Until the End of Time: A Novel

by Danielle Steel

  “Bill says we can do it for a year, and if I hate it, we’ll come back.” Jenny tried to sound confident, but she was scared too. And her mother was echoing her own fears, and fanning the flames of panic. But Jenny had made up her mind.

  “In your business, you can’t just come and go like that. People will find other consultants quickly. It could hurt your business badly if you left.”

  Jenny sounded serious when she answered. “Maybe it could hurt my marriage if we stay. Bill really needs a break. He’s been thinking about going back to the law firm, if he doesn’t find a church by the end of the year. He would hate that. I don’t want that to happen to him. And this church sounds like exactly what he wanted. It’s just in the wrong place. But who knows, maybe it’s the right one.” Her mother couldn’t believe how brave she was being, and how kind to her husband. It was a huge sacrifice for her to make. And Bill knew it too. Jenny talked to Azaya about it in the ensuing days, and Azaya said she would try to do her best to keep Jenny’s business alive, though in a somewhat reduced way. And Azaya was sure that Nelson would help too. There was no way that Jenny could provide the full services she had while she was in New York. But she could consult with them on the phone and they could send her fabric samples and drawings to look at. It would keep her hand in, and for some it might be enough. And she could come back for Fashion Week in February, and again in September, if they hadn’t moved back by then.

  Azaya agreed to service their clients to the best of her abilities, for a year anyway, and she and Jenny could talk by phone every day. It wouldn’t be enough to make some clients happy, but it would work for others. And it was only for a year. After that Jenny could come back and take over the reins again, or maybe they’d stay in Wyoming. For the moment, Jenny was open to anything.

  Azaya was stunned, just as Helene had been. Jenny was planning to go with her whole heart and an open mind. It had been a week since she and Bill had first discussed it, and she brought it up with him that night.

  “So when are we moving to Wyoming?” she said casually, as she cleared away their dinner plates. Bill had brought home Chinese takeout. He looked at her in surprise.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Nope. I’m serious. If it’s okay with you, I’d rather not sublet the apartment, just so we know it’s here, as a kind of security blanket in case something goes wrong. Azaya says she’ll babysit my clients, the ones who don’t dump me flat. And I’d probably need about a month to get them ready.” It was the first week in October. “I think I could do it in early November. What about you? I think we’ve got to give it a try,” she said, and her voice sounded stronger, when she talked about it, than it had the week before.

  “Are you just doing this for me?” he asked, with a look of astonishment. He had fully expected her to change her mind, and wouldn’t have been angry at her if she had.

  “I’m doing it for us,” she said simply. “And who knows, maybe we’ll have better luck having a baby there. It’s worth a shot. And most of all, I want you to have a church. You deserve one, and if that’s the one you want, I’m game.” She was smiling at him, and he hugged her so hard, he nearly knocked the wind out of her.

  “Remember, if you hate it, we’ll come back in a year. Less, if you want.” He thought it was a good idea to keep the apartment. For the moment he thought it wiser to keep a foothold in New York. “I will never, ever forget what you’re doing for me, Jenny,” Bill said gratefully. They talked about it all night. And he called the head of the church board in Moose, Wyoming, the next day. They asked Bill to come out in a week, and he said yes. And Jenny would follow him in a month, after she tied up all the loose ends in New York. She and Bill agreed to buy simple furniture locally for the house that came with the ministry. She wanted to leave all their things in the New York apartment and not disrupt their home there, which Bill thought wise too. And it would be nice to start fresh with simple furnishings. Their lives were about to change radically. For better or worse, they were on their way to Moose, Wyoming.

  His brother Tom nearly fell out of his seat when Bill called to tell him before he left.

  “Are you serious? I thought we almost had you convinced to come back to the firm. Dad will be crushed.” Tom sounded disappointed.

  “You nearly did. My wife talked me into going to Moose.”

  Tom laughed at the idea. “You’re either a lunatic or a saint, I’m not sure which. That is one hell of a change for both of you. What’s Jenny going to do about her business?” He knew how important it was to her, and she couldn’t take it with her.

