Danielle Steel - The Ranch

“That sounds great. But I still don't understand the problem.”

Alyssa sighed. Her mother was so dense at times, but at least not always, like her father. “They're leaving this week. They're going to be traveling for two months, before we meet in Capri. I could give up the apartment now, and go with them except…” Her voice trailed off as Mary Stuart understood. She no longer wanted to travel around Europe with her mother. It was understandable certainly, but it was also a huge disappointment for Mary Stuart. It was all she had in her life at the moment. And she had hoped for a healing trip, alone with her only daughter, her only child now.

“I see,” Mary Stuart said quietly. “You don't want to go with me.” And then she cringed at her own words. She hadn't meant it the way it sounded.

“That's not it at all, Mom. And I'll still go with you if you really want to. It's just… I thought… this is such a great opportunity… but whatever you want…” She was trying to be diplomatic about it, but she was dying to go with her friends, and Mary Stuart knew it would be so much more fun for her. It didn't seem fair to stop her.

“It sounds wonderful,” her mother said generously. “I think you should do it.”

“Are you serious? Do you mean it? Really?” She sounded like a little kid, jumping up and down in her Paris apartment. “Oh, Mom, you're the best. I knew you'd understand… but I was afraid you'd think… I…” And then Mary Stuart suddenly understood even more, but it didn't really shock her.

“Is there a gentleman included in this plan?” She could hear it in her daughter's voice, and it made her smile, although it also made her feel nostalgic,

“Well… maybe… but that's not why I want to go with them. Honestly, it's just such a great trip.”

“And you're a great kid, and I love you. You owe me a trip in the fall. We'll go away somewhere together for a few days before you go back to Yale. Is that a deal?”

“I promise.” But Mary Stuart knew it wouldn't be the same, she would be anxious about her friends and starting school, and coming home again. She would be easily distracted. The trip through France and Italy would have been wonderful for her, but the trip through the Netherlands with her friends would be a lot more fun for her daughter. And Mary Stuart had never hesitated to sacrifice herself for her children.

“How soon do you leave?”

“In two days, but I can get everything done.” They talked about how she would ship things home, and payments that had to be made. And Mary Stuart needed to wire her money. She told her to buy traveler's checks with it, and how much to get, and they talked for a long time about the details of Alyssa's travels. And then her mother asked her if she was still planning to go to London.

“I don't think so. We weren't going to go to England at all, and when I talked to Daddy the other night, he said he was going to be really busy.” He was avoiding all of them, not just his wife, but his daughter. It was of little comfort to Mary Stuart to hear it.

When they hung up, Mary Stuart sat looking out the window for a long time, at mothers and children hurrying toward the playground, and the children running there while the mothers sat on benches and chatted. She could remember those days now, as though they had happened only the day before. She had spent every afternoon in the park with her children. Some of her friends had gone to work, but she had always felt it was more important for her to be at home, and she was lucky that she had always been able to do it. And now they were gone, one grown and on her own and traveling around Europe with friends, the other to a distant place in eternity where she hoped she would one day see him again. Believing that was all she had left to hold on to.

“Take care of them,” she wanted to whisper to the mothers she could see far below. “Hold on to them while you can.” It was all so short, and then it was over. Like her marriage. That was over now too. She knew it for sure, had for months, and had refused to see it. But when she thought of the way he had gone, the things he had left unsaid, and the way he had walked away from her when she told him she loved him, there was no longer any doubt in her mind. And she didn't even have the comfort of thinking it was another woman. It was no one, it was him, it was her, it was time, it was the fact that tragedy had struck them, and they hadn't survived it. It was Life. But whatever had done it, she knew that her marriage had died. All she had to do now was adjust to it. She had two months to try freedom on for size, and see how she liked it.

She went out for a walk that afternoon, and thought about all of it, about Alyssa traveling with her friends, and Bill being in London for two months, and she realized something she had always known and somewhat feared, that in the end you're alone, just as she was now, without them. It was up to her to pick up the pieces, to go on, to make peace with what Todd had done, and learn to move past it. Tanya had been right when she was in town, she couldn't hide from it forever. Maybe it wasn't her fault after all, but even if it was, she couldn't continue to wear his death like a shroud until it killed her.

She went back to the apartment, and as she walked in, and set her handbag down, she knew what she needed to do. She had known it for a long time, and she had never had the courage to do it. She would have preferred not to do it alone, but it was time. It almost felt as though he were waiting for her, as though he would have approved and wanted her to do it. She opened the door to his room, and stood there for a long time, and then she opened the drapes and the blinds and let in the sunlight. She sat down at his desk, and began opening drawers, and at first she felt like an intruder going through all of Todd's papers. There were letters and old exams, and assorted memorabilia from his childhood, and an old note from Princeton about his eating club initiation. One by one, she went through his drawers, and then, fighting back tears, she went out to the kitchen. There was a stack of boxes there and she brought them back to Todd's room, and as soon as she began packing them, she started crying. But it was almost a relief to give in to tears. She spent hours in his room that night, and the phone never rang. Bill never called. He was supposed to land at 2:00 A.M. London time and would be at Claridge's by 3:30. He had no idea what she was doing, and he had told her long since to do whatever she wanted.

