They heard a low moan. The gendarme rushed toward the sound, in a corner behind a fallen cupboard. “Here, madame. He’s alive.”
Pascal lay sprawled, slumped against the wall, his face bloody and lips cracked. His dark beard had grown in, making him look like a stranger. He opened his eyes halfway at the sound of her voice but they were dull, almost lifeless. He made no other movement. She touched his cheek. It felt cool to the touch but not too cool. He was alive. She kept saying that to herself: He’s alive. Only then did she realize she had steeled herself for the worst after weeks with no word from him. She squeezed her eyes shut and banished the thought.
Tears fogged her vision. He would recover. He would be all right.
“Oh, my love.” She grabbed his limp hand and put it on her cheek. “We found you, chèri. It’s over. We found you.”
Thirty-Four
Languedoc
An ambulance took Pascal to the hospital in Beziers. It took nearly an hour for the emergency vehicles to arrive: ambulances, more police, even a fire truck summoned somehow by the museum’s alarm system. An alarm system that hadn’t done Pascal much good, Merle thought, frowning as she followed the ambulance down the winding road to the main highway. She drove as fast as she dared, trying to keep it in sight, but when they hit the A61 they took off like a rocket.
When she finally found him again in the Emergency Room, the nurses kept her outside in a corridor. He was critical, they said, from dehydration. Merle slumped onto a chair next to an old man who looked as worried as she felt. She bit her lip and tried not to cry. Pascal was here, getting help.
Two hours later a nurse woke her. They had transferred Pascal to a hospital room and he was improving. The IV fluids were doing their job, she said, giving Merle a slip of paper with the room number and a pat on the shoulder. “You can see him now,” she said.
Merle spent the next day by his bedside, holding a straw to his mouth every ten minutes so he could sip water. He was painfully thin, the muscles in his shoulders gone. He was weak as a kitten until the next evening when he squeezed her hand.
“Embrasse-moi,” he croaked. Kiss me. His voice was scratchy, barely a whisper. She leaned down, touching her lips to his sore ones. He flinched then squeezed her hand harder. “It’s okay.”
“Wait.” She rummaged in her purse for lip balm. Smiling at his expression of horror she smeared the balm first on her lips then on his. She dabbed them carefully. “Better?”
While he slept Merle texted her sisters, giving them the good news about Pascal’s rescue and downplaying the state of him. Francie wanted a photo, demanded one, but Merle ignored her. He wouldn’t want that sort of pity.
The policeman who had helped with the search of the museum visited the next day. He hung his head at seeing Pascal, to keep his shocked expression from being seen. Whether Pascal noticed, Merle couldn’t tell.
“Bonjour, François,” Pascal said, his voice getting stronger.
“Pascal. Comment ça va?”
“Tout va bien,” Pascal said, laughing. All is well. He could smile now without his lips searing with pain, thanks to many applications of lip balm. “Thank you for your help.”
The policeman brushed that off and gave them a report on Léo Delage. His van had been found in the woods, unoccupied. There was a bulletin out on him now, with an arrest warrant. He would be found shortly, François promised.
“Slippery devil,” Pascal said.
François looked sheepish. “Director Marcau says he feels responsible. That they should have found Delage before he did this.”
“He warned me. There is not much more he could do.”
“Headquarters has given you leave for two months. More if you need it.”
Pascal glanced at Merle. “I will use the time well.”
She squeezed his hand. “Try to behave,” she whispered with a smile.
Merle slept in the recliner in his room, bathed in his tiny shower, and stayed by his side for four days in the hospital. On the third night, she woke in darkness. The light from the hallway glowed from the edges of the dark door. She had been dreaming. But what? Something that woke her from a deep sleep.
She checked on Pascal, touching his hand. It was warm now. His eyes were shut and his breathing was regular. The IV had been changed recently. Nothing to do. She curled into the chair and pulled up the blanket. Closing her eyes she tried to go back to sleep.
Then the dream came back in technicolor. The hallway door opened— in her dream— and Harry walked in. Her late husband looked as he did in life, pudgy, short, with impeccable clothes (a tailored suit) and a smirk on his face. He said something to her and she rose out of the chair.
“Why are you here? This is Pascal’s room.” She was talking, or thinking, at Harry in her dream. Hard to discern.
He looked at Pascal, his expression unreadable. Harry seemed to glow in the darkness. He was a ghost after all.
With a flash she realized she could say the things to Harry that she’d never had a chance to in life. “I should have been there for you,” Merle sputtered. “When you had your heart attack. When you were dying all alone. All those nights we spent apart.” A sorrow she had buried racked her chest. “I’m so sorry, Harry. I wasn’t there.”
Harry turned toward her, his eyebrows wiggling and the smirk in place. “But Merle, how could you be with me? I died at work, just as I lived at work.”
“But I gave up. On us. On you.”
“Not before I gave up on us,” Harry said. “You aren’t the guilty party. You always want to make it about you, don’t you? You were always like that. Silly woman.”
He stepped closer to her and she could see he was— insubstantial. Transparent. Nearly gone. “Live your life, calendar girl. Not in the someday. Not in the past, worrying about things you can’t change. Live in the now. Live your life the way you see fit. The way that makes you happy. You— alone. You know that’s what I did.”
