Danielle Steel - 44 Charles Street

“She showed up at his school this morning and said she had visitation with him and was taking him to a doctor’s appointment for a booster shot. And they believed her. I guess Ian was happy to see her, and went with her. The school just called me to verify it. But she had already run out the back door. I don’t know where he is,” Chris said. “I have no idea what she’ll do with him, or where she’ll go.”

“She can’t be that crazy,” Francesca said, trying to calm him down, and he shouted at her for the first time ever.

“Yes, she is!” he roared over the phone. “I’m going to kill his fucking school. They know he’s not supposed to be with her without supervision. I gave them a copy of the court order. How fast can you get back here? Where are you? There’s a one o’clock flight to New York. I want to be on it.”

“I’m not sure exactly where I am. We went to another fair before this.”

“I’ll pack your stuff. Meet me at the airport. United Airlines.” Francesca went back to find Avery and told her what had happened. And Avery looked as worried as she was.

“Do you think he’ll be all right? She wouldn’t hurt him, would she?”

“I don’t think so. Not intentionally. She’s more likely to hurt herself, doing something crazy. Maybe she just wants to scare Chris, or show him she can do whatever she wants. She’s pretty nuts.” All she could think of was the list of horrors she had heard at the hearing. But Ian was eight years old now. He was resourceful and could take care of himself better than most kids his age. He had had to whenever he was with his mother.

Francesca kissed Avery goodbye in haste, ran outside and caught a passing cab, and told him to take her to the airport. She was wearing running shoes, jeans, and a T-shirt, but she would have boarded the plane in a bathing suit to be with Chris. He looked frantic when she found him at the airport. He had just checked her bags in, and was carrying her coat.

“Maybe she took him to her apartment,” she suggested. “Can you call the police?”

“I already did,” he said, looking tense. He looked as though his nerves were raw. “I don’t know why Ian went with her. He knows better, and he knows he’s not supposed to.”

“She’s his mother,” Francesca said gently, as they ran toward the gate. They had barely made it, and were the last passengers on the flight.

“She’s not answering her cell phone. The police are looking for her now. I told them I think Ian is in danger. And I believe he is. The woman is insane.”

They boarded the plane, and took their seats. And Chris hardly spoke on the flight. It was the longest three hours of her life, watching him, and knowing he was dying inside. He was terrified for his son. Francesca didn’t even try to talk to him after a while. She just held his hand. Chris drank two straight scotches on the plane. And he dozed for a few minutes after that. There was nothing they could do until they landed.

They took a cab at the airport, and Marya was waiting for them at the house. It wasn’t her fault, but she felt terrible anyway. Chris had checked with the police the minute they landed, but they had nothing yet. They had gone to her apartment, and she wasn’t there. The elevator man and doorman hadn’t seen her since she got out of jail and left for rehab. Chris sat in the kitchen on Charles Street, with his head in his hands, trying to figure out where she was. Where would she take him? And then suddenly he had an idea. He looked like a madman as he stared at them both, and right then he was.

“If she’s not out buying drugs, or dead in an alley somewhere, there’s a bar on the West Side where she used to take him. They have pinball machines and arcade games. He loves it, and it’s close to her dealer.” He had given the police her dealer’s address too, or the last one he knew of, from Ian.

Chris ran out of the house before they could stop him, and Francesca followed him down the stairs at full speed. She didn’t even bother to take her coat although it was cold.

“Go back inside. I’ll call you if I find him.” He looked distracted and still frightened as he hailed a cab.

“I want to come with you,” she said, as he hesitated and yanked open the door. He didn’t want her to see what this was like, but she loved Ian too, and she was part of his life now, even this. He slid over, and she jumped in. He told the driver where they were going and said they were in a hurry. The driver made good time up the West Side Highway, and they were there in ten minutes. It looked like a sleazy place that would have frightened Francesca otherwise. They were open. And Chris pulled open the door and walked in. It was dark inside, and all he could see were the lit-up machines that blinded him for a minute. There was a bartender wiping down the bar, and two waitresses with heavy cleavage, short nylon uniforms, and fishnet stockings. Two men were playing with the machines. And then he saw him, in a back corner, playing an arcade game, a tiny figure standing in front of the machine. There was a woman with him, sprawled across the table next to him. She looked like she was asleep. Chris had the boy in his arms in a minute, lifted him off the ground, and took a long hard look at him. There were tears streaming down Chris’s cheeks, and he didn’t even know it. Francesca was crying with relief. Ian’s eyes were huge in his face.

