Blessing in Disguise

by Danielle Steel

  “We’re just colleagues,” she insisted, “and interested in the same things.”

  “That’s how it starts,” Xela warned her. “I always thought you wanted to be a nun when you grew up, like Mother Teresa. If you fall in love with Dr. Bates it’s going to spoil everything if you turn out to be human.”

  “No worries. I’m not going to fall in love at thirty-seven,” Theo said firmly. “I’m not the sort.”

  “Why not?” Xela questioned her further. “You’re not ancient, and you’d be gorgeous, if you’d ever comb your hair and get out of hiking boots.” The two sisters exchanged a grin, and held each other close for a long moment before Xela left for the airport. She had crossed half the world to apologize to her sister, and she had to go back to New York for radiation treatments now.

  “Take care of yourself,” Theo said with tears in her eyes. “I love you,” she whispered softly. And Xela turned to hug her again. If anything happened to her, she didn’t want there to be any doubt in Theo’s mind about how she felt about her and how sorry she was for how mean she’d been in the past.

  “I love you too. Don’t forget that. Even if I’ve been an asshole for most of your life.” But she wasn’t anymore. They had grown closer than ever before during Xela’s visit and had shared confidences and a new relationship that they both cherished and had vowed to continue in future.

  They waved to each other as the car set out for the long trip to New Delhi, and Xela hung out the window waving until she couldn’t see Theo anymore. It had been a good trip, even a great one to see both of her sisters, and now she had to face the music in New York.

  She was thinking about it on the plane from London to New York, and what lay ahead for her. She had heard that radiation could be rough. Her mother had promised to go with her, but she was nervous about it anyway, and glad she didn’t have to go alone. She felt especially pleased that she had spent the last three weeks visiting Theo and Oona and had made amends for the past. She had a lot to make up for, although they had both insisted that they didn’t hold it against her, and appeared to forgive her.

  Everything in Xela’s life had new meaning now, and she had laid the foundation with each of them for a relationship they’d never had before. Her sisters were both such different women. Oona was the epitome of family, and Theo the soul of solitude, although Xela had a feeling that Dr. Geoffrey Bates was going to try and change that, if Theo let him in behind her walls. He seemed to be making good headway in that direction when Xela left. Theo denied it and said that their interest in each other was strictly professional. It might have been on Theo’s part, but from what she’d seen, Xela was sure Dr. Bates had other projects in mind, particularly on the trip to Zambia they were planning, to visit his research facility. Xela was smiling, thinking about it when the man sitting next to her spoke to her. He’d been looking at her for a while but she hadn’t noticed. He was American and had classic good looks, and the appearance of a businessman.

  “Business in London?” he asked her, to strike up a conversation. He wondered if she was a model. She could have been.

  “No, I’ve been in India, visiting my sister. She lives there, and is building a hospital in Chandpur, in the state of Uttar Pradesh.” It sounded very exotic to him. He looked fascinated by her. He had noticed her when she boarded the plane, and thought she was a striking-looking woman.

  “Is she a doctor?”

  “No, she’s a saint. She’s been in India for sixteen years, helping to bring food, water, and medical help to villages, and building medical facilities. It’s a vocation more than a job,” she said proudly, for the first time. There was no longer an edge when she spoke about her. She’d had to get cancer for that to happen, but she didn’t tell him that.

  “Do you live in New York?” he asked hopefully, and she nodded. She didn’t want to talk to him all the way across the Atlantic, but they were waiting for lunch to be served.

  “Yes,” Xela answered.

  “I work for an international firm on Wall Street. We have investments in Mumbai and New Delhi in electronics, and partners in London. I go to London a few times a year. And to India about once a year.”

  “I’m the founder of a struggling startup,” she said, with a self-deprecating look. He hadn’t expected her to say that, and liked the idea that she was an entrepreneur. They chatted through lunch, and then she put the headphones on and selected a movie, and fell asleep halfway through it. She didn’t wake up until they were landing in New York. He decided to take a chance before he lost sight of her at the airport, and handed her his card as the landing gear came down.

  “I’d love to meet you for a drink sometime,” he said, and she looked amused at how direct he was. He was a good-looking guy and he’d been nice to talk to, but she was in no position to date anyone right now. She had cancer, and she didn’t feel she had a right to inflict that on anyone. What if she got really sick? Or worse.

  “Thank you,” she said politely and slipped the card into her purse without looking at his name, intending to throw it out when she got home.

  “Do you have a card with you?” he asked and she shook her head. This had been a strictly personal trip to Italy and India, and she hadn’t brought business cards with her, intentionally.

  “No, I don’t. I’m sorry.” She didn’t encourage him or offer to write down her number.

  “A boyfriend?” he asked and she laughed at the question.

  “I don’t have one of those in my purse either.”

  “What’s the name of your company?” She told him, and she admired his persistence. “Actually, I’ve heard of it. Clever idea. Delivery services all over the country.”

  “Not yet. But we’re getting there. Seven cities right now, and we’re growing.” But she didn’t want to talk business with him. She was still basking in the afterglow of a wonderful trip to see her sisters.

