Impossible

by Danielle Steel

  “Bonjour, chérie,” Sasha said in French unconsciously, and was surprised to hear silence on the other end. She assumed they had been cut off, and Tatianna would call again. She was about to hang up when she heard a guttural sound that sounded more animal than human. “Tati? C'est toi? Is that you? Darling, what's wrong?” She could tell now that her daughter was crying, sobbing into the phone. It was a long time before she spoke.

  “Mommy… come home …” For all her brand-new sophistication, she suddenly sounded five years old.

  “What happened? Did you get fired?” It was the only thing Sasha could think of that would put her in such a state. Tatianna had no boyfriend at the moment, so it couldn't be a romantic disaster.

  “Daddy…,” she said, and broke into sobs again, as Sasha's heart gave a lurch and nearly leaped out of her chest. What in God's name could have happened to him?

  “Tatianna, tell me what happened. Quickly. You're scaring me.”

  “He… they called me from his office a few minutes ago …” It was nearly noon in New York. Sasha knew that if he had had an accident on the way into the city, someone would have called her the night before. He carried all her numbers on him, as she did his.

  “Is he all right?” Sasha could feel a vise squeezing her chest as she asked the question, and Tatianna continued crying uncontrollably.

  “He had a heart attack…in his office… they called the paramedics…”

  “Oh my God …” Sasha squeezed her eyes shut as she listened, waiting for the rest as her hand shook as it gripped the phone.

  “Mommy… he's dead.” The entire world stopped for Sasha as Tatianna said it. The room turned upside down. Without realizing it, she held the phone with one hand, and with the other she clutched what had once been her father's desk, as though to steady herself. She felt as though she were falling into an abyss.

  “He's not. It's a mistake,” Sasha said, as though she could deny it or will it not to happen. “That's not true!” she shouted, as tears sprang to her eyes. She felt as though every fiber of her being had received a nearly fatal electric shock. She was fighting for air.

  “It is true,” Tatianna wailed miserably. “Mrs. Jenkins called me. They took him to the hospital, but he was dead. Mommy… come home…”

  “I'm coming,” she said, and stood up with a look of panic, glancing around the room, as though she expected someone to materialize to help her and tell her it wasn't true. But no one came. She was alone in the room. “Where are you?”

  “I'm at work.”

  “Go home… no, don't go home. Go to the gallery. I don't want you to be alone. Tell them what happened. They'll understand.” All Tatianna did was cry as she listened. Sasha knew there was a flight to New York at nine o'clock, and she'd be in New York seven hours later. And it was six hours earlier in New York. She'd be in the city by eleven o'clock that night, New York time, five A.M. in Paris. She knew her faithful assistant would take Tatianna to her parents' apartment. “Stay where you are, Tati. I'll have Marcie pick you up.” Marcie had worked for Sasha since she'd opened the gallery. She was a kind woman in her early forties, never married, with no children, and she loved Sasha's as her own. And then as an afterthought in the midst of lightning and chaos, “I love you, Tati. I'll be home as soon as I can.” Sasha was shaking from head to foot as soon as she put down the phone. And in a moment of total madness, she dialed Arthur's cell phone. His secretary, Mrs. Jenkins, picked it up. She had been just about to call Sasha. Tatianna had gotten to her first. For an insane instant, Sasha wanted to believe Arthur would answer his phone. His secretary did instead.

  “I'm so sorry, Mrs. Boardman…I'm so sorry…it was so sudden. I didn't know … he never called me… I saw him five minutes before. I went in to have him sign some papers, and he was slumped over his desk. He was already gone. They tried … but they couldn't do anything.” She spared Sasha the scene of horror that she'd seen when they tried to revive him and failed. She was crying, too. “I'll do everything I can. Is there someone I should call? The hospital? The funeral home? I'm so sorry…”

  “I'll do it all when I get home.” Or Marcie would. She didn't want anyone else making decisions about her husband. She didn't even want to be making them herself. And first, she had to call their son.

