Until the End of Time: A Novel

by Danielle Steel

  Bob had been sitting at his desk thinking about her, as he had for the past week, assuming she was back at home with her family. He hadn’t heard from her, and he hadn’t written to her since she left.

  “Was she killed?” Bob sounded like he was in shock.

  “No, she’s been in a coma since it happened, in critical condition. The hospital says she’s an Amish girl. Blond, green eyes, twenty to twenty-five, five foot one, ninety pounds. Is that her?”

  “Oh my God … oh my God …,” Bob said, instantly frantic. His heart was pounding so hard, he could hear it. “Where is she?” Williams told him the name of the hospital in New Brunswick, and Bob hung up and called them immediately, after thanking Jack Williams for the information. The hospital confirmed that she was still in a coma in critical condition, and the description matched. He told them he’d get there as soon as he could to see if it was Lilli. He didn’t want to contact her family until he was sure. He assumed they would be frantic, wondering where she was, but no one had called him.

  It was the worst two hours of Bob Bellagio’s life. He drove at full speed and didn’t care if he got picked up by the police, but miraculously he didn’t. He parked outside the hospital and rushed into the emergency room, where they sent him upstairs to Intensive Care. It was a highly efficient state-of-the-art-hospital with an elaborate ICU and trauma unit, and they led him into the cubicle where the young woman was lying, with tubes and monitors everywhere. A nurse was observing her closely, and a doctor was checking her when Bob walked in.

  “How is she?” he asked in a choked voice. It was Lilli, almost unrecognizable, with a bruised face, black eyes, two broken arms, and a bandage on her head. But it was Lilli. He was sure. He bent closer and touched her face. She was far, far away. Her face looked peaceful, and they said she still had brain waves, and she had survived for six days, but she was still at risk. The swelling in her brain had come down without surgery, but there had been no sign of her regaining consciousness since she’d been admitted.

  Bob walked out of the cubicle with tears running down his cheeks. He thought of going to tell her father, but he didn’t want to leave her. And for six days he had thought she was home, and she was here.

  He called Joe Lattimer and told him what had happened, where Lilli was, and in what condition. “I don’t know what happened,” Bob said, sounding shaken, and feeling responsible somehow for what had occurred. The driver had been drunk. “The dispatcher says the driver dropped her off at home. But he must have picked her up again and didn’t tell them.”

  “Her father shunned her,” Joe said quietly, stunned by what he’d just heard from Bob. “He wouldn’t let her come home. He threw her out for going to New York. Her brothers told me a few days ago. They’re heartbroken over it. She must have called the driver back and left with him.” Bob and Joe were piecing it together, the story was heartbreaking, and Bob was irate that her father had shunned her and as a result this had happened. It had been her worst fear. And now his fear was he would lose her forever and never get a chance to tell her how much he loved her. She was within a hair of dying now.

  “You need to go and tell her father,” Bob told Joe. “He should come to her here. He’ll never forgive himself if she dies.” Nor would he.

  “Do you think she will die?” Joe sounded shocked.

  “It’s not looking good,” Bob said honestly. “She’s been in a coma for six days, with a severe head injury. Shunned or not, she’s his child.” Bob gave him the details of the hospital and then thought of something. “Maybe you can drive him. It’s too far to come in a carriage—it’ll take him forever.”

  “They move pretty fast,” Joe said. “I don’t know if he’ll ride in a car. I’ll ask him. It’s all I can do.”

  “Thanks, Joe,” Bob said, and hung up and went back to see Lilli. She had been alone in the cubicle for a few minutes as he sat down next to her and took her hand in his and talked to her.

  “Please, baby, please … come back … I love you so much … I should have told you in New York, but I didn’t want to scare you … please … it’ll be all right.… I love you, Lilli. I love you.” He kept repeating, “I love you!” He didn’t realize he had said it out loud, as a nurse walked by and looked startled, and he kept looking at Lilli. “I waited my whole life to find you, and you can’t leave me now … I love you until the end of time,” he said clearly, and then realized he had never said that to anyone before. He had no idea where it had come from, or why he had said it, but as he thought about it, he knew it was true.

  Chapter 22

  Lilli had been wandering in a beautiful garden for many days. It was a peaceful place … she saw people in it once in a while, but she slept most of the time, under a green leafy tree. She was very tired, and she slept for a long time. And when she woke up, her mother was sitting with her, and she said she was happy about the book, and very proud of her.

