First Sight

by Danielle Steel

  “Hello,” Timmie said softly, “I’m Timmie.” And then she gently took the woman in her arms and held her, comforting her for all she’d done and hadn’t and should have, for the foolish cowardly lost girl she’d been at twenty-two, when she’d abandoned her five-year-old daughter. Timmie had vague memories of her, but like old photographs, most of them were faded. Mary O’Neill just stood there as her daughter held her, and then led her into the kitchen with an arm around her shoulders. Mary smiled at her with pleasure and said she had her father’s red hair and her grandmother’s good looks. It was hard to believe the two women were related, and in all the ways that mattered, they weren’t. Destiny had taken them different ways. They were different people, and Mary would never have had the courage to face the things that Timmie had gone through. She knew it as she looked at her.

  “You’re beautiful,” she said, and then laughed through her tears. “You look like a rich girl to me.” She had noticed the diamond bracelet, the gold hoop earrings, and the expensive handbag, although Timmie was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. And then she noticed her protruding stomach. Timmie had worn a loose jacket on the plane, but in the heat in Dublin she had taken it off. She didn’t care who saw her belly here. “Are you pregnant?” Her mother looked surprised as Timmie nodded. “Are you? Are you married? Have you other children?” There was a lot to catch up on, as they sat down to two mugs of strong tea.

  “I was married. I’ve been divorced for eleven years. And I had a little boy who died twelve years ago of a brain tumor. I’m in love with a man in Paris, and this is his baby. I don’t know if we’ll get married. But I’m happy to have the baby. I don’t have any other children, and I’ve been very sad since my son died.” It was all she needed to know, and her mother nodded as she sipped her tea.

  “I hope you have a healthy baby this time. My grandson died of leukemia a few years ago. These things happen. My daughter was very sad too.” It was so strange to hear her talk about her daughter, and speak to Timmie as a stranger, which in fact she was. “You must have a good job.” Even she could see that however casual, Timmie’s jewelry and accessories were expensive.

  “I do,” Timmie said simply.

  “I’m glad for you. Where do you live?”

  “In Los Angeles.” Her mother nodded. It was a lot of information to take in at once.

  They steered clear of discussing Timmie’s childhood, and she correctly sensed her mother didn’t want to hear about it or know. Timmie was willing to accept that, it made no difference. She didn’t need to beat her to death with it, she was just glad to be there, and see her. It filled in an empty place for her somehow. And halfway through their tea, a young woman came in with two children in tow. She looked as though she was in her late thirties, and she had the same red hair as Timmie, but they looked nothing alike otherwise. She was wearing jeans and flip-flops, and the children were very cute. The woman looked at Timmie with a broad smile, with no flash of recognition. Why would she? Timmie asked herself. She didn’t exist as far as these people were concerned, and never had. She had been all but forgotten years ago, a dark secret they intended to take to their grave with them. Her mother looked at her with worried eyes, and Timmie nodded. She understood. She was not going to tell her sister who she was. She didn’t need to know.

  “I didn’t know you had a visitor, Mum,” the young woman said, and introduced herself to Timmie as Bridget. She helped herself to a cup of tea and sat down with them, while the children went outside and ran around in the untidy garden.

  “She’s the daughter of a friend in America, when your dad and I were there years ago. She looked me up when she got to Dublin. I hadn’t heard from her mum in years. She died a long time ago,” she added, as Timmie watched her face and realized it was true. The mother who had left her at the orphanage had disappeared forever, and might as well have been dead. And the child she had been to them was too. They had buried her when they left her at St. Clare’s.

  “Nice of you to look my mum up,” Bridget said, smiling. “Having a holiday in Ireland, are you? You should spend some time on the Coast. It’s lovely country,” she said pleasantly, and then went outside to check on her kids, as Timmie stood up.

