Rushing Waters

by Danielle Steel

  They had dinner with their host again that night, and the conversation was interesting and lively. Jim Aldrich knew a great deal about architecture, and he and Grace had a serious discussion, and he took her to his library after dinner and showed her some fascinating books he had collected. He was a very erudite man, and he seemed as intrigued by Grace as she was by him. They were still in the library talking, when Bob and Ellen gave up and went to bed. They laughed about it on their way to their bedrooms.

  “They both make me feel like I’m ancient,” Bob commented to her. “I can hardly move after all the work clearing the apartments today. Your mother worked hard too. Those two look like they could talk all night.” And Ellen couldn’t help thinking that it was fun living in community, with people to have dinner with and talk to about interesting subjects. Grace was obviously enjoying it immensely, and Ellen liked it too, despite their reason for being there. She said goodnight to Bob outside her room, and wanted to call George, but it was too late again. She was going to call him in the morning and let him know how things were going.

  “See you tomorrow,” Bob said pleasantly, and a few minutes later, she could hear him on his ancient typewriter in the next room. It was a nice old-fashioned sound, and she fell asleep listening to it, marveling that he still wrote his books on a typewriter rather than a computer. She thought about the things he’d confided to her about his marriage and children. He seemed like a deep and introspective person, and she could see why her mother liked him and considered him a friend. He didn’t open up easily, but when he did, he was honest, without artifice, and obviously sincere.

  —

  Ellen called George at his office before she left her room the next morning. It was one in the afternoon for him, and he said he was just leaving to go to his club for lunch. He sounded like he was in a hurry, and he was unusually distant on the phone. She still had the feeling that he was mad at her about something, but she didn’t want to press him and ask again. She told him about everything she was doing for her mother. And once they got the apartment cleared, sent her mother’s things to storage, and found a temporary apartment, she thought she could come home. They were both very organized, and she hoped it wouldn’t take too long.

  “Well, no need to rush,” he said vaguely. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” he teased her. It was the first time he had ever said anything like it, and she was shocked.

  “It doesn’t sound like you miss me very much,” she said, letting him know that she was more upset than she intended.

  “You really haven’t been gone that long. Not even a week,” he pointed out, although so much had happened that it felt like ten years to her. They’d been to hell and back since she’d left London, but George almost seemed like he was enjoying being on his own, which was unusual for him.

  “Where are you going this weekend?” she asked him. He’d had no plans for it when she left.

  “To the Warwicks’,” he said simply. They were yet another couple who gave great house parties in a fabulous house they had inherited. Ellen was starting to feel left out of his London life, after less than a week. He told her he was going to be late for lunch then, and they said goodbye and got off. She sat in her room and thought about how disconnected he sounded. She was sure something was wrong, but she had no clue from George what it might be.

  Ellen and her mother went downtown again after breakfast, and worked on clearing the apartment with the help of the handyman and the doorman. And Ellen thought they were almost ready for the movers to come to box up what could be sent to storage in a few days. The restorers were coming to pick up the damaged but hopefully salvageable pieces soon too. They were moving ahead at a good pace, and Ellen told her she had to leave for an appointment that afternoon.

  “Are you seeing a client?” her mother asked her, feeling guilty for all the time Ellen was devoting to her. She knew she had intended to do some work for clients while she was in New York, but Ellen shook her head. She had the meeting with the fertility specialist, and she didn’t want to change the date she had set for it months before. All her files had been digitally sent ahead for him to study before he saw her.

  “No, it’s someone new,” she said vaguely, not wanting to tell her what it was. She hadn’t told George about it either. She knew how tired he was of new specialists, and Ellen wanted to see what he said first. She was hoping that an American doctor would be more optimistic than the ones she’d seen in London. She was hoping that a fresh pair of eyes on her chart would give rise to new hope.

  She gave herself an hour and a half to get uptown and arrived five minutes before the appointment. After she filled out a dozen forms, she was ushered into his office. He was young and energetic, and highly respected in his field, and known to be very innovative. But as soon as she sat down, he told her that he had studied her records carefully, and said that unless she was willing to consider a donor egg, there was absolutely no hope of her carrying a fetus to term. He concurred with her specialists in London that although she was only thirty-eight, her hormone levels were poor and the quality of her eggs inadequate for a successful pregnancy, as experience had shown. Reproductively, she showed signs of premature aging, and even with a donor egg, he wasn’t convinced her body could sustain a pregnancy to term. He suggested that she consider surrogacy or adoption if one attempt at a donor egg didn’t work. She told him that she and her husband didn’t consider those possibilities an option and they wanted their own baby genetically. He looked at her honestly across the desk and gave her the answer she had been dreading.

  “That’s not going to happen, Mrs. Wharton. I would be lying to you if I said I thought it was possible. It isn’t. I think surrogacy or adoption are your only options. You’re torturing yourself with these repeated attempts at IVF that are doomed to fail. It must be very hard on you psychologically,” he said sympathetically.