  “I knew you would be, Mama,” Lilli said, feeling lighter than she ever had, and happy that her mother was pleased. And then she slept again, and something woke her up. All she wanted was to sleep.

  Someone was calling her, and she wanted to stay in the garden and see her mother again. She had missed her so much. But when she woke up this time, there were two people with her, a man and a woman. The woman was very beautiful and had dark hair. Lilli thought it was her mother at first, but it wasn’t. She was laughing and walking beside a man on a horse, and they stopped to talk to Lilli. She told them she wanted to go with them and find her mother.

  “You can’t,” the woman said kindly. “You have to go back.”

  “I don’t want to,” Lilli said, feeling tired again. “It’s too far away.”

  “You can’t come with us,” the woman said again. “You have to go back, Lilli,” she repeated, “… for us …” She looked straight at Lilli and had beautiful blue eyes.

  “Will you come too?” Lilli asked her. The woman only smiled and shook her head.

  “Go back, Lilli,” she said again, and Lilli could hear the voice in the distance, calling her, as she watched them go. The man on the horse pulled the woman up behind him. They were laughing, and he kissed her, and then they rode away. They rode into the light Lilli wanted to get to, to be with them, but she couldn’t see them anymore … all she heard was the echo of their words. “Go back, Lilli … go back …” and she heard her mother say it too, and then the voice changed and someone else was saying, “Come back … come back, Lilli,” and she didn’t want to. She was so tired, and it was so much harder walking away from the light than toward it. It was too far to walk. Much too far to walk, and she was so tired.

  Bob was sitting next to her, holding her hand and talking to her, when she made a soft moaning sound and stirred. Bob called for the nurse immediately. It was midnight, and he had been there all day and night. Her father was in the room too, and Margarethe. Henryk looked stern but ravaged, and Margarethe was crying softly, as tears rolled down Bob’s cheeks, and he held Lilli’s hand in his own.

  “Come back, Lilli,” he said softly again, and she opened her eyes and saw them, and then closed her eyes again, as Bob choked on a sob of relief. She was waking up. She had come back, just as he had begged her to.

  The doctor came in, and they checked her, and she opened her eyes again and looked straight at Bob, with a puzzled expression. She didn’t understand why he was there, and her father. She had just seen her mother, and the couple on horseback. It was all so confusing.

  “I have to go to the hospital,” she said in a soft voice. “… Lucy is having a baby.…” She looked at Bob, as he smiled at her and stroked her cheek.

  “Who’s Lucy, sweetheart?”

  “I don’t know.” A tear slid down her cheek, but she was so happy to see him.

  “It’s okay, you’re okay. We’re all here. We’ve been waiting for you.”

  “I know,” she said, feeling confused, and drifted off again. She wanted to tell him about her mother and the couple on horseba
ck, but she was too tired. She dozed for a while then, and opened her eyes again and looked at her father. “I’m sorry, Papa,” she said.

  He spoke to her in German and told her it was all right. His lip was trembling as he did, and Margarethe and Bob looked at each other, as tears rolled down their cheeks.

  “We missed you,” Bob said after her father spoke to her. “Thank you for coming back.” She smiled again and squeezed his hand.

  “They made me come back,” she told him, and he didn’t ask who.

  “I’m glad they did. I was waiting for you. I’ve waited a long time for you, Lilli. I love you.” It was all he had wanted to say to her in New York. He said it clearly, and he didn’t care who heard him. He was never going to let anything bad happen to her again.

  “I was waiting for you too,” she said. “You took a long time.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, smiling at her. “I’ll try to make up for it.” And then she closed her eyes, and they left her for a little while to sleep.

  Henryk looked hard at Bob as they stood in the hallway, with a mixture of relief and terror on their faces. They had almost lost her, and they knew it. Two hours before, her body had started to shut down and her blood pressure plummeted, and then she came back.

  “You love my daughter?” he asked him directly, and Bob didn’t waver.

  “I do, sir. I have waited for her all my life. She’s a strong-minded girl.” Bob wanted to say “Like her father,” but he didn’t, and Margarethe smiled.

  “Is she going back to New York with you?” Henryk asked.

  “She wanted to come home to you. She never talked about staying in New York.” Henryk nodded. “She is Amish above all. I’ll bring her home to you when she leaves the hospital, if you like. She should be at home until she gets well.”

  “And you’ll visit her?”

  “With your permission. If she wants me to.”