It took her hours to pack his room, and when she was through there was nothing left. She had packed all his clothes into boxes, and kept only a few special things, like his old Boy Scout uniform that she found put away on a shelf, his favorite leather jacket, a sweater she had once made him. The rest was to be given away, and the papers and books she was going to put in their storage vault in the basement. She had left all his trophies lined up on a shelf. She wanted to find a home for them, and she had taken all the photographs from his room, and spread them around the apartment. It was as though he had suddenly shared something with them, as though he had left them a gift, yet another memory. She put an especially nice photograph of all of them in her own room, and another of him in Alyssa's bedroom. It was two o'clock in the morning before she was through, and it was all done by then. It was dark outside, as she stood alone in the stark white kitchen. She could almost feel him next to her, she could still see his face, his eyes, hear his voice so clearly. Sometimes she thought she was forgetting, but she knew she never would. Todd was so much more than the sum of his things to her. None of that mattered anymore, it was all gone, and what really mattered would be with her forever.

She took the dark green bedspreads off the beds, and put them in the closet to send to the cleaners, and she made a mental note to change the drapes. She had never noticed how badly they had faded. It was sad looking at his old room, it seemed so empty and so bereft, with boxes stacked everywhere all around her. It was as though he was moving somewhere. But he was already long gone. She was a year late putting away his things. She was a year late saying good-bye to him, but in the important ways she had. He would never be forgotten, and things would never be the same again. It seemed only a matter of time before she would be packing the rest of the apartment.

She looked around for a last time, and gently closed his door again. The next day, she was going to have the Goodwill pick up the things to give away, and the service manager take the rest of the boxes down to the basement. And as she walked slowly back to her room, she thought of everything that had happened in the past year, how far they had come, and how alone they all were. Alyssa was in Europe with her friends, Todd was gone, and Bill was in London for the summer. And now she was here, putting away memories, and letting go of her older child, her first baby. She looked long and hard at a photograph of him as she stood in her bedroom. His eyes were so big and bright and clear, and he had been laughing when she took the picture. She could still hear the sound of his laughter. “Oh, come on, Mom… hurry up…” He was in a wet bathing suit in Cape Cod, and he'd been freezing. He was pretending to strangle his sister, it was all in good fun, and he had run halfway down the beach afterward with the top of her bikini, with Alyssa running after him, clutching a towel and screaming. It seemed a thousand years ago, when there was still more to her life than just memories, and an empty apartment.

Mary Stuart didn't get to bed till several hours later, and when she did, she lay dreaming of all of them, Alyssa was saying something and shaking her head, and Todd was thanking her for packing his things for him. And when she looked up, she could see Bill in the distance, walking away from her, and as she called after him, he never turned around and looked at her, he just kept walking.

When Tanya got back to Los Angeles, she hadn't been sure what she would find. Tony had said he was moving out, but there was always the off chance that he hadn't. But as soon as she got home, she checked his closets and saw that they were empty. Jean was at the house, waiting for her, anxious to give her the latest report, and show her the latest horror from the tabloids. She was in the front pages again, and as usual the stories about the bodyguard who was suing her were appalling. Someone had told them that Tony had rented his own apartment, but it was only temporary, they explained, and there were more photographs of him with the starlet he had gone out with. This time he had been having dinner with her.

“It's all right… it's all right…” Tanya said to Jean, looking tired. “I know. I've seen it.” She had picked up a copy at the airport. “I think I'll go to Santa Barbara for a couple of days.” She needed to get away from there, from the photographers and the prying eyes and the empty closets. She didn't even have time to mourn for him, all she could think about was how to protect herself from the media.

“You can't go,” Jean said matter-of-factly, handing her four sheets of schedules. “You're doing a benefit tomorrow night, and you have rehearsal for two days after that. And you have to meet with Bennett about the lawsuit over the weekend.”

“Tell him I can't,” Tanya said unhappily. “I need a couple of days off.” She would never have welched on a benefit or skipped rehearsals. But she was not about to spend her weekend with Bennett Pearson, preparing for depositions.

“I think that's pretty firm. They're already scheduling you for depositions in the Leo Turner case, and Bennett said he got a call from Tony's lawyer this morning.”

“That was fast,” Tanya said, dropping into a large, comfortable, pink satin chair in her bedroom. “He sure didn't waste much time.” It was as though three years had vanished into thin air overnight, and now they had to get down to business. Sometimes she wondered if that was all everything was. It was all about money, greed, and business. The agents, the lawyers, the people selling stories about her, those who wanted to be paid off so they wouldn't sue, the endless number of people who thought she owed them for her success, because she'd been fortunate and they'd been less so.

“I need a day to myself,” she said to her secretary quietly, and no one in her world had any idea how much she meant it. She just couldn't do it anymore, couldn't go on, couldn't keep plugging and smiling and singing and working, for all of them. Sometimes she felt as though she worked only to pay them. There was no life left anymore. It was just work and payments.