“Wonderful, and like a page in someone else’s life, not mine. I can’t leave her, Chad. She’s still too sick, and she’s my responsibility now. I can’t walk away from that.”
“Even for a weekend?” He sounded shocked. “She’s not your child, Whitney. No one expects you to give up your life for her.”
“And if I don’t, who will? I’m all she’s got.” That was her reality now, not weekends in New York.
“That’s crazy, Whitney. She’s your niece, not your daughter, and even if she were, you can’t be expected to dump your whole life for her. You need to get her into a good rehab as soon as you can. We can talk about New York over lunch.” But she already knew he didn’t understand. He had always admitted to her that he had been an inattentive father in order to pursue his astounding success. There was no way he was going to understand her sense of duty to her niece, especially in these circumstances. He would have understood her starting a new business, but not sacrificing herself for a brain injured child. And he had left out one element completely, the fact that Whitney loved her. That hadn’t occurred to him at all. His suggestions were all about convenience, not love.
* * *
—
Whitney had lunch with him two days later when he came to L.A. They met at La Scala, which she had always loved. She enjoyed the Old Hollywood feeling it had, and she was happy to see him. He held her in his arms for a minute as he smiled down at her, and then they sat down, and he took her hand in his own.
“I’ve missed you, Whitney. Italy wasn’t the same without you, and I was beginning to feel like I’d never see you again. Why don’t you come up to San Francisco next weekend? We can go to the Napa Valley or Tahoe. It would do you good.” He was startled by how pale she was, how thin and tired she looked. She’d had a rough time for the last month, worse than he had realized, or understood.
“I’d love to but I can’t,” Whitney said quietly, and he looked puzzled.
“Why not? They’ve got great doctors at Cedars, and she’s getting everything she needs from the ICU nurses, I’m sure. You don’t have to be there with her every minute. What you’re doing has been an impressive gesture of respect for your sister, but you’ve got to know where to draw the line.”
“And where is that?” Whitney asked, watching his eyes. They were cold and calculating, and always had been, she realized now. He felt sorry for her, and Emma, but he wanted time with her now. He thought he had been patient for long enough.
“Bottom line, she’s not your kid. She’s someone else’s.”
“And if that someone else is gone now? Then what?”
“You write a check to a good rehab hospital every month,” he said with a hard look in his eyes. He was a great businessman, but not a warm father. “You don’t take care of her yourself. That’s above and beyond the call.” He was definite about it.
“And if I do take care of her myself, then what?” She met his eyes squarely and he didn’t answer for a minute.
“You’ll miss out on having a life. You don’t have to do that. You don’t owe that to your sister or her child. You’ve never wanted kids of your own. Why get tangled up in this mess now? You had a great life before this happened, just the way you wanted it. Why give all that up now?” He didn’t understand the choice she was making, or the fact that she felt she had no choice.
“I don’t think I have an option, Chad. Sometimes things happen that you never expected, and all you can do is step up to the plate.” It was what she was doing and wanted to do for Emma, and Paige.
“Or write a check to ease your conscience if you need to do that. She’ll be well taken care of, and I assume your sister had decent insurance, and probably some money put aside.”
“That’s not the point. This isn’t about money.” It was all about love for Whitney.
“You always told me you had no maternal instincts. I love that about you, Whit. It keeps everything so simple. I’d hate to see you complicate things with us now.”
“My sister did that for me when she failed to put on her seatbelt, whatever the reason, and didn’t notice the truck coming toward them from the left. And now here we are.” Her eyes were bottomless pools of sadness. She had never looked more beautiful and didn’t know it.
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” he reminded her, “and to be honest, it can’t be like this for me, Whitney. I can’t wait around to see you while you play Florence Nightingale to your brain injured niece. I need more of you than that. My kids are grown, you don’t have any, we’re both adults with no encumbrances. It’s not going to work with us if you take this on.” He was being honest with her, and not making any bones about it.
“Is that what you came to L.A. to tell me?” She looked sad as she said it, but she wasn’t really surprised. After five years, she knew who he was, and he had told her right from the beginning that he didn’t date women with children. Now she had crossed that line, and with a brain injured child on top of it. But fate had dealt her this hand, and she was going to play it, not run away and abandon Emma to strangers.