“Are you okay?” Chris asked him, and Ian nodded.

“I’m fine.” Ian’s voice was small as his father held him. “She’s sick.” Which meant she had just shot up. She looked it. This was not a new scene to Chris, or Ian.

“I’ll take care of it,” Chris said through a clenched jaw and handed him to Francesca. Kimberly hadn’t stirred. “Take him back to the house.” Francesca nodded, and Ian took her hand as they walked out, as Chris jabbed his finger into his ex-wife’s shoulder. She didn’t move, and he suddenly wondered if she had OD’d while Ian played the machines. He felt for a pulse in her neck, and while he was looking for it, she groaned, and then threw up all over the table where she lay. Her face was lying in it. One of the waitresses saw what happened and came over with a towel. Chris pulled her head back with a hunk of hair clenched in his fist. She opened her eyes as the vomit dripped off her face. And hating her, he cleaned it. Heroin always did that to her, especially if she hadn’t had any for a while. And she’d been in rehab for two weeks. It was an easy way to OD after being clean.

“Oh… hi…” she said vaguely. “Where’s Ian?”

“He went home.” And then without even knowing he’d done it, he put a hand around her neck and squeezed. Her eyes opened wide as she stared at him, but she was too high to even be frightened, just confused. “If you ever do that again… if you ever touch him, grab him, take him anywhere… see him without supervision… I swear, Kim, I’ll kill you.” And as he stood there nearly choking her, he wanted to. For one crazed uncontrollable moment he wanted to snap her neck, and then with his whole body shaking, he let go. “Don’t you ever come near him again and take him with you when you shoot up and to a place like this.” Without another word, he pulled her to her feet then, and she staggered toward him. He dragged her outside into the sunlight, and she threw up again and then looked better. “I hate you,” he said when she glanced at him. “I hate everything about you, and what you did to our life… I hate what you do to him. He doesn’t deserve this.” And worst of all, Chris hated who he was when he was anywhere near her. She was a poison that filled him with rage. For an instant in the bar, he had wanted to kill her. No one could do that to him except her, and she wasn’t worth it. She never had been. A sob caught in his throat as he held her up with one hand and hailed a cab with the other. An empty cab came to a stop next to him. He opened the door and pushed her in. She reeked of vomit and so did he. She was thirty-two years old, and a once beautiful woman, but there was nothing left of what she had been.

Chris gave the driver forty dollars and her father’s address, and he looked down at Kim with disgust and the dying embers of his fury. “Go see your father. He’ll take care of you. And stay away from Ian until you’re clean.”

“Thank you,” she said, trying to focus on him, and then she laid her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. Chris looked at her and slammed the door of the cab. He was shaking all over as they drove away. He had almost killed her. He had wanted to, which terrified him. He walked for a few blocks and hailed another cab and got in. He gave him the address on Charles Street, and stared silently out the window all the way there, realizing that his life and Ian’s would have been destroyed if he had lost control and killed her. He never wanted to see her again. She was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. And Ian was the best thing. He tried to focus on that on the ride home.

CHRIS COULD HEAR Marya and Francesca in the kitchen with Ian when he got home. Charles-Edouard was cooking something for them. And Chris went upstairs, took a shower, and changed his clothes. He was still shaken by what he had almost done to her. He had been terrified all the way back from Miami. He never knew what kind of life-threatening situation she would put their son in.

He looked shaken and subdued as he walked down the stairs to the kitchen. Ian looked up at him with the thousand-year-old eyes that ripped Chris’s heart to shreds.

“Where’s Mom?” He was worried, and afraid that his father was angry at him. He wasn’t. He was scared. By what had happened, what could have happened, and what he had almost done. It was a wake-up call to him. He couldn’t let her get to him again. Ever. He had almost lost control.

“I sent her to your grandfather’s. He’ll know what to do with her.” He would take her back to rehab, for the ten millionth time, and she would walk away again. Until one day she was dead. Chris didn’t need to kill her. She was already dead, and had died years before when she started shooting up. She had done it even before they met. He just didn’t know. “She’ll be okay, Ian.” For now. For a while. But not for long. She’d never be okay again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I was very worried. I don’t want you going off with her again. You can see her, but there has to be someone there.” Ian nodded, and Chris walked toward him and gave him a long hug. “I’m sorry you had to see that.” He had seen it a thousand times before. He wondered how you apologize to your son for giving him a mother like that. Or worse, if he had killed her. The thought made him shudder and Ian felt it. He felt sorry for his dad.