Blessing in Disguise

by Danielle Steel

  “Do you know anything about my father? I couldn’t find him either.” He looked pained as he said it.

  “Not much. I hardly knew him. I was a sophomore, he invited me to a school dance. He got me drunk, dragged me into a car he’d borrowed, and you can figure out the rest. His name was Stewart Wheeler, he was eighteen the year you were born. My father went to see his, and he denied the whole thing. He went to the University of New Mexico, and I never heard of him again. We were never friends. Our school may know more about him than I do.” She gave him the name of their high school in Newport, and he jotted it down with his father’s name. Finding his parents had been a lifelong pursuit for Charlie. She was embarrassed at how little she knew to tell him.

  “My dad was a really nice man. You look so much like him. He was a museum curator in Boston, and my mother died when I was three, of breast cancer. After that, he took a job as a property manager on a fancy estate so he could be with me more. And I grew up there. He died a long time ago now, twenty-seven years ago. I was an assistant in an art gallery before I started my own business.”

  “It seems like you did pretty well, in spite of a rough beginning,” he said fairly, thinking of her mother. “You have nice kids who sound like they’re doing good things. I would have killed any kid who did that to my daughter.” He looked protectively at Jaime, as she watched them and her mother stroked her hair. Pattie looked like a warm person, and a good wife and mother. Isabelle could feel her as a positive force among them, without judgment. They all just wanted to know as much as possible about each other. “Are there any health or mental issues that I should know about?” he asked her. “I’ve always wondered. With that kind of adoption, you don’t get to know about those either.” It had concerned him all his life whenever he went to a doctor, and they asked about family history. He had none.

  “Not that I know of, no mental ones. My father died of a heart attack at sixty-five with no previous heart problems. My mother died of breast cancer at thirty-three, and that just surfaced in my daughter Xela, who’s almost thirty-two. She’s in treatment now and they caught it early. So for your daughter, that would be her great-grandmother, my mother, which is fairly remote, and now her aunt, your sister, which is closer. I don’t know if it’s coincidence or heredity but it’s upsetting.”

  “I’m sorry.” He looked sympathetic.

  They ordered another round of drinks and Isabelle added cookies for the kids, and Pattie and Charlie didn’t want anything. He was too excited to eat, and so was Isabelle. The reunion was going well, with kind feelings among them, and some questions Charlie had had for a lifetime were finally getting answered.

  They sat and talked until seven o’clock and Isabelle could feel the tension go out of her body. There had always been a place in her that was broken ever since she had given him up, and she felt it was healing. It was the end of the meeting when she remembered what she wanted to show him. She took out her wallet and pulled out a faded photograph the size of a postage stamp of a baby that could have been any infant in a little blue hat and blanket.

  “It was the day you left the hospital with the Andersons. One of the nurses gave it to me. The one who told me your adoptive parents’ name. She wasn’t supposed to take the picture either. I’ve carried it for forty-three years.” His eyes filled with tears as she said it, and so did hers. The meeting had been emotional for them both. And Pattie and the children had been curious and quiet and respectful. They knew how much finding her meant to their dad. They had never seen him cry before.

  “It means a lot that you didn’t just walk away and forget me. I understand it so much better now. It still hurts but it makes sense. You couldn’t take care of a baby at fifteen, you didn’t even have a mother to help you.” He echoed what she’d told him on the phone.

  “My father wouldn’t let me keep you,” she said again. “I never forgave him for it.” Saying the words was like releasing a caged bird she didn’t even realize she was holding in her heart, but it was true. She had never forgiven her father for making her give him away, even if she loved her father. It had always stood between them, and she suspected he’d known it. It was why she thought he hadn’t fought her any harder than he did about Theo. He couldn’t. She was of age then, or very close to it, and twenty-one when Theo was born out of wedlock.

  She handed Charlie the photographs of his half-sisters, with their names on the back as to who was where in the photo, for him to keep. She’d brought one of her parents, when they were young, and a few of her at different ages. One of her at fifteen right before she got pregnant. She looked like no more than a child. One when she was studying in France with the Eiffel Tower behind her, and a few taken over the years, and a recent one Jack had taken at her desk for an article about her in ARTnews.

  She asked for the check then and insisted on paying, and he thanked her, and then they walked through the lobby of the hotel together. She made eye contact with Jack and nodded and he approached them, and she introduced him as her assistant. Charlie shook hands with him, and then stared at him and looked as though the roof had just fallen in on him.

  “Oh my God…oh my God…it’s you, isn’t it? You were my idol in high school, when you were playing in college. Jack Bailey. I saw your final game. I cried for a week afterward. What are you doing here?” Jack smiled at him.

  “I’m Isabelle’s assistant. I’m teaching her to shoot hoops,” he said and they all laughed.

  Jack had brought a camera with him, and offered to take a photograph of all of them, standing in the lobby. And then Charlie asked if Isabelle could take one of him with Jack. He was almost more excited to meet his teenage idol than his mother, and the two women exchanged a look and grinned. Eighteen years of marriage confirmed that Isabelle’s assessment of Pattie was correct, she was solid and loved him, and they looked happy together.