“I guess it is,” he said simply in answer to her question. “I wanted you to know where I stand on this. I’m not good at waiting in the wings. I need you to be available when I have time. It’s worked pretty well for us so far, but it won’t if you take on this incredible burden and play Mother Teresa to a severely injured niece. You could have come back to the boat,” he said reproachfully. “You didn’t have to be here with her the whole time.”
“Actually, I did,” Whitney said quietly. “She was in a coma for the first two weeks I was back.”
“Then you could have come after she woke up. Don’t blow what we have, Whit. It works great for both of us,” he reminded her.
“It did, as long as everything was fine. Now I’m dealing with a tough situation, and I’m not going to run out on her so I can take a trip with you once a month. I have a responsibility now, Chad, and I’m not going to walk away from it. And I get your drift. If I take care of my niece, you’re out of the picture from here on. Do I read you correctly?” Her voice was cold as she asked him, and he nodded. She was disappointed more than angry. He was less of a human being than she’d hoped.
“I think you do,” Chad said as he gazed at her regretfully. “I can’t take this on, Whitney, and I don’t want to. I can’t be there for you if you want to be the stand-in parent for a nine-year-old, brain injured kid. You need a different kind of guy, if that’s what you want to do. We’re lovers, Whit, that’s all we ever wanted to be. I’m not married to you. You can’t expect me to share this with you, when I don’t think you should be doing it yourself. You’re a shrink, for God’s sake. You have a terrific career. We both do. You don’t need to take this agony on. Get out of it now before it’s too late and you get even more deeply involved.”
“I already am, Chad,” Whitney said as she stood up and looked at him. They’d had some good times together in the past five years, but in the end, that wasn’t enough. After five years, she needed more, especially now. And he didn’t want to be more. “Life is messy sometimes. Love is messy. People get hurt, they die, they leave a trail of problems behind them. And I’m not going to walk away from the mess my sister left because it’s inconvenient for you.” She patted his shoulder then, as he looked at her coldly, and made no move to touch her hand. He was colder than she’d ever realized. “Take care of yourself,” was all she said to him, and walked away from the table as he signaled the waiter for the check. He had done what he’d come to do. He’d wanted to give her fair warning that unless she stepped away from Emma now, there was no room in his life for her. She had heard him loud and clear and instead of making her feel closer to him, he had severed the slim tie they had. Whitney walked out into the late afternoon sunshine and felt as though she could hear a door closing behind her. It was the door to her old life and the fun she’d had with him. She had a new life now. She had Emma to take care of, and whether Chad understood it or not, suddenly Whitney did. She loved Emma with all her heart, and somehow, whatever it took, and no matter how hard it was, they were going to get through this. A new era in her life had begun. She owed it to her little sister, and to Emma, and she wasn’t going to let either of them down.
Chad had written her out of the show now too. It hurt, but they didn’t love each other. It had been easy and convenient for both of them for a long time. Nothing about her life was either one now. But she realized that she didn’t love Chad any more than he loved her. She loved Emma, and that was enough. And as it turned out, she was a mother of sorts after all. It was a major realization, and she smiled as she drove away from lunch. Her life would be less glamorous without him and the trappings of his life, but it would be infinitely more real, and that was what she wanted now. He had wanted Whitney to make a choice between him and Emma and she had. It was Emma, hands down. She had no regrets and knew she’d never look back. Her life was about her and Emma now. Chad was history.
Chapter 5
The announcement that Emma would no longer be part of the series The Clan was handled with all the discretion and poignancy that Melvin had promised. And it was met with all the grief and heartbreak of Emma’s millions of fans. It was explained that Emma needed all her time and energy for her recovery now, from the accident that had nearly killed her and claimed the life of her mother. All the major fan magazines ran tribute articles about it, with photographs from her two years on the show. The writers of The Clan killed Emma’s character in a riding accident, which happened off camera, and had all their viewers sobbing and in mourning the night it was shown. Whitney debated about letting Emma see the magazines, but then decided it was too soon to do so. But eventually, she wanted to try and jog her memory by showing her DVDs of the show. She had to try to remember someday, just not yet.