  Her eyes filled with tears. What he had just said sounded like a death sentence to her, and she didn’t want to tell her husband that it was over. They would never have a baby unless they adopted one, or used someone else’s eggs, which meant that genetically the baby would be his, but not hers. And George wouldn’t like that idea either. They had reached a dead end, after four years of attempts for nothing. It had become her obsession, and she had made it George’s. They had made love by schedules, and their life had been a constant round of sonograms and hormone shots. And undeniably, no matter how patient he was, it had taken a toll on them. The thought of trying to have a baby was agony for both of them now. They had endured four years of crushing disappointment, never made love spontaneously, and every hormone test felt like a life-or-death pronouncement, every miscarriage a tragic event.

  “I think you need to give some serious thought to what route you want to take in the future,” the doctor told her. “As I said, you can try a donor egg once, but if it fails, I wouldn’t do it again. And I don’t think your chances are great for that either. And if you and your husband aren’t open to adoption, it may be time for you both to face the reality of your situation, and consider a future without children. Some couples prefer that to adoption, if you feel that strongly about it.” He brought the interview to a close then after she asked him a few more questions, and she nearly stumbled out to the sidewalk, blinded by her tears.

  She cried all the way back to Jim Aldrich’s apartment, and was relieved that no one was home when she got there. Her mother and Bob were still downtown, and Jim was at his office. Ellen got into her bed in the guest room after locking the door and cried herself to sleep. Her last hope of a baby had just been snuffed out, and she dreaded telling George, but it wasn’t fair giving him false hope. Their baby-making days were over. They would be childless forever. To her, it was the worst fate she could imagine. And she knew a part of her had died that afternoon.

  Chapter 8

  Once Gina was uptown with her cell phone working again, she tried to call Nigel whenever she could, and sent him several texts, hoping he would get
them and respond. She hated to be out of touch and was worried about him. And it seemed reasonable to assume that he would want to know how she and the girls were. She had been living with him for a year, after all, and had left her marriage for him and moved to New York. She considered the bond they shared akin to a marriage, or just shy of it. And she had asked him to call her just to check in, in the texts she sent him. In the aftermath of the storm, she didn’t even know where he was staying. Since their apartment was in a flood zone and the building was still evacuated, she knew he wasn’t staying there, and assumed he was still in Brooklyn with the artists he’d been helping, although he had said that all their apartments and studios had been washed out too.

  He called her finally on Thursday night, while she was at a restaurant having dinner with Charles and the girls, and Nigel sounded irate when she answered. She went outside to talk to him, away from Charles and the children.

  “Why the hell are you sending me all those fucking texts? Don’t you know I’m busy? I don’t have time to answer you,” he snarled at her, and she was taken aback by the tone of his voice.

  “I’m worried about you, that’s all. I don’t even know where you are, or where you’re sleeping,” she said plaintively, which made him even madder.

  “What difference does it make? I told you, I’m busy. I’m helping my friends, and pulling their art from underwater. I don’t have time to worry about you. And I’m staying at a motel in Brooklyn.” For a moment she wondered if he was cheating on her, but it didn’t seem likely. He was on a mission. “I’ll come back when I’m finished. You’ve got that idiot you were married to, to help you—why do you need to hear from me too?” She was offended on Charles’s behalf—he had been extremely nice to her and the girls, in spite of what she had done to him, and he was genuinely concerned with their well-being and safety, with no apparent ulterior motive.

  “He’s just concerned about the children. And I’m not his responsibility. I live with you, not with him.”

  “You’re not my responsibility either,” he said harshly. “I’m not your mother or father, Gina. I can’t worry about you all the time, and they’re his brats, not mine. He should be taking care of them. Why do I have to?” He sounded incensed that she wanted anything from him, and everything he had said to her was offensive, about her, Charles, and her children.

  “Presumably you would want to take care of us because you love me.” And she had hoped that he liked the girls better than he seemed to. She was furious that he had called her daughters “brats.” They were well behaved and had always been nice to him, and respectful. And thanks to Charles’s discretion, they weren’t old enough to know what Nigel had done to their parents’ marriage, or resent him for it. They were well-behaved, loving, good kids. “You can’t just dump us in the middle of a hurricane, while you help a bunch of artists in Brooklyn, with no thought for us,” she said reproachfully to Nigel, and she was starting to get angry at him. She didn’t like the tone he had used with her, or what he said.

  “Well, that’s what I’m doing, whether you like it or not. And you’re fine. What are you complaining about?” Nigel said, sounding furious.

  “I was in a shelter for several days. We were evacuated from our apartment. We can’t even go back there yet. We’re living out of a suitcase. My girls are frightened, Nigel, and so am I. Or at least we were. I’m not just some bimbo you picked up last week. I left Charles for you. You have some responsibility to us, just as a human being, if you care about us at all.”