  “She’s leaving her assistant to run it for a year. And she’ll do what she can by phone and mail. And she’ll come back a couple of times. She expects to slow down, though. She’s been an incredibly good sport about it. She’s the saint. I’m the lunatic.”

  “I think I have to agree. When are you leaving?”

  “In two days.”

  “Stay in touch,” Tom reminded his little brother. He had to admire him for his perseverance and guts. And one thing was for sure, he had a wife who loved him more than anything in the world. Tom had no illusions that his own wife would have done the same for him. It was a huge sacrifice to make, as Bill was well aware.

  “Come and visit us in Moose,” Bill said, sounding happy and excited about what they were about to do. This was what he had been waiting for, through all his years of seminary, and the four months since.

  Tom laughed. He was still laughing when he hung up the phone, as Peter walked into his office.

  “Who was that?” Peter asked in his usual querulous tone.

  “Our baby brother Bill,” Tom said, still smiling.

  “Is he coming back in?” Peter asked, bored.

  “No, he isn’t,” Tom answered him. “He is going to Moose, Wyoming, to be a minister. I have to hand it to him.” And to Jenny. And for a fraction of a minute, he envied them for what they shared, even if he thought they were crazy for moving to Moose.

  “Moose, Wyoming?” Peter said to Tom, stunned. “You’re not kidding?”

  “No, I’m not,” Tom said with an amused glance in his brother’s direction. “I almost wish I were going with him,” he confessed. It suddenly sounded like a lot more fun than his own life in New York.

  Chapter 6

  Bill flew to Salt Lake City, and from there he took a small plane to Jackson Hole. It was snowing when they landed. Winter had already set in, and a tall man with gray hair, in cowboy boots and a Stetson, was waiting for him in the small airport. He was the head of the church board, who had been corresponding with Bill since June, hoping to convince him to take their offer. He had a serious face, with deep weathered lines and electric blue eyes. And he smiled as soon as he saw Bill, in jeans, hiking boots, and a parka, and somehow he still looked like New York, compared to Clay Roberts, who looked like he should have been riding a horse, and most of the time he was. He owned a ranch in the same county as the church. He was a widower and had lost his wife ten years before. He had a big black truck with the insignia of his ranch on the door, and he had come to drive Bill to fifteen miles outside Moose, to Sts. Peter and Paul Church, which was about to become Bill’s new home.

  Clay explained to him about the district and the ranches, some for cattle, others for horses. He mentioned a few of the ranchers by name, although he said they hardly ever came to church. And he explained that the area around the church was populated by several hundred people, most of whom knew each other. There was a school, a main street with two restaurants, a general store, a post office, a drug store, a laundromat, and two motels for people passing through town. He said there was a very respectable library, a movie theater twenty miles away, and a supermarket a little closer. And they were less than an hour from Jackson Hole, where the rich and famous were starting to gather and it was slowly becoming a tourist town. And in the summer there was a rodeo. He asked Bill if he liked to ride.

  “Not lately. But I enjoyed it a lot as a kid.” He and
his brothers had ridden at camp every summer and had gone to a dude ranch in Montana several times with their parents. He was a competent rider, which Clay said would be useful, since in the spring when the snows melted, and even in the winter, there were areas you could only reach by horseback, if he needed to visit members of the congregation who were sick or elderly or shut in for some reason. He said that the church had been built with a capacity of two hundred, which had been optimistic, but considering the size of the community, there had been a fairly decent turnout on Sundays, of somewhere around a hundred people. And there was a Catholic church in the next town, Our Lady of the Mountains.

  As they drove toward Moose, avoiding Jackson Hole on the highway, Bill could see the Grand Tetons in the distance. They were breathtaking, and looked as though they had been painted shades of violet and dark blue, with pale blue sky above them, and a pink light in the sky at sunset. The view was dazzling, and the mountains looked powerful and mysterious. Bill thought he had never seen anything as beautiful, and Clay was easy to talk to as they drove along.

