Xavier called her at home that night, and she didn't answer the phone. She was lying in the dark, on her bed, thinking of Liam, wondering what he was doing, how Charlotte was, and what he had said to Beth. She didn't even know if Beth knew about her. Overnight she had become the forgotten woman. She felt invisible, untouchable, unlovable, and completely isolated from the world. She had barely said good-bye to Marcie and Karen when she left. She just said goodnight to them, as she always did, and drifted out to the street. She walked home, and was halfway there before she even noticed it was raining. When she got home, she was soaked to the skin. It didn't matter anymore. Nothing did.

She took the flight to Paris the next day, spoke to no one on the plane, didn't eat, didn't watch a movie, and slept finally. It was a relatively short flight, and when she got home, she realized she hadn't eaten in days. She didn't care about that either.

When Xavier got to Paris on Saturday, he was shocked when he saw her. She had lost weight, her eyes were glazed, and her skin was almost gray. He managed to get some food into her, and had brought his current girlfriend with him. When he asked his mother about Liam, she was pleasant and vague. All she said was that he was with Beth and his children in Vermont.

A week later, wondering how things were going for him, Xavier called him on his cell phone. He didn't mention the state his mother was in, so as not to worry him. Liam had enough on his plate with Charlotte. Xavier asked him casually when he was coming back to London.

“I'm not,” Liam said quietly. There was a somber tone in his voice that worried Xavier. It was not unlike the flat tone he'd heard recently whenever he called Sasha.

“What do you mean?” Xavier sounded confused. “Are you going to be stuck in Vermont for a long time?”

“Forever, I guess,” Liam said cryptically. “I'll have to come back to London at some point to close my studio.” He said that Charlotte was going to be in the hospital for months, and possibly in rehab after that.

“It's damn decent of you to be there with her,” Xavier commended him, and there was a long silence from Liam's end. He knew he had to tell him then. He had no idea what Sasha had said to him, but Xavier seemed to be unaware of what had happened, which surprised him. He knew how close he and his mother were to each other, and he was sure she would have told him. He couldn't imagine why she didn't. It never occurred to him that she was still in shock, and too devastated to tell him.

“I've gone back to Beth,” he said, and at Xavier's end there was nothing but stunned silence. “I had to. She needs me here. So do the kids. I'll call you when I get back to close up.” Xavier wished him luck, and sat staring into space for a long moment, thinking about what Liam had said. Xavier felt as though he had been shot out of a cannon into a wall. He could barely begin to imagine what his mother must have felt when she heard those same words. It explained everything to him now.





Chapter 22




Sasha moved through her life like a robot for most of January. She went to the gallery, home at night, said little to anyone, and did her work. She had handed off all of Liam's files to Bernard without comment. But as he wasn't working at the moment, while he was taking care of Charlotte, there was nothing to do for him anyway.

They had had two requests for commissions by Liam, which he said he couldn't do for six months. So everything pertaining to Liam Allison was on hold. And so was Sasha's life.

Xavier came back to see her once he knew what had happened, but she refused to talk about it. They went for walks in the park with the dog. He tried to take her out to dinner, but she didn't want to go. She seemed to be doing absolutely nothing these days. Eugénie said she declined every invitation systematically, and she did the same in February in New York. She had shut down everything in her life, except her work.

Xavier had had a long talk with Tatianna about it, and she spent a night in the apartment with her. But nothing seemed to shake Sasha out of her apathy, as February bled into March and then into April, when she was back in Paris. She flew to New York to curate a show, and Marcie was relieved to see that she looked better. She was thin and pale and seemed tired, but at least the otherworldly look she'd had for months was gone. She looked unhappy, but at least human. It was no secret to anyone who knew and cared about her that she had had a terrible time. They had quietly told each other why, without discussing it with her. It was obviously a topic she was not open to talking about, with any one of them. Sasha had completely sealed herself off from the world. Her body was there, but the spirit was gone.

Liam had come to London in March, closed his studio, and sent everything in it to Vermont. He left Xavier a message, but when he called him back, he discovered that Liam had already left town. He had only been there for two days. Xavier assumed correctly that Liam probably didn't want to see him either. The entire episode, Charlotte's accident, and Liam's decision, had been too traumatic for both of them. They had done their best to bury it and recover on their own. Xavier never even mentioned to his mother that Liam had come to town. It seemed best not to mention him anymore, so no one did.

