.”

  “I don’t know what’s happening to me. I never wanted a child in my life, and now I’m taking on someone else’s, who needs skin grafts and surgeries. What if I’m terrible at this and she hates me?”

  “You won’t be,” Claudia reassured her. “I think this is some kind of destiny. And you’ll grow into it. No one knows what they’re doing at first, even with one’s own biological kids.”

  She spent the next three weeks worrying about it, while trying to do her work. She called Claudia every night while she agonized, and finally decided to tell her mother. And as soon as she did, she knew that was a mistake. Her mother told her she was crazy and had no time in her life for a child.

  “That’s true,” Meredith said, her fears multiplying exponentially. “It’s only for a year,” she told her, trying to calm herself down.

  “A year? How are you going to manage an injured child for a year?” Her mother looked as horrified as she felt herself and magnified Meredith’s terror by voicing it.

  “I don’t know. I’ll figure it out.” Meredith called a domestic e
mployment agency the next day to hire a nanny. She explained that the child would have medical needs, and she was hoping for a nursing student or someone with medical training of some kind.

  The agency sent her half a dozen candidates, five of them inappropriate. All of them looked weird to Merrie, but the last one was a sweet girl who had taken a year off from nursing school after her mother died. Merrie hired her on the spot and had nightmares for the next week. And four weeks after she’d last seen Peter Watts, he called her. He was back in New York.

  “I’m sorry we were delayed. We had to wait for two of the kids, who were too injured to travel. I’ve got your girl,” he said as Meredith’s heart sank. She was terrified of meeting her, and for a minute she was hoping he’d say she didn’t come.

  “Does she speak English?” she asked him in a choked voice.

  “Not yet. But she’ll learn quickly. They all do. When do you want to come and meet her? How about tonight?”

  Meredith felt sick in the cab as she rode uptown after work. Only Claudia and her mother knew what she was doing. She’d bought a few clothes for the child, and put a narrow rollaway bed in her room for the little girl to sleep on. She had called the nanny after Peter’s call, and she promised to come the next day at eight o’clock.

  With new arrivals at the center, the noise level was even louder than the last time she’d been there, and Peter hurried down the stairs to greet her and smiled encouragingly. “She’s a little tired from the trip,” he said, as Meredith followed him up the stairs, and he walked her into a room full of children. Two of them were in wheelchairs and several were on crutches, and Merrie spotted her immediately. She was sitting on a little chair in the corner of the room, holding a doll they had given her when she arrived. She looked up with enormous eyes as Meredith approached her. And she had a pink bow in her hair. She looked perfectly normal and her injuries didn’t show.