  They said goodbye, she left the plane, picked up her luggage, went through customs, and didn’t see him again. She took a cab into the city, and called her mother as soon as she got home. They hadn’t spoken in a week, while she was in India.

  “How was it?” Isabelle asked her, anxious to hear how it had gone with Theo.

  “Fantastic. Theo is amazing. You should see what she’s doing out there,” she said with admiration.

  “I have.” Isabelle smiled. Xela sounded strong and peaceful, and more relaxed than she’d ever heard her.

  “There’s a cute English doctor following her around too. She says she’s not interested, but I don’t believe her. And he certainly is.”

  “It’s never too late,” they both said in unison and then laughed. “How are you feeling?” her mother inquired gently.

  “Fine. I hate the idea of starting radiation in a couple of weeks, but I guess I have to.” It wasn’t a cheering thought and brought reality into sharp focus again.

  “Let me know when you plan to start,” Isabelle said seriously. They talked for a few more minutes. Xela was tired and was going to bed, and they hung up.

  The phone rang again five minutes later, and Isabelle assumed it was Xela with something else to tell her. She didn’t get many calls at night. But the voice on the other end was male and unfamiliar until he said his name. It was Charles Anderson in Boston, her son.

  “Hello,” he said awkwardly. “I don’t know what to call you. Mom seems a little weird by now.” She laughed nervously when he said it, and was happy to hear his voice. She had given up hoping for his call, and thought he’d decided not to see her or contact her again.

  “You can call me Isabelle if you like.”

  “That’ll work.” There was a long silence then for a minute and she waited. “I want to see you,” he said in a low voice. “Could I bring my wife and kids?”

  “I’d love that. I want to meet them too. Should I come to Boston?”

  “Woul
d you mind? I don’t get to New York very often, like once every five or ten years.” That surprised her. He obviously led a simple, somewhat unsophisticated life.

  “That’s fine. It’s an easy hop for me.”

  They agreed to meet at the Bristol Bar at the Four Seasons on Boylston Street, at five o’clock on the following Saturday. She was nervous thinking about it.

  “I can’t wait to meet you, Charles,” she said breathlessly.

  “You can call me Charlie. And I can’t wait to meet you too.” Isabelle was shaking when she hung up, and so was Charlie. It was an important moment for both of them. He had dreamed of it all his life.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Isabelle asked Jack if he’d mind going to Boston with her on Saturday. She didn’t like to ask him to work after hours or on weekends and intrude on his personal life. But she was nervous about going to Boston by herself. It was a short flight but she had to deal with the airport, the plane, and she was nervous about the meeting with Charlie. Jack agreed to go with her and didn’t ask until the day before who they were meeting, and assumed it was a client. He asked casually and she gave him an anxious look when she answered.

  “My son.”

  “Wow. That’s a big deal.” He was quiet for a moment.

  “Yes, it is. He took a while to decide if he wanted to see me, and I don’t blame him. He’s bringing his kids and his wife. We’re meeting at the Four Seasons. I’m not sure what to expect. And he probably isn’t either. What do you say to a mother or a child you’ve never met or seen since the day he was born?”

  “Hello is always a good start,” he said, trying to lighten the moment. He could see how anxious she was.

  They took a morning flight on Saturday. They were in Boston before noon. She didn’t want to be late or risk a delay, so they had lunch and walked around Boston before going to the Four Seasons. It was March and blustery outside. When it started to drizzle, they walked into the lobby twenty minutes early, and she sat quietly talking to Jack about nothing in particular. He was trying to distract her so she’d calm down. She looked stressed, and went to the ladies room to comb her hair and put on fresh lipstick before the meeting, which felt silly even to her. She had abandoned Charles as an infant, and now she had resurfaced more than forty years later and she was worried about her lipstick and her hair.

  “You look great,” Jack said to reassure her and wished he could give her a hug to bolster her, but didn’t think it was appropriate, particularly in a public place. He wasn’t coming to the meeting with her, and he was going to wait in the lobby when she went to the bar. She had made a reservation and asked for a quiet table so they could talk. Jack was just along for the ride.

  At two minutes to five, she left Jack and she walked into the Bristol, where they had reserved a seating group with leather couches and chairs around a table. She saw a couple with two children the right ages, sitting on the couches, and she approached them hesitantly. She had worn gray slacks and flat shoes and a short black coat. She looked stylish but not too dressed up, and her blond hair was pulled back in a neat ponytail and she had a pale blue cashmere turtleneck the color of her eyes under the coat. And before she could ask them if they were the Andersons, the man stood up. He was balding but good-looking, slim and athletic and what shocked her about him was that he was the image of her father, and he looked more like her than any of her girls. She would have known him anywhere. She had been afraid that she wouldn’t recognize him in the restaurant, and they wouldn’t find each other. There was no risk of that. His son looked like Charlie, and his daughter was cute with dark hair. His wife was a pretty blonde in her late thirties. She was wearing a red coat and high heels and had obviously made an effort, and Isabelle was suddenly afraid she hadn’t dressed up enough. She hadn’t wanted to show off, but to be real.

