Against All Odds

by Danielle Steel

  Willie went home that night, and Izzie forced herself to go back to work the following Monday. She looked awful, but said she needed the distraction and had fallen behind in her work. And once Izzie went back to the office, Julie booked a flight to California. She had been in New York for exactly six days, and Izzie was grateful for it. Julie had texted Peter every day, and he had never responded. She knew he was paying her back for going against him and defying his wishes.

  Her flight from New York landed in L.A. at two in the afternoon, and she took a cab back to their temporary apartment. For a minute she wondered if Peter had made good on his threats and changed the locks, but her key worked when she got there. After she unpacked, she went to a nearby market and bought what she needed to make him a nice dinner. She was wearing an apron over jeans and a sweater and cooking when he got home, and he looked surprised to see her, although she had texted him when she was arriving. He didn’t say a word to her at first and then stood stiffly in the kitchen, while she cooked a leg of lamb that smelled delicious.

  “How was it?” he asked, looking stern and not remorseful.

  “Very sad. It was very hard on Izzie, I’m glad I went, but I missed you.”

  “Did you?” he asked as he walked toward her, and for a minute she wasn’t sure what he was going to do to her. There was a menacing look in his eyes, but she refused to be daunted.

  “Yes, I did miss you.” She smiled and said as he grabbed her hard and kissed her, and then with no warning, he picked her up, carried her easily, strode into their bedroom, and dumped her on the bed.

  “Take your clothes off,” he ordered her. “I want to make love to you.” She wanted to make love to him too, but his suddenly harsh, commanding style was unnerving. He’d never acted like that before and it was more caveman than romantic. She did as she was told and held her arms out to him with a smile, and with that he pushed her onto the bed, grabbed her hair and pulled her head back, and entered her with no warning, with a savage look she didn’t recognize.

  “Hey, take it easy,” she said, and he looked at her fiercely.

  “Don’t you ever, ever leave me like that again, when I tell you not to. Do you understand that?” She nodded as tears sprang to her eyes, and just as quickly he melted into the man she had married. He made love to her exquisitely, and held her in his arms afterward. The frightening new side of Peter had disappeared, but she had discovered a part of him she never knew.

  They had a romantic dinner in the kitchen that night. He loved the leg of lamb, and they hurried to bed afterward. And this time, he was only slightly rougher than he used to be. Marriage had changed him. He owned her now.

  Chapter 20

  When Izzie returned to work and moved back to her own apartment, she left Zach’s clothes in the closet. She wasn’t ready to give them up yet, and she had no reason to. She never heard from his father again, nor his mother. No correspondence came for him. It was as though she had married a drifter who had existed in her life for eighteen months and then vanished. But he had left their baby behind as a memory of him. And Zach had made a profound impression on Izzie. She realized afterward that she would never have changed him, and regretted the pressure she had put on him to get a job and become responsible. That wasn’t who he was. And you couldn’t marry someone like that and expect them to be different. He remained true to himself till the end, drugging, drinking, in trouble with the law. She realized that he probably would have ended up in prison sooner or later. It was almost unavoidable. And they might not have stayed married, but she had loved him anyway, and it was hard to let go of the good memories, along with the bad. But her mother had been right, you couldn’t win when the odds were against you. And they had been with Zach.

  She had decided to continue working until the delivery. She didn’t want to sit around at home thinking, and she was going to take a month off after the baby came.

  The day she went into labor she had a court appearance, and managed to finish it, without letting on to anyone what was happening. She called her assistant to say she wouldn’t be coming back to the office, and she called her doctor on her way home to pick up her bag for the hospital, take a shower, and call her mother. She stayed matter-of-fact about it or she knew she would fall apart, knowing that she had to go through this alone, and Zach would never see their baby. The thought of it made her cry every time it came to mind. Kate hadn’t been surprised to hear from her. It was Izzie’s due date. As usual, she did everything on schedule, her mother teased her.