She opened her eyes in the dark room. Tears streamed down her face. Was that really Harry? Or some part of her that couldn’t let go of him? Her husband had been gone two years but it seemed much longer. Why was she dreaming about him? Was he giving her permission to forget him, to move on, to forget the mistakes she’d made, that he’d made?
Or was she giving herself that permission?
She wiped her cheeks with the blanket. Something bloomed, just a little, inside her. Something good and true, like hope. She didn’t believe in an afterlife, not like that. Not one where the dearly departed come back to haunt you. This was something else, something inside her. Something she hadn’t been able to forgive herself for— for giving up on their marriage. What had she said once to one of her sisters after Harry died? “He was already dead to me.”
She was so ashamed for not loving him. She was deeply flawed as a human being, as a caring partner. There was no denying it. It was heartbreaking to a driven perfectionist to admit. But maybe accepting those flaws was the purpose of Harry’s appearance.
She sighed deeply, trying to exorcise the dream from her consciousness. She was getting the second chance Harry never had. She would live on, without him, not because she had to— but because she wanted to. He’d abandoned her, and ignored Tristan. He’d made his choices, had his secret family, worked out a way to be happy. Was that so bad? If you weren’t happy, you should find a way to be happy, right?
“Blackbird?” Pascal said softly in the dark. “Come here, please. I need you to lie here next to me.”
Merle gathered herself, wiping her eyes as she took her blanket to his bed and lowered the side rail with a clatter. “Shhhh,” Pascal said, his eyes dancing.
Oh, God, his eyes were dancing again.
Making herself as small as possible, she scooted onto the bed and tucked herself under his arm. He adjusted the blanket over her shoulder and held her against his side. With her nose on his ribs she felt a warm bath of love pass down her body, and her heart began to mend.
She draped an a
rm over Pascal’s body, lightly, with care, feeling his lungs move the air in and out.
This, she whispered. This.
Thirty-Five
Pascal stayed in the hospital in Beziers for a week. Toward the end of that week, Merle got a hotel room nearby although her sleep was still not the best. She worried about him— was he eating enough, or too much? Would he recover his strength? How could she take care of him— she who was a lousy caretaker of others? Would they bicker and fight? Would his sisters swoop in and assume control?
She’d called his sister in Victoire the day after the rescue. Like with her own sisters Merle downplayed the seriousness of his condition. She told the sister that Pascal was dehydrated. That wasn’t a lie, although the doctors told Merle he probably wouldn’t have lasted another day or two without water.
Pascal recovered enough to tell the tale of his abduction, as much as he remembered. He’d lost track of time in the musée and had no idea how long it had been. Two weeks at least, she figured. He used his last bit of strength to push Léo into the chapel window. Then he’d passed out. It would be much later when he finally told Merle about using the guillotine to cut off his handcuffs. He would tell her that he was ready to lose a hand, and that he couldn’t believe it had worked.
The Police nationale had a new mobile phone delivered to the hospital. Pascal called his sister to give her the new number and tell her he was fine and not to worry. Within an hour he got his first call on the phone. It was Clarisse.
Pascal answered before checking who was calling, then held the phone away from his ear. He rolled his eyes at Merle. He listened to his ex-wife rattle on and finally reassured her he was okay and hung up.
“She called my sister. Believe it or not she was worried about me,” he said. “She said nothing about that boy, chérie. And she didn’t ask for money either.”
“A miracle.”
“Yes, I am. Come here. Give your miracle a bisou.”
After a few days in the hotel to make sure he could walk and eat, Merle drove Pascal back to Malcouziac for his convalescence. She wanted to make a bed for him in the living room but he insisted he could handle the stairs. That became part of his rehab plan, up and down the stairs, four times a day. Well, at first, once a day, then finally two and three and four.
Merle attacked his recovery like a four-star general going to war. She cooked constantly, making his favorites like coq au vin and cassoulet. She researched ways to gain weight and get muscle back, bought vitamins and cookbooks and new pots. She became that mother-figure who is never happy with the amount of food you are eating, always urging one more bite.
Pascal wasn’t terribly worried about regaining his weight and strength. He began doing sit-ups and push-ups in the garden by the end of the first week at home. He gloried in the definition in his abs, pointing them out constantly and laughing. Merle started trying to record his laughter, for those someday times when she might need to hear it again.
Then she stopped herself.
Harry’s ghost had told her not live in the future, or the past. To enjoy the moments now, fully. She knew he was right. Pascal was here now. Don’t get between the moments you want to live in by overthinking them. Succumb to the joy.
She had to write that down in her notebook. She had little time for writing at first, but slowly, as Pascal got back to his old self, strong and capable, she stepped back a little. First she let him cook, mainly because he was much better than she was and knew all sorts of French dishes without using a recipe. His sisters had taught him well.
Then after weeks of her taking him on walks to build up his stamina, he announced he would start jogging and took off alone. And he survived, mostly.
Albert and Madame Suchet came by often to give Pascal special treats. Albert recounted his troubles supervising the vandal and proudly pointed out the clean facade of Merle’s house. He raised his beret and showed them his new hearing aids. Lately when he’d seemed a little lost, he was just not hearing well.