  They all hugged and kissed goodbye, and she promised to organize a meeting with her daughters soon. And then Isabelle and Jack got into the town car he’d gotten to take them to the airport, as she let out a sigh and leaned back against the seat, drained and relieved.

  “How was it?” She thought about it before she answered. It had all gone so much better than she expected. He wasn’t angry and he didn’t hate her, the meeting had been warm and compassionate on both sides.

  “It was like lancing a boil that has poisoned a part of me since I was fifteen. I always knew it was there but I couldn’t do anything about it. I think it was like that for him too. So many questions we didn’t have the answers to, either of us. His adoptive parents don’t sound like great people, just okay. They had their own biological child after they adopted him, and he was treated as second best forever after that. It’s a terrible thing to do to a kid. But what I did was worse. I’m glad he has a sweet wife and good kids. They’re decent people, and he’s the image of my dad. I don’t know if he still hates me or not for leaving him, but I think hearing how it happened put it in perspective. Today, his father would be charged with rape. Back then, it was considered normal and a hazard of dating, and tough luck if a girl got pregnant at fifteen. The thought was that if it ruined a girl’s life, she deserved it. It didn’t ruin mine but it could have, and having him and giving him up have weighed on me for all these years.

  “I’d like to see him again, and I want to introduce him to the girls. I told him it would take a while to arrange. They don’t come home very often, and not together. I think I might ask them to come home specially and meet him,” she said, looking pensive. “I think it’s important. They’re blood relatives even if they never knew about him, and they don’t have much in common.” She wondered how they’d react to him, as she looked out the window, as they headed to the airport. She thought about her father too and how vehement he had been that she give up the baby. She felt she had no choice. “My father must be revolving in his grave over the meeting,” she said softly and looked at Jack.<
br />
  “I think he’d understand,” Jack said kindly.

  “I hope so. I couldn’t die one day without having met him, or at least trying to find him.” Jack looked shocked at what she said.

  “I hope you’re not planning to do that anytime soon.”

  “No, but if I go blind, I wanted to see him before I do. It’s funny, he looks a lot like me, more than my daughters.”

  “Yes, he does,” Jack agreed. “He’s a good-looking man.”

  “And he was thrilled to see you. That was so cute.” She smiled at Jack.

  “I guess a few people still remember,” he said quietly.

  “Yeah, like every guy under ninety.”

  “What do you know?” he teased her. “You’ve probably never been to a basketball game.”

  “That would be true. But I’ve read about you now. You were a very big star.” He didn’t comment.

  “I’ll take you to a game sometime.” She smiled when he said it.

  “I’d like that.” She remembered how shocked she was by his height the first time she’d met him. Now it made sense, as an ex–basketball player.

  The flight to New York was easy and brief, and after worrying so much about meeting Charlie, with the release of the tension, she fell asleep with her head on Jack’s shoulder. He left her there until they landed and he gently woke her up. She smiled and followed him off the plane, and he dropped her off at her house, and then went downtown to Sandy.

  Isabelle thought about Charlie and his family all night after she got home. At least he hadn’t had a bad home, even if he didn’t have warm parents. They hadn’t beaten him or starved him. She had worried about it in her worst nightmares all her life and her father refused to let her talk about it, even to reassure her. He felt the subject should be closed and forgotten and never spoken of again.

  She got up at three in the morning and wrote an email to her girls. It was hard to find the right way to say it. And she didn’t want to worry them unduly, or at all. She changed the wording several times.

  “Darling Theo, Xela, and Oona” (she always listed them in order of age). “This is one of those strange motherly requests that you won’t understand until later, but it is important to me. Very important.

  “There is someone I would like you to meet from my past, someone you should know. I think it will be meaningful to you and for him too. I would like all three of you to come home in the next month or two, and indulge me on this. My treat of course. Let’s find a date that works for all three of you. With all my love and gratitude, Mom.”

  * * *

  —

  She didn’t want to tell them why, or who he was, and Oona was the first one to call the next morning, since it was six hours later in Italy.

  “Are you in love? Did you run into an old boyfriend? Are you getting married? Are you tricking us into coming home for the wedding?” It hadn’t dawned on her that they’d think it was romantic.

  “No, I’m not in love. I don’t have a boyfriend and I’m not getting married. It’s a relative of mine you’ve never met. That’s all I’ll say. I want you to humor me on this.”

  “That won’t be easy, Mom,” she said seriously. “Gregorio doesn’t want me to go anywhere without him. And I’ll be nursing for the next year or two.” She felt like a milk cow nursing two of them, but Gregorio insisted. Anytime one of their children caught a cold, he accused her of having stopped nursing too soon, after a year, which she thought was long enough but he didn’t.

  “I’m not waiting two years for you to come home. I’ll pay for the trip. Bring the twins, and I’ll pay for the nanny’s ticket too. We’ll take turns helping you with them. You don’t need to stay for more than a few days, although I’d love to see you. And if he wants, Gregorio can come too.”

  “He hates leaving Italy. He’ll complain the whole time. I’d rather come alone, and bring the babies. Thank you for paying for my ticket and the nanny’s. I can get them passports at the consulate in Florence. You make it very tempting. I’ll see what I can do.”