  There was no point staying anymore. She had finished what she came to do. She had seen her mother, met her sister. She didn’t know all the reasons why they had done what they did. But she knew enough. They had been young, ignorant, frightened kids who had a child, and ran off in the night, too afraid to do what they should. And in seeing her mother, Timmie had done what she needed to do for herself. Maybe in the end they had given her a gift, without ever meaning to. They had given her herself, and a strength she might never have had otherwise, to survive Mark’s death, Derek’s leaving, everything it took to build Timmie O, and now to stand beside Jean-Charles through all his problems and wait for him, and to love their child and be there for it forever. Without ever intending to, her parents had given her the strength they never had, and still didn’t now.

  Her mother didn’t have the courage to tell her sister who she was, or why she was there. Timmie was passing through their lives, only for minutes, like a breath of air from a long-forgotten time that Mary O’Neill didn’t have the strength to address or remember, and never had. Instead of anger or regret, Timmie only felt sorry for her. She stooped to kiss her cheek, and touch her shoulders as Bridget came back in with her boys.

  “Goodbye,” Timmie whispered softly, and gently touched her mother’s hair, wondering if she had done that as a child, as Mary looked up at her with grateful eyes.

  “God bless you,” Mary said softly, as Timmie walked out of the kitchen, through the house, and out the front door to the cab still waiting for her outside. She got back in the taxi, and waved at Bridget as it pulled away and drove off, back toward the airport. She could still hear the sound of her mother’s blessing, and realized that whatever had happened to her along the way, He already had. God had blessed her in so many ways, over the years, and was doing so again now. She knew she could better live with the present, and face the future, now that she had faced the ghosts of the past.

  “Nice woman,” Bridget commented before she left her mother. “Looks like a rich one. You must have known some fancy people when you were in the States, eh, Mum?” Her father had told a lot of tales over the years to impress his children. Mary had never said much. And she only nodded now, and looked away with tears in her eyes.

  Chapter 21

  Timmie called Jean-Charles from the airport, during her layover in London on the way back. He was in his office and sounded busy, and had no idea where she was. For a moment, she was tempted to tell him, and fly over to Paris to see him. It was only two weeks until their promised meeting, and she was aching to see him now.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, sounding more relaxed than she had in a while. She felt freer, and suddenly lucky, and as though everything was going to turn out fine for them as well. Maybe Sister Anne’s prayers had worked. And the baby felt like it was growing bigger and stronger by the hour. She had her loose easy jacket back on for the trip, so nothing showed.

  “I’m just about to take my wife for her last treatment,” he said, sounding frantic. He had a lot to do in the next two weeks, and his children to tell the following week. He was meeting them in Portofino for a little trip. Just he and his girls, and Xavier had promised to join them. He wanted some time alone with them, to share his plans with them, and then he would tell his wife that he was leaving for good. He would be around to help her through her illness, if she wanted him to do that. But if not, he knew she could handle the radiation on her own, and the girls would be there for her. He had stood by for the worst. “Why? Are you all right?” He sounded worried about Timmie. She sounded as though she had something on her mind. He was always so afraid that she would just throw in the towel and give up on him. He was so grateful she hadn’t yet, and he was deeply appreciative of that, as he told her every chance he got. He thought she sounded happy
on the phone.

  “I don’t know. I was just having a crazy moment, and wondering if you want to advance our date at the Eiffel Tower by a couple of weeks.” If so, she would have flown to Paris then and there, and met him anywhere he wanted. She felt suddenly lighter than she had in years, and free. A huge burden had slipped from her shoulders in Dublin, and she wanted to share it with him.

  “Timmie, I can’t.” He sounded anxious. “You know I need the next weeks with my kids. I really owe it to them.” She tried not to feel as disappointed as she was. They only had a few more weeks to wait, and she could get through it, if he insisted on holding to their date on September 1. And as she listened to him, they called her plane.

  “Gotta go,” she said without comment on what he’d said. She wasn’t going to argue with him. They had a date on September 1.

  “Where are you?” he asked, sounding puzzled.

