and the signs of heroin were all over him. She looked at him, feeling as though the end of the world had finally come, but she said not a word to him. She went upstairs, packed her bags, called Teddy, and made reservations on the next plane. And then, trembling from head to foot, she set her bags on the floor just as Vasili walked into the room.
“What exactly do you think you are doing?”
“I'm leaving you, Vasili. I made it perfectly clear in the hospital. If you used again, I left. You're using. I'm leaving. I have nothing to say. It's all over.” She felt tired more than anything else, exhausted to her very soul, and a little bit frightened of what he would do or say. He was always so erratic when he was on drugs. But she didn't care what he did now. It was over.
“I am not using, you're crazy.” Just hearing him say it made her angry.
“No.” She looked at him in white fury. “You're crazy, and I'm getting the hell out while I can. Nothing matters to you except that shit you put in your arm. I don't understand why you do it, you have every reason not to, but since none of that makes a damn bit of difference to you, I'm leaving.” She spat the words at him. “Good-bye.”
“And you think you can take my baby?”
“Yes, I can. Try to stop me and I'll have it in every newspaper in the world that you're a junkie.” She looked at him with raw hatred, and even in his drugged state he knew she meant it.
“Blackmail, Serena?” He raised an eyebrow and she nodded.
“That's right, and don't think I won't do it. Your career will be over then and there.”
“You think I give a damn about that? You're crazy. What do I care about some lousy pictures for an ad or a magazine?”
“I guess not much or you wouldn't be using. Not to mention me and the baby. I don't suppose we weighed much with you either.”
He looked at her strangely for a moment. “I don't suppose you did.”
He disappeared again that night, and when she left the house with the children the next morning, he hadn't returned yet. She got to the airport with Vanessa and the baby and the suitcases she had brought and the things she needed for the baby, and they got on the plane with no problem. Ten hours later they landed in New York, exactly thirteen months after they had left it. Serena looked around her at the airport after they had landed, and wondered if she was in a dream. For the first time in her life leaving had not been painful. She was totally numb. She moved as though in a daze, with the baby in her arms and Vanessa clinging to her hand. For an odd moment she had the same feeling she had had arriving with the nuns and other children during the war, and as the thought crossed her mind the tears began to slide down her face, and she began to sob when she saw Teddy, as if seeing him unleashed the feelings in her.
He led them all gently out to his car and then drove them to the furnished apartment he had rented for a month. Serena looked around at the stark little room, clutching the baby to her. There was only one bedroom, but she didn't care. All she wanted was to be three thousand miles away from Vasili. She had almost no money with her, but she had brought the diamond bracelet he'd given her last month and she was going to sell it. With luck it would give her enough funds to subsist until her modeling picked up again. She had already asked Teddy to call Dorothea.
“Well, how does it feel to be back?” Teddy smiled at her, but there was concern in his eyes. Serena looked worn out and Vanessa looked scarcely better.
“I think I'm still numb” was Serena's only answer as she looked around her. The walls were bare and white, and the furniture was Danish modern.
“The Ritz it ain't,” he apologized with a smile, and for the first time she laughed.
“Teddy, my love, I couldn't care less. It's a roof over our heads, and we're not in London.” Vanessa smiled too, and Teddy reached out for the baby.
“How's my little friend?”
“Hungry all the time.” Serena smiled.
“Unlike her mother who looks like she never eats.” She