Bittersweet

by Danielle Steel

  “Maybe,” Sean said, in answer to his question. “It's only been six months, and you were so much in love with Serena.”

  “I was, and am. But don't you think I have a right to be with someone?” It was an honest question, and deserved a fair answer.

  “Why? At your age, you don't need to get remarried.”

  “Who said anything about marriage?” He flinched at his son's words and extrasensory perception. He had been thinking about it only that morning, when contemplating the commute to Westport. There was no way they could do that forever.

  “Well, if you don't want to get married, why date? Besides, you have the Sea Star.” It seemed like a reasonable trade-off to him. And Paul was less than amused to realize that, at fifty-seven, his son thought he was too old to be dating.

  “Since when are you so interested in yachting? Besides, I just thought you'd be interested in what I'm doing. One of these days, I'd like you to meet her.”

  “If you're not going to marry her, Dad, I don't need to meet her,” Sean said bluntly, instantly creating an impossible situation. If Paul introduced India to him now it meant they were getting married. And to provide a little distraction, he told him instead about her work and her enormous talent.

  “Great,” Sean said without much interest. “Does she have kids?” Another psychic stroke of genius on his part. Paul nodded vaguely, as Sean honed in on him further. “How many?”

  “A few.” Paul said it with a feeling of rising panic, and Sean sensed it.

  “How many?” he repeated.

  “Four.”

  “Young ones?”

  “Nine to fourteen.” He decided he might as well tell him. Why hide it?

  “Are you kidding?”

  “No.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Maybe.” He was beginning to wonder.

  “You can't even stand my kids for more than ten minutes.”

  “Yours are younger. And they cry all the time. Hers don't.”

  “Wait. They'll go to jail. They'll get drunk. They'll get into drugs. They'll get pregnant, or maybe she will. Dad, you'll love it.”

  “Don't be such a pain in the ass at your age. You didn't.”

  “You don't know half the stuff I did. Besides, you didn't let me. Dad, look, at your age, you don't need a woman with four kids. Why can't you find someone a little older?”

  “How about Georgia O'Keeffe? Is that old enough for you? She must be in her nineties.”

  “I think she's dead,” Sean said without humor. “Come on, be serious. Go back to the boat and relax. I think you're having a midlife crisis.”

  “Thank you for your optimism,” Paul said drily, but in spite of what he was saying to his son, Sean had shaken him a little. It was hard to sell a woman with four children. “If I'm having a midlife crisis, by the way, that means you expect me to live to a hundred and fourteen. I'll do my best to oblige you. And no, I'm not senile. She's a good friend, and a nice woman, and I like her. I just thought you'd want to know, that's all. Forget it.”

  “No,” Sean said sternly, getting even for all the lectures Paul had given him before, during, and since college, “you forget it.” And with that, they moved on to other subjects, but it was obvious as they left ‘2G that Sean was still worried. He said he'd call his father on the weekend about seeing the kids, and Paul didn't have the heart to tell him he was busy. He just said he'd call him if he didn't go away for the weekend. But Sean knew instantly what that meant. And when he went home to his wife, racked with morning sickness and looking green, he told her his father had lost his marbles. But to her credit, she had the same reaction as her father-in-law, and told her husband not to be so stuffy. His father had a perfect right to do what he wanted, and Sean told her in no uncertain terms to mind her own business.

  But the dreams Paul had that night were far worse than anything Sean could have wished on him. He dreamt of Serena all night, and airplanes exploding in midair. Twice he woke and heard her screaming at him about what he'd done, and then he heard her sobbing because he'd been unfaithful to her. And Paul felt ninety when he woke up in the morning. And one thing Sean had said had stuck in his mind like a cactus. What if India got pregnant? The thought of it made him nauseous. And when she called him in the office that afternoon and left the message that she'd be at the hotel to meet him at five-thirty, he had his secretary call back to say he'd be there.