  Theo sent an email asking the same questions, and her mother gave her the same answers. They all thought it was a surprise wedding. They could think of no other reason for her to bring them home, to meet a mystery stranger from her past. They couldn’t imagine who it was, despite a flurry of emails between them.

  And when Isabelle took Xela to radiation she grilled her on it too. She had already been given tiny tattoos to target the radiation with infinite precision.

  “I won’t say until you’re all here,” Isabelle said in answer to her questions and was definite about it.

  “I think you’re in love,” Xela insisted, and then told her mother about the man she’d met on the plane.

  “He sounds interesting. You should call him,” Isabelle encouraged her.

  “I have cancer, Mom. I’m not going to do that to some poor guy and turn him into a nurse if I get sicker. That would be irresponsible and cruel.”

  “And if you don’t get sicker, which you won’t,” Isabelle said with determination, “you’ll have missed an opportunity.”

  “I’m not going to call him,” Xela said stubbornly, and Isabelle didn’t argue with her. The radiation proved to be as draining as they said it would be. It was brutal for her for four weeks, but then at least it was over. She had let her own treatments for her eyes go during the whole month. She couldn’t do them and take care of Xela too. She went to radiation with her every day.

  “Should you be doing that? Skipping a whole month of your shots?” Jack questioned her.

  “I can’t do both. I’ll go back as soon as Xela is finished.” Isabelle made it plain that she didn’t want to be nagged about it so he backed off. He was her assistant, not her husband. But the day after Xela finished her radiation treatments Isabelle was in a hurry, ran to catch a cab, didn’t see the curb, and fell in the street. She skinned her knees badly and sprained her wrist, and she was mortally embarrassed when pedestrians stopped to help her. She limped home and tried to get through the front door without Jack seeing her, but he heard her come in and came to say hello, and was shocked when he saw blood running down her legs, and her wrist was already the size of a small football by then.

  “Oh my God, what happened to you?” He rushed to help her. “Did you get mugged?” He went to get ice packs and clean wet towels for her legs and wrist, as she walked into the kitchen and sat down.

  “I’m fine,” she insisted. “I just feel stupid. I didn’t see the curb.” And the wrist hurt more than she wanted to admit. It felt broken.

  “You have to go back to the eye doctor. Is it getting worse?” He looked worried and she shook her head.

  “Actually, I think it’s a little better. I just wasn’t looking and I was rushing.”

  “We should get an X-ray for your wrist.”

  “No, we shouldn’t,” she growled at him. She lay down for a while and a call from Oona cheered her up.

  “I can come in a week. My sister-in-law said she’ll keep an eye on things for me. My nanny’s cousin will come with me, and I told Gregorio that you want to discuss our inheritance so he couldn’t argue with me. He gave me three days.”

  “That’s fantastic!” Isabelle was thrilled. “What about Theo? Have you talked to her?” She wanted all of them there at the same time.

  “She sent me an email. She has to go to London around the same time. That British doctor helping her has to present a paper at the Academy of Royal Medical Colleges, which will help them get donations. She’s meeting him there, and she said she can fly through New York if you really insist.”

  “I do,” Isabelle said firmly. All she had to do was tell Charlie and hope he and his family could make it too. She called him as soon as they hung up and he said he could, and she said she was treating him and his family to the hotel and airfare and he was embarrassed but
grateful. They clearly didn’t have much money.

  She sent out emails then, thanking all of them and confirming the plan. They were all coming to New York in a week. And Jack made the arrangements for her.

  There was alternating good and bad news. Her wrist continued to be agonizing despite the ice she put on it, and Jack made her go to the ER, where they X-rayed it and told her it was broken, and she had to wear a cast for four weeks. She hated to see her children that way, but there was nothing she could do about it. She went back to the eye doctor after that, and he thought there was some slight improvement.

  She could hardly wait for her family to be there for the meeting. The girls were arriving on Friday. Charlie and his family were coming to the house on Saturday morning and had agreed to have lunch with her. She hired a cook since she was useless with her broken wrist, and Theo and Oona, the nanny, and the babies were all staying with her.

  It was total chaos once they arrived. Jack had rented every possible kind of baby equipment, two cribs, high chairs, and a swing. The girls arrived on Friday on schedule, and Xela came to dinner the night they arrived. They ate pasta in the kitchen, and Xela and Theo were horrified by how often Oona had to nurse. She constantly had one baby or the other on her breast, and sometimes both.

  “Don’t they ever stop eating?” Xela was shocked. “They’re little vampires.”

  “I know. I feel like a cow. It never stops with twins. And I have so much milk, I feel like I should walk around with my boobs out all day and offer them to strangers.”

  “Why don’t you just stop,” Theo suggested.

  “I can’t. Gregorio would kill me. They’re only two months old. I’d love to stop at six months, though. He’d probably divorce me.” With twins, she was either feeding them or changing diapers, and they passed them around between their mother, their aunts, and their grandmother. And the nanny took them away whenever they got fussy or needed a nap. Someone was always holding one of them to give Oona a break.