“Son, you have to think about this carefully. Is this really what you want to do with your life? Do you really feel you can keep the baby? And more importantly, what are you going to do about yourself? Do you want to work as a busboy for the rest of your life? And what about Sandra?”

These were all the questions that had been plaguing the boy for months, and now he was overwhelmed. He admitted to his father that he didn't love Sandra anymore, he wondered if he ever had, and if he had, it hadn't been for a long time. He couldn't bear the thought of spending the rest of his life with her. But what complicated matters now was that he loved the baby.

“He's my baby, Dad. I can't leave him. I couldn't do that to him, or to myself. But I just don't think I can stay with her for much longer … but if I leave her, then I have to leave Alex with her.” And he had serious questions about her ability to mother the child. She seemed to have none of the instincts that he had assumed she would have. And all she thought of, as before, was herself, and not the baby.

“Why don't you give her a chance to get on her feet again? Maybe what you need to think about is supporting her, but not staying with her yourself.” And just exactly how was he going to do that? Washing dishes? Pumping gas? “I'll do everything I can to help you. Why don't you just relax for a few days, and try to sort your thoughts out.” But when he did, he felt responsible again. Sandra came out of the hospital, and feeling sorry for her, he took the baby and went back. Aggie was heartbroken to see him take the baby, and Oliver was equally so to see Benjamin go back again to do what he thought was right. He just wouldn't let go of what he felt were his obligations, and it broke Oliver's heart to think of him there, with the baby and the girl. He insisted on giving him five thousand dollars, and Benjamin had fought him like a tiger to give it back.

“Think of it as a loan then. I'm not going to have you starving with three of you to support. Be sensible, for chrissake.” And finally, Benjamin relented, promising to pay it back to him as soon as he could manage.

And matters grew more complicated still only two weeks later. The head of Ollie's firm called him in and made a request that took him totally by surprise. The head of the Los Angeles office was dying of cancer. He was leaving within the week on permanent medical leave and someone had to take his place. More than that, they wanted to enlarge the office, and make it as important as the one in New York. They wanted “bicoastal equilibrium,” as they put it, to be close to the television industry that was so important to them, and acquire bigger, better clients on the West Coast. And the chairman of the board had decided that Oliver was their main man to run it.

“For God's sake … but I can't do that … I have two kids in school here, a house, a life … I can't just uproot them and move three thousand miles away.” And now there was Benjamin with his problems with his baby. He couldn't walk out on him, the way Sarah had done to all of them the year before. “I'll have to think this over.” But the salary they mentioned, the terms, and the participation made it a deal he would have been crazy to refuse, and he knew it.

“For chrissake, Oliver, come to your senses. Take it! No one will ever make you another offer like that, and one day you'll wind up chairman of the board.” Daphne tried to talk sense to him that night, as they sat in his office long after everyone else had gone home.

“But what about my kids? My house? My father?”

“Don't be ridiculous. Your father has a life of his own, and a wife who loves him. And Benjamin has his own life now too. He'll sort himself out sooner or later, whether you're here or not. He's that kind of kid. He's just like you. And Mel and Sam would love it out there. Look how good they were about moving to New York.”

“But Christ, Daph, that's different. That's thirty miles from Purchase. This is three thousand miles from home.”

“Not if you make a home for yourself out there. And Melissa is a junior. In two years she'll be away in college somewhere. Don't use them as an excuse. Go for it! It's a terrific offer.” But Los Angeles? California? This was his home.

“I don't know. I have to think this over. I have to talk it over with the kids and see what they say.”

They were both shocked when he told them, but not as horrified as he would have expected them to be. They even seemed to like the idea after they thought it over. They didn't like the idea of leaving their friends, and Sam was worried about how often he would see Sarah, but Ollie said he could send them back to visit her fairly frequently, and they could spend their vacations with her. But to Ollie, it was still a hell of a thought, and a frightening prospect. And what's more, they wanted him out there within a month, sooner if he could make it.