  But the moment he saw her, he forgot his nightmares and Sean's warnings. The instant he kissed her, he melted. They wound up in bed before dinnertime, and finally sent for room service at midnight. She was the most bewitching woman he'd ever known, and in spite of how many children she had, he knew he loved her. Worse than that. He was crazy about her. And the weekend they spent together was pure magic.

  They walked in Central Park and held hands, went to the Metropolitan, and the movies. They saw a love story that ended badly, and they both cried. They bought books together, and read, and listened to music. They loved all the same things, and she talked with great anticipation about their cruise together on the Sea Star. She shared all her dreams with him, and her fears, as she had on the phone, and by Sunday afternoon, he hated the idea of her leaving, but she had to pick up the children after dinner. And when she drove away again, he couldn't stand the prospect of a night without her.

  And Sunday night was worse than Thursday had been. He dreamed that he lay in Serena's arms all night, and she begged him not to let her die, she wanted to stay with him forever. He woke up at three A.M. and sobbed for an hour, racked with guilt over what he was doing. He never went back to sleep, and in the morning he knew he should never have survived her. He couldn't bear to live through it. And when he called India, she sounded so sweet, and she was obviously concerned about him.

  He felt like a dead man himself when he left the hotel for the office. He had promised to go to Westport that night, but at six o'clock he called her and told her he couldn't. He just couldn't face her. He needed another night to himself, just to think about Serena, and what he was doing. He thought he'd probably feel better in the morning, and India had promised to drive into the city. She had a sitter who could stay overnight, and she had told the children she was visiting a sick friend, and had to stay over with her. But how often could she do that?

  And when she got to the hotel that night, Paul was waiting for her. He looked gray, and India was instantly worried. She asked him what he'd eaten, and if he had a fever, and he told her calmly that he didn't.

  “You don't look well, sweetheart,” she said gently. And he felt like a serial killer. After the months they'd shared on the phone, he knew her too well, knew how she thought and what she felt, and everything that she believed in. She believed in hope and dreams and honesty and loyalty and all the best of human emotions. She also believed in happy endings, and this one wasn't. It couldn't be. He had realized in the two days he hadn't spent with her that he was still in love with Serena, and felt sure now that he always would be.

  He sat down next to India on the couch and looked at her, and she felt her heart sliding slowly to her feet. All he could see was the golden hair, the huge blue eyes growing bigger by the minute, and her face getting so pale it scared him.

  “I think you know what I'm going to say,” he said miserably.

  “I don't want to hear it,” she said hoarsely. “What happened?”

  “I woke up, India. I came to my senses.”

  “No, you didn't,” she said, fighting back tears, “you went crazy.” She knew the words before he said them, and her heart was pounding so hard she thought it was going to leap out of her chest. She was terrified to lose him. She had waited a lifetime for him.

  “I was crazy when I told you I loved you. I didn't. I was excited by you. … I wanted it to be everything I thought it was. You're the most wonderful woman I've ever known. But I'm in love with Serena. I always will be. I know it. I can't do this.”

  “You're scared. That's all it is. You panicked,”
she said, beginning to sound desperate.

  “I'm panicking now,” he said honestly, looking at her. He didn't want the responsibility of her. He couldn't do it. He knew it. Sean was right. He was senile. “India, you have four kids. You have a house in Westport.”

  “What's that got to do with it? I'll put them up for adoption.” She was half kidding, but her eyes filled with tears instantly. She could see he meant it. She was fighting for her life and he didn't want to hear it. “I love you.”

  “You don't even know me. All I am is a voice on the phone. A dream. An illusion.”

  “I know you,” she said desperately. “And you know me. This isn't fair.” She started to cry openly and he took her in his arms and held her. He felt like a murderer, but he knew he had to escape her. For his own survival.

  “It's better now. It would be worse later,” he said sensibly. “We'll just get attached to each other, and then what? I can't do this. Serena won't let me.”

  “She's gone, Paul.” She said it gently, through her tears, even then not wanting to hurt him, while he hurt her. “She wouldn't want you to be unhappy.”