  “I think she will. And she has my permission. You’re a good man. Will you take her to New York when she’s well?”

  “If she wants to. When she’s ready,” Bob said respectfully. It was up to Lilli, not either of them.

  “She should be with you,” Henryk said quietly. He could see how much Bob loved her, and he had heard him begging her to come back.

  “I hope she thinks so too,” Bob said, grateful she was alive and had survived.

  “I think she will. Bring her home to us when she’s better,” Henryk said to him. She was no longer shunned. Henryk and Margarethe left that night. The accident had brought them together. Joe Lattimer had driven them there and was waiting to take them home. He had been in the waiting room all night, not wanting to intrude.

  Bob stayed with Lilli at the hospital for the next two weeks, until she was well enough to leave. He sat with her constantly, talked when she wanted to, and let her sleep. He never left her side and slept on a cot in her room. She talked to him about seeing her mother, and the couple on horseback. “They told me I had to come back,” she explained to him while he listened. “I know it sounds crazy, but I had this strange feeling they were us. But they looked different.”

  “It wasn’t me if he was on horseback,” Bob said, smiling. “You know how I hate horses.”

  “Do you suppose it’s true that people have past lives?” she asked him. “I never believed that before, but I knew that I knew them, and she felt like me even if she looked different.”

  “Anything is possible. I’m just happy you’re here, in this life. I love you so much, Lilli.” And she knew he did. She could feel it every time she looked at him.

  “I love you too.”

  He drove her back to Lancaster when they discharged her from the hospital. She had made a remarkable recovery, although her broken arms hampered her. He and the nurses had to do everything for her. Margarethe was going to stay at the house to help her when she got home. They had been sending messages back and forth through Joe Lattimer at the dairy, who was more than happy to be their messenger.

  Henryk and the boys and Margarethe were waiting for them when they arrived. Her brothers hugged her and danced around and told her how silly she looked with the casts on her arms, “like Frankenstein,” Markus said, imitating her and walking like a monster.

  “Very funny, wait till I get them off, then you’ll be sorry,” she said, laughing. And her brothers had a surprise for her, a beautiful golden Lab puppy.

  Henryk invited Bob to spend the night, or longer if he liked. They gave him Willy’s room, and Willy offered to bunk with the twins. Margarethe was going to sleep on a cot they’d put in Lilli’s room, so she could help her at night. The doctors had told Lilli to rest for the next six weeks. It would be Thanksgiving by then.

  Henryk invited Bob to take a walk after dinner. It had gotten chilly, as they strolled to the barn.

  “Do you have something to ask me?” Henryk looked at him with a smile.

  “Yes, I do. I was thinking maybe around Christmas … if Lilli wants to … if you think …”

  “Do you want to marry my daughter?” Henryk asked, laughing at him.

  “Yes,” Bob said, grinning, feeling younger than Willy. “I have to ask her first.”

  “No, you have to ask me first. You just did. You have my blessing. I never thought I would say that to an Englishman,” Henryk said with a startled expression. “You can’t marry her here. You’ll have to marry her in an English church. But we’ll give you the feast at the house. And then you can take her to New York. But you’d better bring her back to visit often. We won’t come to New York to see you,” he said sternly. And then in a gruff voice, he looked at his future son-in-law again. “Margarethe and I will be getting married soon. We’d like you to come to the wedding.”

  “Thank you,” Bob said, grateful for the miracles in his life. At the moment there seemed to be many of them.

  They walked slowly back to the house, talking about the farm then, as Lilli and the boys watched from the window, and she looked worried.

  “What do you suppose Papa said to him?” Lilli asked Margarethe.

  “I think he’s trying to get rid of you again,” Josiah said to her. “To the Englishman this time.” He laughed out loud and Markus chuckled as Willy rolled his eyes.

  The men looked satisfied when they returned, and Margarethe shooed the boys upstairs to bed, as Bob invited Lilli to sit outside with him for a while. Henryk and Margarethe exchanged a look and smiled, and he nodded slightly, and she looked relieved. Henryk had softened, she knew. He would never have welcomed an Englishman before this. It had taken Lilli nearly dying to open her father’s heart.

  Bob and Lilli sat outside in the cool autumn air, in an old swing, just as courting couples had done for hundreds of years.

  “What did my father say?” she asked with a curious expression.

  “That I’d better bring you back to visit often, because he and Margarethe won’t come to New York,” he said, smiling, and she laughed.