  When they reached Moose, Clay drove him past all the places he had mentioned, the restaurants, the post office, the general store, and then drove another fifteen miles out of town, to where the church was. And as they approached it, Bill could see the steeple of the white wooden structure rising into the sky with a bell tower on top. The building looked freshly painted and in good order, and there were neat hedges, flowerbeds, and a picket fence around it, and two huge trees providing shade. And just behind it was a small neat yellow house, with white shutters, its own picket fence, and red roses in the front garden. Clay explained that the women in the community took care of the garden. He said they had provided the basics, a bed, a chest, some lamps, a desk, a kitchen table, and some chairs. But Bill would have to provide the rest of the furniture. He said that they would find what they needed at a shopping mall fifty miles away. Bill said he wanted to pick up some things so that Jenny would not arrive to an empty house.

  They got out of the truck in front of the church, and Bill walked inside with a feeling of awe. It was his first ministry, and he wanted to shout. There were beautiful stained-glass windows, some statuary, simple pews, and a dignified altar. It was a plain building, but lovely in an unpretentious way. And the rectory was right behind the church, with a small waiting room, and an office for the pastor. And right out the back door was the little yellow house that was about to become their home. He walked through it with Clay. There were three bedrooms upstairs, in case the pastor had children, a big living room downstairs, a cozy country kitchen with a dining area, and a playroom in the basement. It was all they needed. And Jenny could use one of the bedrooms as her office. Bill could see that the house was freshly painted. The bedroom was pale blue, and everything else was white, except the kitchen, which was yellow. It was bright and cheerful. There was a washing machine and a dishwasher and two bathrooms. It was more than adequate, and had a warm, cozy feeling to it. Bill turned to look at Clay with a happy smile.

  “It’s perfect,” he said, feeling like a kid with his first bicycle.

  “I’m glad you like it. Call me if you need anything. I left one of our trucks from the ranch out back so you can get around, but you’ll need to buy your own, and I put one of our horses in the stall. He’s a good, solid ride named Navajo. He’s sure-footed, which is useful around here.” Bill nodded. They had thought of everything to make him feel at home. Clay jotted down his phone number and handed it to him, and as Bill looked around the kitchen, he realized that there was food everywhere, in casserole dishes, baskets, and bowls, with cellophane around it, with big red bows. The refrigerator was full. Bill looked at Clay in surprise, and he laughed. “Your congregation will take good care of you. At least you won’t starve. They wanted you to feel welcome.” He felt very welcome, and he shook hands with Clay and thanked him again. And after he left, Bill looked around again and did a little jig all by himself. And then he walked back into the church, knelt down at the altar, and said a prayer of deep thanks. Sts. Peter and Paul had been worth waiting for, and he could hardly wait for Jenny to see it.

  He called her that night and described everything to her, and hearing him so elated told her that their decision had been the right one. She had spent the day explaining to her clients that she was taking a year off to support her husband in his ministry. Everyone was shocked and couldn’t believe she was moving.

  It made the front page of Women’s Wear Daily a few days later, and all her clients were in a panic. Two of them told her that they couldn’t manage with reduced creative input and asked her to help them find new consultants, which she agreed to do. And five of them agreed to try and work with Azaya, and Jenny herself long distance, if she would agree to fly in to help them occasionally if a crisis came up. She promised to be there for Fashion Week, and a week before that to set up their shows. She was impressed that they were willing to stay with her, despite her unexpected relocation to Wyoming, and it made the move considerably less traumatic for her. She didn’t have to give up everything and everyone, and she and Azaya had endless meetings to brief her on what she didn’t know. She went to all of Jenny’s meetings with her before she left, so the clients would start getting used to dealing with her when they needed face-to-face meetings in New York.