  “Yes she would. She would never want me to be with another woman.”

  “She was smarter than that. And she loved you. I can't believe you're doing this.” It had been a week. Seven days, and she had given herself to him completely, and now he was telling her it was over. A week ago, two days ago, he had told her how much he loved her. He wanted her to move to the city. He liked her children. He hated the commute, but who didn't? “Can't you give this a chance?”

  “No, I can't. I won't. For your sake as well as mine. I'm going back to the boat. My son is right, I'm too old for this. You need someone younger. I can't take on four kids. I can't. When he was that age, Sean almost drove me crazy. I'd forgotten it, now I remember. And that was twenty years ago. I was thirty-seven. Now I'm a hundred. No, India,” he said sternly, looking at her as she cried, but he was doing it for Serena. He owed it to her, he had let her die alone on an airplane. That never should have happened. He should have gone with her. “You've got to go now.” He stood up and pulled India to her feet as she stood in front of him and sobbed. She had never expected this of him, and she hadn't been prepared for it. She had never suspected this would happen. He loved her. She knew it.

  “What about Antigua?” she asked through her tears, as though it still mattered. But it was something to hang on to. And then he took that from her too. He wanted it all back now. His heart, his life, their future.

  “Forget it,” he said coldly. “Go somewhere else. With a nice guy. I'm not that person. The best of me died with Serena.”

  “No, it didn't. I love the best and the worst of you,” she said, and meant it, but he didn't want to hear that either. He wanted nothing more from her. It was over. And then she looked up at him with eyes that tore his heart out.

  “What'll I tell the children?”

  “Tell them what a bastard I am. They'll believe you.”

  “No, they won't. And I don't either. You're just scared. You're scared of being happy.” It was truer than she knew, and truer than he wanted her to see now.

  “Go home, India,” he said, and opened the door for her. “Go back to your kids. They need you.”

  “So do you,” she said, believing it, and knowing him better than he did. “More than they do.” She stood in the doorway, looking at him for a long time then, sobbing pitifully, and her last words to him were “I love you.”

  And as she walked away, he closed the door quietly behind her, and walked into his bedroom. He lay on the bed he had lain on with her, and sobbed as he thought of her. He wanted he back, he wanted her to be part of him, but he knew he couldn't. It was too late for him.

  He was gone. Serena had taken him with her. And he owed her this now. He knew it. For not dying with her. For letting her down. He had betrayed her, and he couldn't do it again. He had no right to what India wanted to give him.

  And as he lay on his bed and cried, India drove back to Westport, blinded by tears, hysterical. She couldn't believe what had happened. She couldn't believe what he had done to her. It was worse than anything Doug had done. But the difference was she loved him, and she knew he loved her. As she drove home, she was so distraught, so racked with pain, that she never saw the car next to her move out of its lane and cut in front of her. She didn't even have time to think before it hit her. She bounced off the divider, and back again into another lane, as the car spun wildly around her and she hit her head on the steering wheel, and the car stopped finally. There was a salty taste in her mouth and there was blood everywhere, as someone opened the door, and she looked at them, and fainted.

  Chapter 23

  IT WAS after midnight when India called Gail. She had fourteen stitches in her head, a broken arm, a concussion, and whiplash. And her car was totaled. But she was alive, and it could have been worse. She had hit two other cars, but fortunately no one else was injured. She was at the hospital in Westport. India cried when she explained her injuries to Gail. She had thought of calling Paul first, but even in her confused state, she decided not to. She didn't want him to feel sorry for her, or guilty. It was her own fault. There was no point blaming him now.

  She was sobbing incoherently when she called Gail and asked if she could come and get her. Gail sounded panicked, and arrived half an hour later, in Nikes, with a coat over her nightgown. She had left Jeff with the children.

  “My God, India, what happened?”

  “Nothing. I'm okay.” But she was still sobbing, and badly shaken.