  “Nowhere. I’m on my way home. I just thought I’d call.” She didn’t say from where, and when he called her back an hour later, her cell phone had been turned off. He wondered where she had been when she called, and he couldn’t reach her again for nearly twenty-four hours. By then he was seriously worried about her, and afraid she was angry at him, but she had sounded fine.

  She was getting more and more excited about their date at the Eiffel Tower. It had been four months since they’d seen each other, an eternity to both of them. They’d been to hell and back, with assorted detours in between. But they were still on track, steady on course, and very much in love. She felt blessed, and less scared these days, particularly after seeing her mother. The visit had lifted some sort of curse on her she’d always feared, that she was doomed to be abandoned. She didn’t feel that anymore, and hadn’t since her day in Dublin. They had abandoned her, but her mother had seemed so weak and defeated, Timmie wondered if they would have been capable of doing anything else.

  She was in high spirits for the next two weeks. She had her plane reservation for Paris, and a room reserved at the Plaza Athénée. She was flying on August 31, so she’d be fresh when she saw him on September 1. She had even bought something to wear, which would conceal her stomach for the first few minutes. After that, it would be hard to hide from him, especially if they went to the hotel to make up for lost time. She was amazed that she had been able to conceal it so far from David and Jade. She wore a lot of long jackets and loose tops these days. She only wore clothes that revealed her stomach when she was alone at home.

  Jade commented on her good mood to David two days before Timmie was scheduled to leave. He had been teasing her that she was going to owe him a thousand dollars very shortly on their bet on Jean-Charles showing up on September 1. There had been no message to the contrary so far, and he was calling her a lot.

  “I told you he would come through,” David said victoriously, as Jade raised an eyebrow and refused to concede. It was August 29.

  “Don’t be so sure. He hasn’t shown up yet. If he’s anything like Stanley, he’ll call her to cancel the night before. It’s more fun that way.”

  “Don’t be such a cynic, for chrissake,” David scolded her.

  “We’ll see. I hope I’m wrong. For her sake. I think if he was going to get out of that marriage, he would have done it months ago. The ones who wait never do. He’s still taking care of his wife, not her.”

  “She had breast cancer, for Heaven’s sake. He would have been a shit to leave.” She nodded and went back to her desk. And Timmie left the office early the next day, to get her hair trimmed and her legs waxed before the trip. She waved happily at them both as she left. She was taking a week off to be with him, which was what they’d agreed on. She might even go to the South of France with him. She wasn’t sure. Jade had reserved her usual suite at the Plaza Athénée for her for a week.

  Timmie was packing last-minute things that night, when Jean-Charles called. She had everything organized, and had even bought several new outfits for the trip, from a maternity shop on Rodeo Drive, claiming they were for her niece, since she was well known. She was planning to come out of the closet about the baby as soon as Jean-Charles was back. And she was smiling happily when she picked up the phone. It had been the longest, hardest four months of her life, except for those after Mark had died. Those had been worse, but these were tough.

  “Hi,” she said, sounding elated, when she heard his voice. She was almost giddy thinking about their meeting at the Eiffel Tower. It was silly, but one of the most romantic things she’d ever done. He could just as easily have come to the hotel. “I’m just getting ready to close my bags.” She was taking a noon flight the next day.

  There was a strange silence at his end, and then she heard his choked voice. “Timmie, I can’t come. The girls were staying with friends of their mother’s in Sardinia. They went there after I left them in Portofino. Julianne just had a car accident. She’s in the hospital with a broken pelvis and two broken legs, and a head injury of some kind. I’m flying there tonight.” For a moment, she was too stunned to speak.

  “Will she be all right?”

  “I don’t know. Her legs are very badly broken, but it sounds like she’ll be fine eventually. She’s going to be flat on her back for a long time. I’m taking a neurologist with me to Sardinia. I want to be sure her head is all right. But there’s no way I’ll be back day after tomorrow.” He sounded as devastated as she felt.

  “Boy, you guys don’t play for small stakes, do you?” she said, letting her own terrors slip out.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Car accidents. Cancer. It’s hard to compete with that.” Although their baby might have, if he’d known. She was almost sorry she hadn’t told him yet. She was getting tired of standing in line, behind other people’s crises, and being the last priority on his list. It was wearing thin. And she was so disappointed about September 1, she felt like a child who had just been told Christmas had been canceled.