  The doctor said she could stay home for a while, since the pains were still far apart, her water hadn’t broken yet, and it was her first baby. Izzie had toyed with the idea of doing it naturally but had finally decided to have an epidural for the pain. Why be a hero?

  Kate promised to come over as soon as Izzie called her, and Izzie said there was no rush. Kate arrived half an hour later, having changed into jeans and flat shoes, with her own little bag of supplies for the hospital. And once she was there, as though the baby had waited politely for his grandmother, the contractions started in earnest.

  “Ohhh, this is worse than I thought it would be,” Izzie said as she tried to breathe through the contractions. She called Julie, and they talked for a while, and then Izzie was in too much pain, and called her doctor again. She told her to come in, and Kate and Izzie took a cab, while Kate timed the contractions.

  “They’re getting closer together,” Kate commented, relieved that they were on their way to the hospital. It was rush hour and traffic was heavy. And the pains had gone from four minutes apart to three to two by the time they got there. Izzie looked at the nurse desperately as they wheeled her down the hall to a labor room.

  “Can I have the epidural now?” she asked, panting between pains and the nurse smiled.

  “Let’s have the doctor take a look at you. I think she’s already here.” Izzie didn’t care if the president of the United States was there, she wanted the epidural now and she said so. “Are we waiting for Dad to get here?” the nurse asked pleasantly, as she helped Izzie take her clothes off and get into bed.

  “No, Dad is dead, and I want my epidural now, goddammit!” Izzie shouted at her and Kate smiled. She could tell that Izzie was in hard labor from her behavior and the desperation on her face. And a moment later the doctor came in and examined her. Izzie screamed as a wave of pain washed over her as the doctor checked her cervix and the nurse put a fetal monitor on her belly that constricted her and made the pains worse. “Take that thing off!” Izzie shouted at her, and the doctor looked at her calmly. She knew that Izzie was a widow, and assumed that Kate was her mother.

  “The good news is that you’re already at seven,” the doctor told her, which was about what Kate had guessed from her daughter’s outbursts. The unflappable counselor who could handle anything in the workplace was losing her cool rapidly. Izzie looked panicked. “The bad news is that it may be too late for an epidural. We’ll try, but it’s going pretty fast since you called me. I think you can do this without one if that’s what we have to do.” Izzie burst into tears as soon as she said it.

  “I can’t do this without one.” Not without Zach, not after everything that had happened.

  “We’ll try to get a line in as fast as we can,” she promised. The anesthesiologist showed up ten minutes later. He had been in a labor room down the hall, and a nurse was checking Izzie when he walked in. She was clutching Kate’s hand, and crying from the pains now.

  “We’re at nine,” the nurse told him. “First baby.” It had gone like lightning, but the pains were overwhelming her. It was infinitely worse than she had ever dreamed it would be.

  The anesthesiologist looked at Izzie apologetically, as she let out a scream. “We can try, but I think it’s too late. Do you think you can lie still on your side for me to put in the catheter for the epidural? It will feel like a bee sting,” he said gently.

  “Just do it!” Izzie shouted at him as she nearly broke Kate’s fingers. They rolled I
zzie onto her side, and she clutched her mother’s arm as they put the catheter in for the epidural, and she waited to feel some relief, but there was none yet, and then she looked at her mother and the nurse in terror. Something was happening, a force was powering through her that nothing could stop. Kate kept talking soothingly to her, as the nurse went to get the doctor. Kate knew the pressure Izzie was feeling was the baby. And the epidural hadn’t taken effect yet. The anesthesiologist checked the dose and upped it, and Izzie closed her eyes for a minute between pains as the doctor walked back into the room. Everything was moving quickly. Too quickly for Izzie. The doctor warned Izzie that she was going to check her again, but the epidural had some slight effect by then.