  Charlie turned toward her and watched intently when she walked toward him, as though he could sense her near him, and she could see in his eyes that he was aware of the resemblance too. She stood looking at him for a moment, as her eyes filled with tears and instinctively held her arms out to him, and he moved right into them and they held each other. Jack had followed her to the entrance of the bar, saw them meet and embrace, and had to choke back tears. It was an incredibly moving moment without a word uttered.

  She took a step back then and smiled up at her son.

  “Hello, Charlie.” Her voice was soft and her eyes brimmed with tears, and Charlie’s too.

  “Hi, Mom,” he said and they both laughed, and their laughter sounded the same too.

  “You look so much like my father,” she said in a gentle voice, looking him over like a lioness finding her cub in the wild and wanting to make sure that he was all right.

  He introduced her to his wife then, Pattie, and his children, Steve and Jaime, and said they were sixteen and eleven. The two children, her grandchildren, were staring at her in fascination. He had explained to them what the meeting was about, that she was an additional grandmother and she was his birth mother. They were old enough to understand what that was, and shocked that she had given their father away. He had explained to them that she had been fifteen at the time, and some of the details she had recently told him.

  Isabelle kissed both the children and Pattie, and then they all sat down.

  “What do you want the children to call you?” her son asked her politely and she looked confused for a moment.

  “Whatever you’d like. Isabelle? Grandma Isabelle?” She wasn’t sure.

  “Granny Izzie!” Jaime burst out and they all laughed. There was a mischievous light in her eye.

  It put it into perspective for her when Charlie pointed out that Isabelle had been a year younger than Steve, who was sixteen but looked thirteen, when she gave birth to him. It had helped him to better understand too. He wished he had known that all his life. The two women ordered tea, Charlie a beer, and the two kids sodas, as Charlie commented that she looked a lot younger than he’d expected. She was of an age when she could have looked grandmotherly but she didn’t. She told him that her youngest daughter, his half-sister, had just given birth to twins, his niece and nephew.

  “How many children do you have?” He had asked her on the phone but was so nervous he didn’t remember.

  “Three daughters. Theo is thirty-seven, she lives in India, helping indigent starving people there. She’s lived there for sixteen years, isn’t married, and has no children. Xela is turning thirty-two, struggling as an entrepreneur in New York. She’s single too and no kids. And Oona is twenty-seven, has been married for five years, lives in Italy, and has five children, including the twins I just mentioned.”

  “She makes up for the others,” he joked with her, trying to remember the different locations, names, and details. But the essential thing was that he now knew he had three sisters. She had brought photographs to show him, and he passed them around after she handed them to him. He looked at the girls’ faces with interest, studying them intently.

  “Same father?” He wanted to know. He had noticed how different their appearances were, and none of them looked like him, and they didn’t look much like her either, except possibly Theo who was fair but really looked more like Put.

  “Three different fathers,” she said, slightly embarrassed to admit it. “Two of them died, one went to jail.” She was keeping no secrets from him after her long absence. He nodded.

  “Are you married now?”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m not. I haven’t been since Oona’s father died twenty-seven years ago, before she was born.”

  “That’s too bad,” he said kindly, “especially if two of them live so far away.”

  It was her turn then. “Were the Andersons kind to you, Charlie?” She had always worried about it, but convinced herself they were.

  “Nice enough. They weren’t warm people. They had a daughter after they adopted me, a
nd I became the adopted kid then, and she was the ‘real’ one. It made a big difference to them.” She was sorry to hear it and disappointed for him.

  “That must have been painful.” And then she felt instantly hypocritical for saying it since what she had done to him was far worse.

  “They’re both dead now. They never wanted me to find you, and wouldn’t tell me anything. They probably didn’t know much themselves. Adoption agencies kept their records sealed in those days.” It was an old-fashioned position where an adopted child was prevented from knowing the facts about their birth parents. “Nowadays everyone stays in touch, visits, and sends pictures and Christmas cards. It wasn’t like that then. Most of my friends who are adopted know their birth parents now.”

  “I always wanted to find you. I didn’t know if I could, but I was afraid to disrupt your life, and my life was complicated for a number of years with weird relationships, a husband who died, a divorce, and bringing up my children alone. It didn’t get easier for a long time.”

  “Do you work?” He wanted to know everything about her, what she did and who she was, really.

  “I’m an art consultant. I sell paintings to private individuals.” It sounded fancy to him. He hadn’t had a fancy life, but he looked like a bright guy, and sounded intelligent. “Do you like your job? What do you do?”

  “I’m a sales rep for a publishing house. I don’t love it. It’s a job. I was in insurance for a while. It’s funny, I like art, but I don’t know much about it. Pattie teaches sixth grade. She’s from New Hampshire. We got married when she was twenty-one and I was twenty-five. It seems to work.” He smiled at his wife. He appeared to be a quiet, stable person. He wasn’t daring or imaginative or creative, but she had the feeling he was reliable and trustworthy. She wondered how her daughters would react to him, or if they’d be snobbish about him. He wasn’t from an elite world and lived in a middle-class suburb, but he seemed to be a solid, kind man, the sort of person who would never put a child up for adoption.