  “This isn’t a competition. And hopefully I’ll be back in a week. At most two. I don’t want to leave her there alone, and her mother is in no condition to go to her. She starts radiation next week anyway.” All of a sudden it felt like too much to her. She felt overwhelmed. It was turning into more of a soap opera than a love affair, with him playing rescuing hero to everyone but her, while she stood by and waited for him, and tried to be understanding every time. It was getting old. She had waited a long time. “I’ll call you as soon as I see what condition she’s in.” He sounded terse. Timmie hadn’t been as sympathetic as he had hoped. In fact, almost not at all, which was unlike her. She felt stretched to her limits now. Maybe beyond them. She wasn’t sure. It depended on what he did now, and how long he expected her to wait again. Or if he’d come up with another dramatic excuse. At least his excuses were good, if that’s what they were. She didn’t know what to believe anymore, except that she was sure it was all true. Just hard to live with it again. She had been counting the minutes for days, and she was so in love with him. “I’ll call you from there,” he said, and started to hang up, when she stopped him.

  “Should I just fly to Paris, and wait at the hotel?” It might make more sense, rather than waiting for him in L.A. He hesitated at her question for what seemed like too long.

  “No. Why waste your time here? Stay there, at least you can work. I’ll let you know as soon as I’m coming back, and you can fly in then.” His answer made her suspicious again. Why did he want her to wait in L.A.? What was going to be the next excuse or delay? Maybe he was planning one. All she could hear in her head now was Jade, with her constant predictions of doom. Maybe she was right. Maybe this was just a very bad joke he was playing on her.

  Timmie took her suitcase off the bed and lay down. She stared at the ceiling, thinking of him, wondering if he was for real. Maybe Jade was right. Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was just stringing this out, or couldn’t bring himself to leave his family and didn’t want to tell her. She didn’t know what to think anymore. She didn’t sleep all night. She just wand
ered around her house, looking dazed, waiting to hear from him. He called her twelve hours after the last call. Julianne’s head was going to be okay. Her legs were not. Or not for a while. She had to stay in the hospital in Italy in traction for four weeks. He couldn’t move her until then, and he couldn’t leave her alone in a hospital there. She was totally panicked. And so was Timmie as she listened. She tried to be sympathetic, but knew she wasn’t. She didn’t have it in her anymore. She just told him to do what he had to do and call her when he was free. It was the best she could do.

  She strode into her office the next day without a word. It was September 1. David stared at Jade, who looked smug, and told him he’d better start writing her a thousand-dollar check. But beyond the bet, they were both upset for Timmie, who closed her office door and shut them out. She worked quietly on designs all morning and then explained that Jean-Charles’s daughter had had an accident and was in a hospital in Italy for a month, with him stuck there with her. This time Jade said not a word. She was sorry for Timmie, and so was David. Timmie looked so upset that neither of them dared talk to her all day, and she left the office for the weekend without saying goodbye to them.

  She went straight to Malibu, and Jean-Charles called her there several times over the weekend. She tried to be understanding to him, and sympathetic with Julianne’s woes, but it was hard not telling him how upset she was, how disappointed and discouraged. She couldn’t help wondering how many times this would happen, and if she’d ever see him again. She wanted to call Sister Anne and ask her to pray harder. Or maybe this was the answer to her prayers. Maybe Jean-Charles wasn’t the man for her, and her prayers were exposing that. It was hard to know, and as she listened to him every day, she began to trust him less and less. How much longer would this go on? He swore to her no longer than a month, and she dragged through all of September believing him. She was still hiding their baby. She still hadn’t told him. And her nerves were raw. Her temper was short. Her terrors were rampant and in full control. And there was nothing she could do but wait. Or give up, and she wasn’t ready to do that yet. She wanted to believe in him, and she was hanging by a thread.