  “Okay, Izzie, we’re at ten,” the doctor told her. “You can push now.” And then she told her how to do it, as the nurse held one leg and Kate held the other. She was lying on her back, with the epidural in place, but she said she could feel the pains. The fetal monitor said they were big ones, and the baby’s heartbeat sounded good. She pushed for half an hour and nothing happened, and Izzie fell back against the pillows looking exhausted. The doctor told her to keep pushing. “I see the baby’s head!” she said victoriously a minute later, as everyone in the room cheered Izzie on and she pushed with all her might, and fell back against the pillows exhausted between pains. She’d never worked so hard at anything in her life. Slowly the baby’s head emerged, and he gave a wail. The doctor delivered the baby’s body, and laid him on Izzie’s stomach, and she looked down at him and smiled through her tears. He was beautiful and he was the image of his father. She smiled at her mother in relief. It was the hardest thing she’d ever done, but it was worth it. They cut the cord, cleaned up the baby, and put him to her breast. He looked up at his mother in wonder, as Kate gazed at mother and son and cried. She was sorry about everything that had happened to Izzie, but at least she had her baby now. Izzie held him in her arms and seemed totally at peace. The agony of only minutes before was already receding as she held the reward in her arms.

  “Thank you for being here, Mom,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. Izzie looked like a Madonna as she held her son.

  Kate leaned down to kiss them both, and the doctor came in to check Izzie again, and told her what a great job she’d done. Everything was fine. It had all gone smoothly, even though it had been more painful than Izzie had expected. She called all three of her siblings a little while later, and they were thrilled for her. Julie was ecstatic to hear the news and the joy and elation in her sister’s voice. It was midnight in New York, and nine o’clock in California by then.

  Peter listened to Julie’s side of the conversation and gave her a warning look when she hung up.

  “Don’t even think of going back there,” he said, glaring at her. They were living in their own apartment, and Julie loved it. It was open and airy with glass sliding doors into the garden, and they had use of a pool. And their furniture had long since arrived from New York.

  “Of course I’m going to go back there,” Julie said, trying to sound confident and not scared of him. She had discovered that he had a nasty temper when he didn’t get his way, and several times recently he had made fun of her handwriting and spelling and told her she wrote like a five-year-old, which hurt her feelings. She had finally told him about the dyslexia when they got married, and he told her he didn’t care. And now he was acting like the kids who had made fun of her in school. She couldn’t understand the shift in his attitudes and behavior. He was often frightening and sometimes cruel, and then tender and apologetic later. He was almost like two people now. One she loved and one she feared. “My sister just had a baby, Peter. I want to see them. This is an important moment for her.” She always tried to reason with him.

  “I told you before, your loyalties belong to me now,” he said harshly, and as he said it, he grabbed her arm and yanked her hard until he hurt her. He had bruised her that way before. This was all new since they’d gotten married. He appeared to be an old-fashioned man who believed that he should rule the roost, and she should do what he told her to, as an obedient wife. She had mentioned getting a job in L.A., and he told her it was out of the question, a good wife belonged at home, waiting to serve her husband. She always thought he was joking when he said things like that, but in the past three months she had discovered that he wasn’t. He meant it. As far as he was concerned, she was to take orders from him. She wanted to try to discuss it with him, or maybe go to a counselor, but he didn’t believe in that either. “You don’t need to see your sister’s baby,” he said tersely. “All babies look alike.”

  “That’s not the point. I want to see my sister. This is an important time for her, especially without Zach.”

  “She’s better off without him. It’s just too bad the baby survived.” He had said it before, and Julie no longer argued with him about it. But she was planning to go to New York sometime in the next week. And Justin was coming down from Vermont too.