  Sasha quickly told Eugénie, her secretary in Paris, what had happened, asked her to get her on a flight, and to go next door to pick up her things. Her secretary was stunned. She didn't want to believe it at first, but when she saw the look on Sasha's face, she knew it was true. Sasha was sheet white and looked like she was in shock. Eugénie watched Sasha's hands shake like leaves when she picked up the phone to call Xavier.

  Eugénie left the room then, and came back a moment later with a cup of tea, and then disappeared to make her flight arrangements. By then, Sasha was crying on the phone to Xavier, who was as distraught as she was. He offered to fly to Paris to meet her, and fly home with her. But if his flight was delayed, she knew they might miss each other. She told him to go straight to New York, that night if he could. Not that it would make a difference to his father now, but it would to her, and Tatianna. Xavier was crying softly when he hung up. The rest of the night was a blur.

  Eugénie had packed Sasha's bag as she'd asked her to do, and canceled her plans for the week. Her trip to Brussels would have to wait. Her whole life had just been destroyed in a single moment. Sasha couldn't even get her mind around it, and didn't want to try. Her secretary and her gallery manager drove her to the airport, and after hovering over her like worried parents, they put her on the plane. They discreetly explained to the agent at the gate what had happened, after she boarded. They were both afraid of how she would be on the plane. Bernard, her manager, had offered to fly with her, but Sasha had bravely declined, and regretted it the moment the plane took off. She was overwhelmed by a wave of panic so powerful, she was afraid she would have a heart attack herself. One of the flight attendants told another that Sasha had literally turned green and broken out in a sweat. They covered her in blankets, asked the passenger next to her to move to another seat, and the purser had sat next to her for a short time. They asked her if she had tranquilizers with her and she said she didn't, and never took them. But she had never before lost her husband, either. She hadn't even felt this way when her father died, which was bad enough. But he had been eighty-nine years old, and he himself had warned her frequently that it would happen one day, and she knew it would. She had been prepared for it, more or less. But not for this. Not Arthur. He had told her he loved her only the day before. She had left him asleep in bed in Southampton, and now he was gone. It wasn't possible. It wasn't happening. Except it was. The only time she remembered feeling this way, totally out of control and frightened, was when her mother had died when she was nine. Now she felt like a child again. An orphan. She cried all the way to New York. And after a call from Bernard in Paris, Marcie had come to the airport, and was waiting for Sasha as she came through customs. She had left Tatianna with a friend at the apartment.

  Marcie didn't ask her how she was. She didn't need to. Sasha could hardly talk. She was the most capable woman Marcie had ever known, and she looked utterly destroyed. Marcie quietly put her arms around her, hugged her close, and led her from the airport, as Sasha cried and strangers watched. She got her into the car a moment later, and the driver sped off toward New York. Sasha was too distraught to talk, and then halfway into town she began babbling, asking questions, to which none of the answers mattered now. No matter who or how or where or when, Arthur was gone. Without a warning. Without a sound. Without saying good-bye to his children or wife. Gone.

  The reunion between Sasha and Tatianna half an hour later at the apartment was painful to watch. Marcie just stood silently and cried. Feeling helpless, she made sandwiches for them, which no one ate. She poured water and coffee, which no one drank. She tried to talk Sasha into having a drink, which she didn't want either. And at two in the morning Xavier arrived from London. He had c
alled a friend to pick him up. One of his young artist friends was right behind him as he came through the door and went straight to his mother. He put his arms around her and Tatianna, and the three of them just stood there hugging and crying. It nearly killed Marcie to watch them. They sat up and talked through most of the night. The only one who ate the food Marcie made was Xavier's friend. The others ate and drank nothing.