  “They’re getting married,” Lilli told him, and he nodded.

  “He just told me.” And then he turned to her with a tender look. “What about us, Lilli? Are we?”

  “I think we already were in another life,” she said softly. She could still see the couple in her dream, on horseback, the handsome man and the beautiful woman with black hair riding behind him, who had sent her back.

  “Maybe we should do it again, just for good measure, in this lifetime.” But he didn’t disagree with her. He had had the sense that he had known her before, since the beginning. And whenever she looked into Bob’s eyes, she saw someone she already knew.

  “I suppose we could get married,” Lilli said with a slow smile. “What did my father say about it?” It was obvious from the look on Bob’s face that they had discussed it.

  “He said we have to get married in an English church, but they’ll give the feast here at the house.”

  “I never thought my father would let any of us marry an English,” she said in amazement.

 
“Neither did he.” Bob laughed. “What will our wedding be like?” He loved the idea, and the thrill of being married to her.

  “Loud, busy, happy, lots of children, tons of food. I’ll wear a blue dress. And we’ll have to spend our honeymoon night here, so we can help clean up the house in the morning.” He had already decided to invite his parents and brother to a small celebration in New York. He didn’t want them here. They would spoil it for him. And he didn’t want anything to ruin the day for him and Lilli. He kissed her then, and they sat quietly rocking in the swing for a while, looking up at the stars.

  “I used to think that when people die, they go up to the sky and become stars and that’s where heaven is,” Lilli said quietly. “I always think my mother is there, waiting for me.” He put an arm around her and pulled her close, in spite of her awkward casts.

  “I don’t know where people go when they die,” he answered her. “And I don’t want either of us to find out for a long, long time. I don’t want to have to drag you back again. And if we were together in a past life, I’ll settle very happily for this one. I love you, Lilli, and I will until the end of time.” She felt a deep sense of peace, and she nodded.

  “I know. So will I.” And just as she said the words, two bright stars drifted past them overhead and disappeared into the night sky together, as Bob and Lilli watched them and smiled.

  To my wonderful, beloved children,

  Beatrix, Trevor, Todd, Nick, Sam,

  Victoria, Vanessa, Maxx, and Zara,

  whom I love until the end of time,

  and beyond.

  With all my love,

  Mom

  By Danielle Steel

  THE SINS OF THE MOTHER • FRIENDS FOREVER • BETRAYAL • HOTEL VENDÔME • HAPPY BIRTHDAY • 44 CHARLES STREET • LEGACY • FAMILY TIES • BIG GIRL • SOUTHERN LIGHTS • MATTERS OF THE HEART • ONE DAY AT A TIME • A GOOD WOMAN • ROGUE • HONOR THYSELF • AMAZING GRACE • BUNGALOW 2 • SISTERS • H.R.H. • COMING OUT • THE HOUSE • TOXIC BACHELORS • MIRACLE • IMPOSSIBLE • ECHOES • SECOND CHANCE • RANSOM • SAFE HARBOUR • JOHNNY ANGEL • DATING GAME • ANSWERED PRAYERS • SUNSET IN ST. TROPEZ • THE COTTAGE • THE KISS • LEAP OF FAITH • LONE EAGLE • JOURNEY • THE HOUSE ON HOPE STREET • THE WEDDING • IRRESISTIBLE FORCES • GRANNY DAN • BITTERSWEET • MIRROR IMAGE • THE KLONE AND I • THE LONG ROAD HOME • THE GHOST • SPECIAL DELIVERY • THE RANCH • SILENT HONOR • MALICE • FIVE DAYS IN PARIS • LIGHTNING • WINGS • THE GIFT • ACCIDENT • VANISHED • MIXED BLESSINGS • JEWELS • NO GREATER LOVE • HEARTBEAT • MESSAGE FROM NAM • DADDY • STAR • ZOYA • KALEIDOSCOPE • FINE THINGS • WANDERLUST • SECRETS • FAMILY ALBUM • FULL CIRCLE • CHANGES • THURSTON HOUSE • CROSSINGS • ONCE IN A LIFETIME • A PERFECT STRANGER • REMEMBRANCE • PALOMINO • LOVE: POEMS • THE RING • LOVING • TO LOVE AGAIN • SUMMER’S END • SEASON OF PASSION • THE PROMISE • NOW AND FOREVER • PASSION’S PROMISE • GOING HOME