Dove Keeper

by Emily Deibler

  Her insides weighed like marble. Each blow crippled her. God stuck a dirk under her ribs, and with each loss He pushed it an inch deeper. There was no name for that grief, the person she was after Roger. If Anatole died, Rosalie would be a widow, but she had no name for herself.

  In nineteen days, she mourned a son, a sister, and a mother, and she simply didn’t know how to act with a baby who so reminded her of her sister in the face and in his smile. She smelled Roger like he was at her breast.

  Nineteen days.

  Nineteen days—Roger, Maman, Juliette. It all gave Rosalie a new skin, this iron-latticed, unfamiliar one.

  Yet, iron rusted, and when it did, it became something new and broken.

  On the twenty-third day after Roger’s death, Rosalie brought herself to the cold latrine, leaned down in front of the sink to apply water to her face, and noticed something

  During her rest, milk had leaked and stained her gown.

  An ink blot in her mind: Need to go feed Roger. When reality sank into her marrow, she slung across the washroom the bottle containing Roger’s medicine, and it shattered when it hit the wall.

  I’d like to die here. She slapped a palm against the mirror. The impact stung—she may’ve screamed, but not from physical pain. An overdose crossed her mind, an overdose like Roger’s because of the pharmacist’s mistake, that too-big prescription for a minor cold, the drops Rosalie gave her son before she fed him, before she unknowingly killed him.

  Or she could use a blade, to be poetic.

  She would be able to die. Take a kitchen knife and drain herself in the tub so her death could be as clean as possible. So the world could be relieved of her blood and mucus and even the white pus from every blemish, because she was still but a girl masquerading as a grown woman.

  But Rosalie had Anatole and André who’d grieve for her.

  André, no, André would be too little to remember her if she ended her life, but Anatole was another matter. His life had been tragic from the start, doomed because of his father’s profession and mannerisms. How long would it take for the smell of Rosalie’s hair to disappear from the pillows? But Anatole could marry again, couldn’t he? An executioner’s life was lonely, and most women wouldn’t want a headsman for a husband, but Anatole was a gentle, quiet man. Surely he’d find someone else to take her mantle.

  But no, he wouldn’t. He couldn’t because of his profession. Damn him. Damn him for killing men yet not letting her die.

  Rosalie scratched her cheeks, and whether she meant to bleed didn’t matter because she did.

  Glowing in the simpering daylight, swollen as a chilled melon, she wished she’d died in birth so that she had never met her son, that she could bathe in the Lethe. She wondered why unbaptized babies went to Limbo, Hell’s cinder-colored hem, and who’d hold and carry her son, if anyone would, if he wasn’t lonely and squalling on a sooty bank.

  If Roger fell into Hell’s river, would his dormant sins burden him like an anchor? Did souls there become hungry; if so, who would feed him? Christ sacrificed Himself and suffered, granted mercy, and said, “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them.” Yet infants were cast into the valley of the shadow of death. Grace was a sparse currency for children today.

  Bitterness twisted into gnarled thorns. Both she and Anatole carried the headsman’s legacy like a rat-borne plague. Both their fathers’ curses braiding together like knitted bone—Louis Deibler, as well as her father buried in Algeria. Black blood ran in their veins, scourged them all.

  She couldn’t move beyond that spot, beyond the laughing mirror. How fitting that an executioner’s wife should die young. It was like the start of a grotesque fairy tale. The nameless mothers and wives always died; it was all they were good for.

  Before she knew it, warmth encircled her; Anatole clasped her from behind like she was his heart and like he’d die if he released her.

  His heart, her heart. Too many hearts, couldn’t keep them all.

  They both trembled, standing there over the running sink, and they slid to the floor together, bowed on the tiles and wracked with sobs. Sense fled Rosalie, all except the texture of his untrimmed beard against her neck.

  After the milk, mucus, and tears had dried, and a sticky redness blotched their faces, Rosalie undressed Anatole. They didn’t make love, for Rosalie was unsure if she’d want to do that again, and she was still healing from Roger’s birth.

