just wanted to go home.
She got up from the table then, and suddenly, as she walked toward the door, the whole room spun around her, and a moment later she awoke lying on the floor. Vasili was kneeling beside her, looking at her in terror, shouting at the maid for a damp cloth to put on her head. “Serena! … Serena! … oh, Serena …” He was crying as he knelt beside her and Serena felt tears spring to her own eyes as well. She wanted to reach up and hold her arms out to him, but she couldn't do it. She had to be strong. She had to leave him, and leave London, and get rid of their child. “Oh, my darling, what happened? I'll call the doctor.”
“Don't!” Her voice was still weak and the room spun as she shook her head. “I'm all right.” It was a whisper. “I'll get up in a minute.” But when she did, she looked sicker than he.
“Are you ill?” he asked her in despair, wondering if he had done that to her, but she only shook her head.
“No, I'm not.”
“But it's not normal to faint like that.”
She looked at him unhappily as she stood in the doorway at last. “What's been happening around here isn't normal either. Or maybe you hadn't thought of that.”
“I told you last night I would stop it. Day after tomorrow I'm going into the hospital for a few days, and then I'll be myself again.”
“For how long?” she shouted at him. “How often has this happened before? Is that how your wife died? Were you both shooting up drugs and she overdid it?” Her voice trembled and tears poured down her face.
But now he began to cry too as he spoke in an agonized whisper. “Yes, Serena … yes … yes! … I tried to save her, but I couldn't. It was too late.” He closed his eyes then, as though he couldn't bear the thought.
“You make me sick. Is that what you expect from me? To find a friend you could use drugs with?” She shook as she shouted at him, and neither of them saw Vanessa come down the stairs. “Well, I won't. Do you hear me? And I won't stay married to you either. I'm going back to New York and the minute I get there I'm having an abortion and—” She stopped, realizing what she had just said. And he came instantly toward her.
“What did you say?” He grabbed her shoulders, his eyes wide.
“Nothing, dammit… nothing!” She slammed the door to the dining room behind her and ran toward the stairs where she found Vanessa crying softly. Vasili was upon them a moment later, and the three of them sat on the stairs in tears. It was a grim scene, for which Serena hated both herself and Vasili. Vasili apologized again and again for what he had done to both of them, Serena clung to Vanessa, and Vanessa screamed at Vasili that he was killing her mother. It seemed a hopeless tangle, and at last it was Vasili who led them both upstairs. Nothing more was said about the baby. But when at last Vasili was alone with Serena again, after they had left Vanessa calmer with the maid, he asked her if what she had said was true.
“So you're pregnant?” She nodded and turned away. He came to her slowly then and touched her shoulders with his hands as he stood behind her. “I want you—no, I beg you to keep my child, Serena … please … give me a chance … I will be clean again in a few days. It will be as it was before. I don't know what happened. Maybe it was the adjustment between us, the responsibility of pleasing Vanessa, I went crazy for a little while. But I'll stop it. I swear it. Please—” His voice cracked and she turned around to see her husband dissolved in tears. “Don't kill my baby … please.…” Even Serena couldn't resist him, and she opened her arms and held him close.
“How could you have done it, Vasili? How could you?”
“It won't happen again. If you want, I'll go into the hospital tonight. I won't even wait until after Christmas. I'll go now.”
She looked at him strangely and nodded. “Do it. Do it right away.” He called the hospital ten minutes later, and she drove him there within the hour. She kissed him good-bye in the lobby and he promised