  And in the morning, reality set in. Sasha went to the hospital, and insisted on seeing her husband. She wanted to be alone with him, and when she came out of the room, she looked like a ghost, but she wasn't crying. She looked shell-shocked. She had said good-bye to him. After that they went to the funeral home and made arrangements. The minister came to see her at the apartment, and Marcie was with her the entire time. Xavier had gone to Tatianna's apartment with her. After the minister left, she turned and looked at Marcie.

  “Is this really happening? I can't believe it. I keep waiting for someone to tell me it's all a terrible joke. But it isn't, is it?” Marcie shook her head.

  They got through the day, with Sasha looking and feeling like a zombie, and trying to comfort her children. They finally ate pizza that night, and nothing else. Tatianna went to sleep in her old bedroom, Xavier went out with friends and came home drunk. Sasha sat in the living room staring into space. She couldn't stand going back to their bedroom, all she wanted was him. And when she finally went to bed that night, too exhausted to sleep, she could smell his aftershave on his pillow, and burrowed her face in it and sobbed. Marcie stayed and slept on the couch, faithful friend that she was. She spent hours that night calling their friends and telling them about the funeral. She called the gallery in Paris. Everyone there was coming.

  Marcie ordered the flowers, Sasha picked the music. Friends began to drop by and offered to help. Ushers were chosen from among Arthur's partners and best friends. Sasha felt as though she would die when she had to pick his clothes. And somehow they all got to the funeral dressed, and on time. People came to the house afterward. And long after, Sasha admitted that she remembered absolutely nothing. Not the music or the flowers, or the people who were there. She had no recollection of who had come to the apartment. She had appeared normal and sane, and as composed as was possible. But essentially, she was in shock. And so were her children. They clung to each other like people off a ship that sank, and were drowning. And Sasha was. The hardest part came the day after. Real life, without Arthur. The day-to-day horror of living without him. The pain of it was beyond belief. Like surgery without anesthesia, Sasha could not believe what it was like waking up every day, knowing she would not see him and never would again. Everything that had once been dear and wonderful and easy was now agonizing and excruciatingly hard. There were no rewards to getting through the days without him, no point getting up in the morning, nothing to look forward to, no reason to stay alive, except for her children.

  Xavier went back to London after two weeks. He called his mother often. Tatianna had gone back to work after a week. Sasha called her every day, and most of the time, Tatianna just cried whenever she heard her mother's voice. The only comfort Sasha got, other than the discreet sympathy of her employees and the staunch support of Marcie, was when she talked to friends who had gone through the same thing. She hated talking to them, and most of the time it depressed her, but at least they told her honestly what to expect. And none of it sounded good.

  Alana Applebaum, whose husband had been Arthur's friend, and whose birthday Sasha had missed because Arthur's funeral had been the day before, told her the first year had been torture from beginning to end. And sometimes it still was. But after the anniversary marking the first year, she had made a concerted effort to go out with other men. She said that most of them were jerks, and she hadn't met a decent one yet, but at least she wasn't at home, crying and alone. Her theory was that no matter how bad a man she went out with was, it was better than being alone.

  One of Sasha's closest friends in Paris, who had lost her husband three years before in a skiing accident in Val d'Isère, saw it differently. She said she'd rather be alone than with a jerk. She was forty-five years old, had been widowed at forty-two, and said there just were no decent men available, all the good ones were married. The others were idiots, or worse. She insisted she was happier alone. But Sasha was acutely aware that in the past year or two, she had started drinking too much. And often when she called Sasha to comfort her, having miscalculated the time difference, she had been drunk. She wasn't managing so well, either.

  Sasha commented on their calls to Marcie, “Maybe the only way to survive this is to become a drunk.” It was depressing listening to all of them. And the divorcées Sasha knew were no better. They didn't have intolerable grief to live with, and they could hide behind their hatred of their ex-husbands, particularly if they'd been left for other, younger women. It was frightening listening to all of them. As a result, Sasha avoided them, isolated herself, and tried to get lost in her work. Sometimes it helped. Most of the time, it didn't.