  “You look like shit,” Gail said bluntly, and she saw then that India was going to have a black eye to go with the rest. It was the first accident she'd ever had, and it was a doozy. “Were you drinking?” She whispered so no one could hear her. The police had already come and gone, but there were nurses all around them in the trauma unit.

  “No. I wasn't,” India answered, trying to stand up, but she threw up two minutes later. The hospital had said she could go home, but Gail thought she should stay there. “I can't. I have to go home to the kids. They'll worry about me.”

  “They're going to worry more if they see you,” Gail said honestly. But India insisted. She just wanted to go home, and die quietly, in her own bed, with her head under the covers.

  They left the hospital ten minutes later, with India wearing a blanket over her blood-soaked clothes, and holding a metal bowl in case she threw up, which she did four times on the way home, as she continued to cry softly.

  “Did something happen? Did you have a fight with Doug or something?” Gail could see in her eyes that something terrible had happened.

  “No, I'm fine,” India kept repeating. “I'm fine. I'm sorry.”

  “Don't be sorry, for God's sake.” Gail was worried sick about her. She half carried her up the stairs, put her to bed, and stayed nearby so she could hear her. She tried to give her a cup of tea, but India didn't want it. She just lay there crying until she finally fell asleep at six o'clock in the morning. And when they got up, Gail explained to the children that their mother had had a little accident, but she was fine. She had bumped her head, and had a headache.

  “Where's the car?” Sam asked, looking puzzled, and surprised to see Gail making them breakfast in her nightgown instead of their mother. The sitter had left before that.

  “The car is gone,” Gail explained as she made pancakes for them. She had been up all night, watching India, and she looked it. “Forever,” she added, and Jason whistled.

  “Wow! It must have been a bad one.”

  “It was, but she was very lucky.”

  “Can I see her?” Aimee wanted to know, looking worried.

  “I think we should let her sleep. You can see her later,” Gail said firmly.

  They ate their breakfast quietly, sensing that the accident had been more serious than Gail had said, and when they left for school, Gail went back up to see her. India was still sleeping. She left her a note, and went h
ome to change, and promised to come back later.

  India woke up at noon, and begging herself not to, she dialed Paul anyway. She just wanted to hear his voice. She wasn't even sure he'd take it, and she wasn't going to tell him about the accident. She was surprised when he got on the line very quickly.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, sounding worried. He had been up all night, but it was better than his nightmares. He had been worried sick about her.

  “Sure, I'm fine.” She sounded weak and sleepy, but she tried to make herself sound normal, for his sake.

  “Did you get home okay last night?”

  “Yeah. It was fine,” she lied, as tears slid down her cheeks. He could hear that she was lying, and all he could remember was the look of devastation in her eyes when she had left him.

  “I was afraid you were too upset to drive. I thought about it as soon as you left. But I didn't want to call and wake the children.”

  “They were fine. I'm fine. How are you?” She sounded a little wonky, but he assumed she had slept as little as he had.

  “Not so great,” he said, sounding grim. And then he told her, “I'm leaving for the boat tonight. They're still in Gibraltar. And then I'm going to make the crossing to Antigua. Or go somewhere else. I haven't figured it out yet.”

  “Oh,” she said, feeling slightly sicker. She had been hoping he had changed his mind again. Anything was possible, she hoped. But apparently, it wasn't.

  “And, India,” he delivered the coup de grace with one swift blow. It was better that way. Straight to the heart. But cleanly. “Don't call me.”

  “Why not?”

  “We'll just drive each other crazy. We have to let this go now. I was wrong, terribly, terribly wrong. And I'm sorry.”

  “Me too,” she said sadly. Her headache was nothing compared to the rest of what she was feeling.

  “I'm older than you are. I should have known better. You'll get over it. We both will.” But he would never get over Serena. He knew that now. And he had killed India to please Serena. Wherever Serena was, he hoped that she was happy. And he hoped that the misery he felt now repaid some of the debt he owed her for not dying with her. “Take care of yourself,” he said, as India nodded, crying too hard to speak for a minute, while he waited.