What Marcie saw in April she would not have called recovery, but at least the hemorrhaging of life's blood from Sasha's soul seemed to have stopped. She seemed to have hit bottom, and was holding there, which was a vast improvement over what they had all observed before. Sasha's downward spiral into despair had been terrifying to watch, but she insisted she was feeling better, and even went out to the house in the Hamptons when she came back to New York in May.

Like everywhere else, it was full of memories of Liam now, but whatever she was thinking about him, she was not sharing with anyone. No one in the gallery had seen or heard from him in months. All they knew from Sasha and occasional e-mails from him was that he was with his family in Vermont, and he said Charlotte was doing better. She was in a rehab center by then, and able to stand up. Sasha was about the same. Her spirit seemed to be standing, but it wasn't walking yet. Her children and employees were anxious to see some sign of life again. Marcie almost stood up and cheered, when she saw her smile in May. She couldn't recall seeing her smile since early December, when she and Liam had gotten back together, briefly, before he left her.

Xavier flew to New York to celebrate her fiftieth birthday with her. All she wanted to do was spend a quiet evening with him and Tatianna. They had insisted on taking her to a restaurant at least, and she had chosen a small Italian restaurant in the village, which she said would be quiet. And in spite of her long months of mourning Liam, she had a nice time with her children.

“I can't believe I'm fifty,” she said, looking rueful. “How did I ever get this old?”

“You're not old, Mom,” Xavier said gently. They had given her a diamond brooch with two hearts intertwined, from both of them, and she loved it. She was still wearing the diamond bracelet Liam had given her for Christmas. It never left her wrist.

Marcie and Karen had offered to give her a little party, which she declined. The only parties she went to anymore were openings at the gallery. In the past five months, since Liam left, she had simply folded the show. She was like a small, tired animal hibernating in deep winter. Everyone who loved her was waiting for some sign of spring. Whatever it took, she had to get over Liam. And it seemed to be taking forever. It was as though their souls had been intertwined, and without the other half of her, she had curled up and died. Like Siamese twins. In a single year, they had become part of each other. Her life without him now was relentlessly bleak.

On the Memorial Day weekend, she was still in New York, and decided to go out to Southampton. Tatianna was away. And Xavier was in London. She was going back to Paris the following week. But she was looking forward to spending her last weekend at the beach before she left. It was still chilly, but spring was in the air, and when she left the gallery on Friday night, Marcie thought she looked better. Sasha was under constant scrutiny now, and all her loving observers consulted with each other as to how they thought she was. Her constant insistence that she was fine convinced no one but herself.

As she drove to Southampton that Friday night, the holiday traffic made the trip take forever. And as she sat at a dead stop from time to time, she thought of Liam. It was a luxury she rarely allowed herself anymore. She knew she couldn't afford it. And although the others couldn't see it, she was making efforts to get better. It was a rare indulgence for her to just sit back and think of him. He was still on her mind when she let herself into the house four hours later. By then, it was after eleven, and when she went to bed, it was midnight. She fell asleep, thinking about him, and in the morning, she felt better. It was almost as though allowing herself to bask in the memories for a few hours had relieved some of the pressure.

Navigating the shoals of grief had become familiar to her. She knew from losing Arthur that losing someone was a process, you didn't let go all at once, you let go inch by inch, or millimeter by millimeter. It had taken her a year after Arthur to feel human again. And it had been five months now since Liam. She knew that one of these days she'd get there, and wake up one morning without feeling as though she had a bowling ball on her chest. Little by little, the bowling ball was shrinking. She wondered from time to time how it was for him, or if he'd already forgotten. He had other things now to keep him busy, and she was happy to hear from Marcie that he had reported that Charlotte was so much better. She couldn't help wondering too if he was happy with Beth. There was no way for her to know, and maybe it didn't matter. He was hers now, for better or worse, whichever happened. She knew he would never leave her. He would never have left her the first time. He was the kind of man who stayed forever, once committed. It had been different with them because, however much they loved each other, the commitment had never been made. Just as she had predicted in the beginning, it had been impossible for them, just not for the reasons she'd expected. It had never even remotely dawned on her that he might go back to Beth. Without Charlotte's near-fatal accident, she knew he wouldn't have. Fate had intervened.