  The first Christmas without Arthur came and went in a series of large and small agonies. Xavier and Tatianna spent the night with her on Christmas Eve, and by midnight they were all sitting in the living room, sobbing. None of them wanted to open their presents, least of all Sasha. Tatianna had given her a heavy cashmere stole to wear, since Sasha seemed to be cold all the time, probably because she rarely ate or slept. And Xavier gave her a series of art books he knew she wanted. But it wasn't Christmas without Arthur.

  The next day both her children went skiing with friends. She took a sleeping pill at eight o'clock on New Year's Eve, and woke up at two o'clock the next afternoon, grateful that she had missed it. She and Arthur had never done anything spectacular on New Year's Eve, but at least he had been there with her.

  It was May before she felt even halfway human again. By then, it was seven months since Arthur's death. All she had done since then was travel to Paris once a month, where she sat huddled and freezing in the house at night, finished her work as quickly as possible, and flew back to New York. She delegated as much as possible to both her gallery managers during those months, and she was grateful for their help. Without them, she would have been utterly and totally lost, and nearly was. Sundays were the worst days of all for her, in either city, because she couldn't go to work. She hadn't been to the house in the Hamptons since he died. She didn't want to go back without him, nor did she want to sell it. She just let it sit there, and told her children to use it whenever they wanted. She wasn't going to. She had absolutely no idea what to do with the rest of her life. Other than work, which was now completely devoid of joy for her, but it was the only saving grace she had. The rest looked like a wasteland of despair. She had never felt as lost or without hope in her entire life.

  Both of her gallery managers, and even Marcie, were urging her to see friends. She hadn't returned any calls, except for those from the gallery, in months. And even those calls she handed off to others whenever she could. She hadn't wanted to talk to anyone since Arthur died.

  In May, she finally felt a little better. Much to her own amazement, she accepted a dinner invitation from Alana in June, and regretted it as soon as she did. She regretted it even more when the night arrived. The last thing she wanted was to put on clothes and go out. Marcie had told her that Arthur would want her to go out. He would have been devastated if he could see the state she was in. She had lost nearly twenty pounds. People who didn't know her well said she looked fabulous, and had no idea why. To them, being emaciated from grief looked fashionable and trim.

  So, on a fateful night in June, she went out for the first time. She wore a black silk pantsuit and high heels, and her hair straight back in a bun. The diamond earrings she wore had been a gift from Arthur the Christmas before he died. She cried when she put them on. And her clothes hung on her. She was rail thin, and everything she owned was suddenly too big.

  The dinner party she went to started out more pleasantly than she had expected i
t to, and most of the faces were familiar. Alana had yet another new beau by then, and this one seemed unexpectedly decent. He chatted with Sasha for a little while, and she discovered that he was a collector of contemporary art, and had been a client of her gallery once or twice. The agony for Sasha came when she discovered that Alana had asked him to bring a friend, who launched himself at Sasha during dinner. He was intelligent and might have been interesting, except that he proceeded to interview Sasha, as though she had signed up for computer dating, which she hadn't, and had no intention of doing, now or ever. She knew that Alana had met men on Internet dating services more than once. The thought of it horrified Sasha. She didn't want to date anyone, not this one or any other. She intended to mourn Arthur forever.

  “So how many children do you have at home?” he asked her bluntly before they sat down to dinner, while Sasha was wondering if she could claim a sudden migraine and vanish. But she knew Alana would be insulted. She knew her hostess meant well, but this was not what Sasha wanted. All she wanted was to be left alone. Her wounds were still wide open. And she had no desire to replace Arthur. Ever.

  “I have two grown children,” Sasha said bleakly.

  “That's good,” he said with a look of relief. She knew he was a stockbroker, and he had volunteered that he had been divorced for the past fourteen years. He looked to be around fifty, two years older than Sasha.

  “Actually, it's not good,” she said honestly, smiling sadly at him. “They're gone. I miss them terribly. I wish they were younger and still at home.” He looked more than a little uncomfortable with her answer.