  “Don’t get me confused with Charles,” Nigel said, shouting at her. “I’m not some prissy little wimp who’s going to hang around to wipe your ass or your daughters’. Put on your big-girl panties, Gina, and take care of yourself. I’m not your nursemaid, and I don’t want to worry about you all the time. You left him because you wanted to—you were bored to death with him. But that doesn’t mean I have to be responsible for you, or your children. I’m busy right now—figure it out for yourself.” She had been seriously worried for his safety in the hurricane, and she realized now that he hadn’t been worried about her. And Charles might be traditional and less exciting than Nigel, but he would have never let her go through a hurricane without coming to her aid. He had been remarkable ever since he came to the shelter. And he would never have said the kind of things Nigel had just said to her. He was too decent to do so.

  “Is this all I am to you, a piece of ass when it’s convenient, and when things go wrong, you expect me to fend for myself? Is that all I mean to you? I was worried about you, Nigel. I love you. I was afraid you’d get killed out there or drown. I was worried sick all night. And you didn’t give a damn about us.”

  “I’m not the Red Cross, for chrissake. And you were fine at the shelter.”

  “Maybe so, but we were scared in the middle of a hurricane.”

  “Nothing happened to you. I lost my goddamn cameras and equipment and my negatives. That’s a lot more important!” He had just spelled it out for her. His cameras and equipment meant more to him than she did. “I can’t deal with this bullshit. I’m not going to cater to you because you think you’re some kind of superstar now.”

  “I’m not a superstar. I’m a woman and a human being, and we needed you with us to help us.”

  “I’m not going to ride in on a white horse because you’re scared. I have better things to do,” he said bluntly.

  “What if something had happened to one of my children? There were kids washed away in the flood the other night.”

  “That’s not my problem. And they looked fine to me when I saw them at the shelter. That’s not who I am, Gina. We’re not married. They’re not my kids, and I’m not going to play knight in shining armor to fulfill your romantic fantasies. I was helping artists save their work. That’s a lot more important than sitting around a shelter holding your hand.” He had made that abundantly clear. As far as he was concerned, she could take care of herself and her children, and he would come back when he was ready to, and not before. He didn’t even feel inclined to call her. “I came all the way into Manhattan to see you. I didn’t have to do that.” He had also been delivering art to safe locations for his friends. He had said that.

  “You should have wanted to, because you love me,” she said with tears in her eyes. He was all about himself, his friends, and whatever he thought was important at the moment. And for now, she wasn’t it. And whatever she needed from him was of no importance to him.

  “I love you, but my studio is important to me too. And right now, my friends out here need me more than you do.”

  “That’s good to know,” she said quietly. Suddenly the fight had gone out of her. He didn’t want to get it, and he was never going to. She was someone he cared about, but she was never going to be his first priority. He didn’t have the same kind of values that Charles did, or that she had grown up with, where you expect a man to be there for you. She suddenly realized what she had given up, in exchange for something fun and flashy. And when the chips were down, the flash vanished, and she was on her own. She didn’t expect anything from Charles now, but she did from Nigel, and he didn’t play by the same rules.

  “I’ll see you when I see you,” he said somberly, as annoyed with her as he had been when he got her messages to call her. “And don’t expect me to call you. I don’t want that hanging around my neck while I’m doing what I can out here. I’ll probably stay here for a few weeks.”

  “I think I’m going home for a while,” she said quietly. “It’s a mess downtown, the girls don’t have school, Charles wants to spend time with them, and I want to see my parents. It’s too stressful being here right now. And there’s no work for me anyway. The agency is closed too because of the flood. And if you’re not coming back for several weeks, I don’t see why I should sit here waiting for you to show up, while you take care of your friends in Brooklyn and don’t give a damn about us.”

  She was angry at him, possibly irreparably. She didn’t know yet, but Nigel had
shown a side of himself she had never fully understood before. And with his attitude, he was never going to be there for her in a crisis, or maybe even in day-to-day life as time went on. He had made things plain to her that night, and she didn’t like anything she’d heard from him. She had been a fool to fall for him in the first place. He had dazzled her with his charm, when he felt like it, but there was nothing behind it to back it up. She could see that now, and it had been an unpleasant revelation and a huge disappointment. He was not someone she could count on, in a hurricane or at any other time. Nigel took care of one person, himself, and he would never be any different.

  “Do whatever you want,” he said tersely. “When are you leaving?”

  “I don’t know yet. Maybe this weekend. I have to find out when I can get tickets.” She had been waiting to talk to him first and see what he said. Now she knew.

  “Have a good time in England, if you go back,” he said blithely. She wasn’t going for a good time, if she did. She was going to provide a little peace for her girls and herself, after the shocking experience they’d been through. She didn’t bother to explain it to him, because she knew he wouldn’t get that either. As long as he was fine, that was all that mattered to him.