  Julie made her reservation the next day when Peter was at work. She was still happy with him at times, and loved him. But he was different, and unduly harsh. She had discovered that he was totally without compassion for anyone else. His entire world had to revolve around him and his needs, and Julie most of all. It was as though he expected her to make up for all the love he’d never had, and prove herself to him by giving in to whatever he wanted and all his demands. And he wanted to make love to her constantly now, several times a night, to the point that she dreaded it sometimes. He was so acrobatic and relentless that he wore her out. It wasn’t tender and sensual the way it had been in the past before they were married. Most of the time now it was rough, and he took her anytime and anywhere he wanted to, whether she wanted to make love or not. And then he would surprise her and be gentle again.

  She printed out her ticket and left it in the bedroom drawer, and was planning to tell him about it in a few days. She was going the following week. She was reading a book one night when he stormed into the living room and grabbed her by the hair.

  “What is this?” he said, waving the ticket in her face.

  “It’s my ticket to New York,” she said in a small voice.

  “What were you going to do? Just sneak off without telling me?” He was livid, and his eyes were bulging with rage. He even looked different now. His face had changed. She almost didn’t recognize him at times.

  “Of course not. I was going to tell you. I didn’t want to upset you.” He was shaking with fury as he looked at her and slapped her hard across the face. She was so shocked she didn’t even know how to react at first, and she started to cry as a trickle of blood ran from the corner of her mouth, where his watch had hit her.

  “Cancel your reservation. You’re not going. You’re staying here.” She said nothing, but cowered on her side of the bed that night, and then he grabbed her and made love to her again, more gently this time, but not like the old days. It was all different now that they were married. He didn’t mention slapping her, and didn’t apologize. And the next day she didn’t cancel her reservation. She was more determined than ever to go. He couldn’t keep her from her family by slapping her. He was cold to her for the rest of the week, and the day before she was to leave, she told him quietly that she was going to New York the next day. They had had very little conversation since he slapped her, and she’d had a bruise on her cheek that was just starting to fade. She had covered it up with makeup, but she knew it was there.

  “I’m only staying a few days,” she said quietly. She had packed while he was at work. He didn’t forbid her to go, but he made love to her so brutally that night that she bled afterward and could hardly sit down. She went to bed with an ice pack between her legs. She was frightened of him now, and relieved when he went to work in the morning and she finished packing. She thought about him all the way to New York, and she was tempted to say something to Justin, but she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what had happened to Peter or why he had changed. She kep
t waiting for him to go back to the way he’d been before. And she didn’t want Justin to hate Peter. In many ways Julie thought he was a good man. He just had a terrible temper he couldn’t seem to control.

  Julie was staying at Izzie’s apartment, and fell in love with the baby. She helped her with him, and they spent hours talking, but she never mentioned Peter’s rages. She was ashamed too. He somehow always made it feel like his behavior was her fault. And she wanted to be a better wife. But Justin noticed that she was very subdued when he arrived from Vermont. She didn’t need to say anything to him. He could sense that something was wrong.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked her. He had never known her to be that quiet, and almost withdrawn. She had always been shy but not to this degree.

  “Of course, it’s great!” Julie looked falsely cheerful, and Justin wasn’t convinced. His twin radar was on full alert.

  “You’d tell me if it wasn’t great, wouldn’t you?” Justin asked her.

  “Of course I would. I’m just tired from the flight.” She loved holding the baby, and soaked up the love and warmth of her family before she went back. She was afraid of saying too much to Justin because he knew her too well, and might see right through her. After she left, he mentioned it to their mother.

  “She seems awfully quiet, doesn’t she?” he asked Kate thoughtfully.

  “Maybe she’s homesick. The first year of marriage is a big adjustment. And she’s not used to not having a job.” Julie seemed all right to her, but she hadn’t spent much time with her, since she had stayed at Izzie’s, and Izzie thought she was fine. And Kate was focusing on Izzie at the moment.

  Julie let herself into the house in L.A. when she got home. She was surprised to find Peter waiting for her. She had expected him to be at work. She had texted him when she’d arrive.

  “Well, look who’s back,” he said in a derisive tone. “How was your trip to see your mommy and your brothers and sister?” She could sense his anger as soon as she walked in.