“Well, guys,” he asked them as they talked about it for days on end. He had until the end of the week to make his mind up. “What do you say? Do we go out to California, or stay here?”

Mel and Sam exchanged a long, careful look between them, and Ollie found himself hoping that they'd say no.

“I say we do it.” Mel astounded him, and Sam sat back and grinned.

“Yeah, Dad. Let's go. We can go to Disneyland every Sunday.”

He sat staring at them, still stunned by their decision. “Do you mean it?” They nodded, and feeling as if he were living in a dream, the next day he went to work and told them he would go. He flew to Los Angeles that Sunday, looked for a house to rent, spent three days looking at schools, another week getting to know the people at the office, and came back to wind things up in New York.

Faithful Aggie had agreed to go with them, and he had decided not to sell the house in Purchase, but to keep it until he knew everything was right for them on the West Coast. The hardest part of all was telling Benjamin they were going, but he made a deal with him that at least relieved his mind about his son. Benjamin and Sandra agreed to move into the house in Purchase with the baby. He told them they could take care of it for him/and it would be a load off his mind if they'd “help him.”

“You're sure, Dad? You're not just doing us a favor?”

“No, I'm not, Son. There's another alternative too.” He held his breath. “You could leave Sandra and Alex in an apartment here, and come to the West Coast with us.” But Benjamin only shook his head sadly. He wasn't leaving them. He couldn't. Sandra had no idea how to cope, and Alex was his baby.

“We'll be okay here.” He had found another job, and with free rent in his father's house, that would be one less expense for them.

It all happened like a whirlwind. They packed, they went. They cried, they waved. And the week before Thanksgiving they left for Los Angeles, to begin a whole new life in California.

As the plane set down at Los Angeles airport, Oliver looked at Mel and Sam and wondered what he'd done.

“Ready?” He grinned nervously at them, praying that they'd like the house he'd rented in Bel Air. It was an incredible place with a deck, a sauna, a Jacuzzi in every bath, and a swimming pool twice the size of the one in Purchase. It had belonged to an actor who'd gone broke, and was renting it until he decided to sell it.

They picked Andy up at the baggage claim in the big cage he'd traveled in, and Aggie straightened her hat, and smiled.

There was a limousine waiting for them at the airport, and the children got into it with wide eyes, as Andy barked and wagged his tail. Oliver wondered for the hundredth time if he'd done something totally crazy. But if he had, no one seemed to mind. Not yet, at least. He sat back against the seat and took both his children's hands tightly in his own.

“I hope you like the house, guys.”

“We will.” Sam smiled, as he looked out the window, and Mel looked suddenly very grown up, as they drove through the Los Angeles traffic to the new home their father had found them in Bel Air. It was a whole new world, a new life for them, but they didn't seem to mind it. And as he looked out the window, only Oliver was frightened by the prospect of what they were doing.





Chapter 21


The house was exactly what the children had drearned it would be. It was perfect for them, and Oliver was thrilled. In a matter of weeks, they had settled in, and all three of them were thriving. Even Agnes was in ecstasy over their new home, and after foraging around the local shops, she found everything she wanted.

Mel loved her school, and Sam invited two new friends to their pool to swim over Thanksgiving weekend. Only the holiday seemed a little strange for them, without Benjamin, or their grandfather, and they were a long way from Sarah too. They were going to spend the Christmas holidays with her. And it seemed amazing to them they had only been there a month, when they packed their things to leave to join her in Boston for their Christmas vacation.

Oliver drove them to the airport, and much as he knew he would miss them over the holidays, he was grateful to have a few weeks to work late at the office. He needed the time to dig into all the projects that had been waiting for him when he arrived. And the one person he really missed was Daphne. He missed her good eye, her bright mind, her clear judgment, and creative solutions to his office problems. More than once, he called her for advice, and express-mailed papers to her to see what she thought of his ideas for new campaigns, and presentations to new clients, He wished they had sent her to Los Angeles too, but he also knew she would never have gone. Her relationship with the man in New York was too important to her. She would rather have given up her job than the married man she had given up her life for thirteen years before.