  And on her last weekend in New York, Jenny’s mother came up from Philadelphia to spend a few days with her. Helene was sad to see her leave, but Jenny was so excited about it that Helene was hopeful for her that it was the right thing to do. She tried not to compare it to her own dark memories of moving to a coal mining town thirty years before. And from everything Bill was telling her, Jenny said the area was beautiful, and their new home looked like a dollhouse. He had taken photographs of it, and she showed them to her mother. And it did in fact look like a very nice place. And between preparing his first sermon, and driving around the area to meet the members of his congregation, he had managed to go to the shopping mall Clay had told him about, and he had bought a truck, so he could return Clay’s, and some basic furniture for their new home. None of it was stylish, but it was functional and modern, and he was sure that Jenny would somehow add her own touches and turn the house into a home when she got there.

  She could hardly wait to do that, and after seeing the photographs, she had shipped a few small decorative items, and some photographs and watercolors for their walls. The house had a light, airy feeling, and her mother said that if she sent the measurements, she’d make curtains for them. It was the kind of thing her grandmother would have done, and it touched Jenny when her mother offered to do that. Jenny promised to send the measurements as soon as she arrived.

  Bill had bought them a couch by then, in a soft beige velvet, and two comfortable armchairs. There were hardwood floors, and he had gotten a simple hooked rug in neutral tones. It was like starting out and getting married all over again. And Jenny felt that way too. Going to Wyoming with him was like renewing their vows, for better or worse, richer or poorer, until death did them part.

  And during the weeks while he waited for her, Bill delivered what he thought were three very strong sermons, and he read them to Jenny over the phone before he gave them. The first one was about what home meant to him, and how grateful he was to be there, and how home was a place in their hearts, more than a physical structure. The message was simple but heartfelt, and a number of people commented on it when they shook his hand and introduced themselves after the service. He had already met several of them, from dropping by their homes as he made his rounds.

  His second sermon was on resurrection, being reborn and starting fresh, after something bad happens, and having the courage to start again. That moved a number of people too, and Jenny thought it was excellent when he read it to her. And the third one was on forgiveness, and how vital that was in all relationships, particularly in marriage, and even in friendships, business relationships, or family relations. Several people thanked him for the sermon on the way out after
church.

  He had also managed to visit the elderly and the sick, and a young widow managing with three teenage boys. And he found that his brief time as chaplain before leaving New York had served him well. He discovered that there were a number of children in the community, and a very pleasant woman ran the Sunday school, which was full every week. Bill wasn’t sure, but he had the feeling that the numbers in church increased slightly every week, as people came to hear his sermons. And everyone said they were looking forward to meeting Jenny and anxious for her to arrive. So was he. He was lonely at night without her and had so much to tell her every day, while she was busy wrapping things up in New York. He had explained to several of the women who had asked that she worked in fashion, and was a consultant to several designers, although he found it difficult to explain to people who were so far removed from the fashion industry and knew nothing about her job. It was hard enough for him to understand the intricacies of it, even though he had lived with it every day for nearly six years.

  And he was surprised when his brother Tom called him a week after he arrived. “So are you ready to come back yet?” he asked as soon as Bill answered the phone, and they both laughed.

  “No, it’s great here. The Grand Tetons are gorgeous, the church is just what I wanted, and the house is very cute. And my congregation is full of nice people. They keep bringing me enough food to feed an army.”

  “Good lord, you sound like a country minister. Wait till Jenny gets there. That should stir them up a little. She’ll be teaching them about fashion trends in New York. I hope your house has enough closets.”

  “It doesn’t. But I bought a few old armoires at a yard sale.” For the time being, he had turned the second bedroom into a dressing room for her, and the third bedroom into her office. If they had a baby, she’d have to give up one or the other, but for a nursery he was sure she wouldn’t mind. “I bought a truck, and I have to visit some of the congregation on horseback. It’s beautiful country, Tom.” Tom had never heard his younger brother so relaxed and so peaceful. Clearly, he had done the right thing. Tom just hoped Jenny thought so too when she arrived. It was an enormous leap of faith for her. It had endeared her to him, as nothing else ever had.