The house itself felt more alive than ever with Pascal in residence. Merle couldn’t believe her luck, finding this Frenchman in her bed each morning and in her garden each afternoon. She still looked at the list of chores she’d brought with her from home, many items crossed out now, but many not done. She was running a finger down the list one evening as Pascal cooked Soupe à l’Oignon Gratinée, the classic French Onion Soup with cheese and bread slices on top, when she found something on her list that looked simple. She had yet to name this house.
Wandering into the kitchen where he stirred copious amounts of onion Merle watched him for a moment, savoring the scene and the scents. “What is the French word for ‘lucky’?” she asked.
Pascal glanced up. “Hmm? Oh, chanceux. Or, heureux. Like ‘happy.’”
“Chanceux,” she repeated. “Je suis très chanceux.” Pascal muttered something then leaned in for a kiss and went back to his onions.
Merle opened her notebook and wrote down the new name for her house in France. Then she called back to Pascal: “Is this right? Maison de Chanceux?”
“No, chérie. The Lucky House would be Maison Chanceuse. La maison: the house is feminine. Just like you.”
Of course the house is feminine, she thought. It was her house. She looked at the chipped white vase with its dried blooms from summer, at the colorful blanket thrown across the horsehair settee, at the antique cupboard she’d found to replace the one that had been ruined by the thieves. She was a simple, functional house, but a lucky one. She had survived so many disasters and still warmed and sheltered with all her might.
Merle scratched out what she’d written and started again.
Maison Chanceuse
By the first week in December Pascal announced himself cured. He did look fine, his muscles returned to their state of grace, bulging under his black t-shirt, his lung capacity was worthy of a three-mile run, and his weight settled just under what it had been before.
“I am going a little bit crazy without work, chérie.” They were in the kitchen, stirring a bisque on the stove. He put his arms around her from the back and pulled her into him. “You understand?” he asked, nuzzling her neck.
Merle felt sad that their time together was over. Was it over? She blinked into the soup. “But—?” She put down the wooden spoon and turned to face him.
“But what?” He kissed her nose. “You think I am not ready?”
“No, not that. You look ready to me. But what about— us?”
He stepped back and looked at her seriously. “I have thought about that endlessly, blackbird. But you have your lawyer job in New York and I have my police job here. How can we figure it out? I can’t move to New York, chérie, it is not possible.”
She laid her hand on his chest. “I want—” She swallowed hard.
He whispered: “What do you want, my love?”
Her stomach lurched. What was he thinking? What did he want? But that wasn’t the question, was it?
“I want to quit my job.” The words stuttered out of her, scaring her but all true. “I don’t want to go back to the city. I want to stay in France.”
He paused, staring into her eyes. “Are you sure?”
She nodded, her throat in a clot.
“Shall I rent out my sad little cottage on the internet?”
She threw her hands around his neck. “And make a small fortune off crazy Americans and other animal lovers.”
He rolled his eyes. “I should throw in goat cuddling? Is that what you call it?”
“It will go viral.”
“What do they say on MTV? That would be sick.”
That night Merle composed an email to Lillian Warshowski, breaking the news that she was quitting. Not taking that very complimentary raise. It was a hard letter to write. She was not one to turn down offers, to walk away with no plan in place. About ten o’clock she stretched, still not finished, and clicked on her inbox. She hadn’t been online much. Her sisters only texted these days and her parent
s and Tristan called her when necessary. Her inbox was stuffed with appeals for politicians, weight loss remedies, and cocktail recipes. A note from her friend Betsy; another from Tristan’s counselor. He was doing fine, the counselor said, replying to a “hovering mother” letter Merle had sent a week back.
And there it was: an email from Lillian.
Merle froze. She’d never heard back from her boss, she realized, after she’d written to discuss the new job. Too much had transpired, and she’d completely forgotten that Lillian had been silent. She squinted at the date: one week had passed since Lillian had written.
Now Merle’s finger hovered over the key, apprehensive. Lillian had replied.
It was short and not-so-sweet, a reflection of the author. Lillian had decided not to retire after all: hadn’t Merle heard? How silly it was that the news hadn’t crossed the ocean!! In Lillian’s world, in the Legal Aid and New York lawyer world, it was front page, above the fold, top drawer gossip.
Lillian Warshowski realizes she is indispensable. Huzzah.
Merle stared at the screen. Lillian had changed her mind. Lillian had not bothered to tell Merle. Wait— she scrolled through her inbox, checked her spam, looked everywhere. Nope. Nothing from Lillian until this.
There were tidbits in the email about the young lawyer who had taken Merle’s job temporarily. It sounded like Lillian was stalking him. Ugh.
What a—
Merle blew up her cheeks and let out a big breath. Stop. She no longer had to reject Lillian because she’d been rejected instead. She should be happy— right? She didn’t have to break it gently to Lillian, to tell her that working with her was a moral and ethical quagmire and that she never wanted to drink with another white-shoe lawyer for the rest of her life.
Bennett Sisters Mysteries Volume 5 & 6 Page 24