  She led Anatole to the bath, where he gently cast her sullied gown aside, and they sat together in the soapsud-glistening water, her cheek on his shoulder, their fingers wrinkled.

  It had been the closest Anatole had held her since she awoke to Roger unmoving beside her; even Rosalie asking Anatole to feed from her held an air of detachment. Rosalie’s mouth tasted of mucus, and she fantasized that the hand rubbing her shoulder gripped her hair and plunged her head in the water. She’d release a long scream, water burning her lungs, and she’d die.

  They stayed that way until André warbled for attention from his crib, a new crib, because Rosalie didn’t want André to be in the shadow of another baby’s dreams.

  Later, while preparing for bed, Rosalie turned to Anatole. “I was the one,” she said, voice as thin as a reed. “I killed him. I didn’t know—didn’t think—I was the one who gave…”

  Anatole closed the distance between them and massaged her shoulders, leaning his forehead to hers. He whispered to her, only capable of a single coherent word: “No.”

  And that was the last they spoke of Roger—with his hands and his smile and the coffin, a devilish gleam, no bigger than a breadbox.

  In the now, Rosalie drew a shaky breath. “Anatole.” She reached for him, he crossed the distance, and they received each other, collapsing to the floor. Returning Anatole’s embrace, she pressed her nose to his neck and tasted him and the salt of tears with only a breath.

  They cried together, and Anatole murmured against her hair, “I’m here, I’m here.” A soft litany. A candle flame, small, but a candle was a light in the dark nonetheless. A soft plod on the floor, and Rosalie moved so her cheek was pressed against Anatole’s shirt. Jolie sniffed them both before sitting on her haunches and tilting her head.

  Rosalie mumbled, “I made Marcy think I hate her.”

  Anatole squeezed her. “But you don’t.”

  “How do I let her know? I’ll have to talk to her, won’t I?” Rosalie would have to talk to her only living child with only scattered words at her disposal. It could only end poorly. “But I don’t know what to say without making everything worse.”

  “She’ll understand. Speak to her like you have with me.”

  “I hurt you.”

  Anatole set his lips on her brow. “No, I can’t help you if I don’t know what your worries are, and they’re legitimate worries. And I did keep something important from you. Even if we don’t know how to change now, we can not know together, can’t we?” The smell of his shirt, his thumb rubbing the base of her scalp. “I’m here. I’ll always be.”

  “Don’t promise me that. I may resent you if you don’t keep your word.” She laughed under her breath. “When you asked if I regret our marriage . . .” Rosalie inhaled his scent, kept him by her heart as long as she could. “I don’t regret you. I just wish we could bring back…” No, she couldn’t say it, even now. “I’m weak, pathetic.”

  He trembled. “Please don’t think of yourself like that.”

  “It’s true.”

  “You’ve made it this far, despite everything.” Shoulders sagging, Anatole murmured, “I’m sorry.” Sorries and love threaded through her hair like yellow wildflowers.

  Rosalie abruptly broke their embrace, bones quivering. “For what? I’m the one who needs to be sorry.” Her back touched the wall. “Did you ever blame me for what happened to him?”

  “I said I didn’t.” Anatole stood.

  “But really, truly?”

  “What good does this do?” His jaw twitched, and he laid a hand on the lea
ved end table.

  “Answer me.”

  He opened his mouth once, only to make a soft rattle, and closed it again. Whatever he saw in the wallpaper, she couldn’t say. “At times, I did. It wasn’t your fault, but I did think that at the start. When I remembered you giving our boy the medicine.”

  She crossed her arms and shrank. “See? Even you thought—”

  Anatole’s visage contorted. “It was the pain! I couldn’t think outside of this fog, this episode where I could only see Roger’s corpse in my mind again and again, when I’d dream of holding him, of watching him grow, and wake up to that cold space between us. I was weak.”

  “But you had André.”

  “We have André. You don’t think of him as a son, and we’re the only parents he has.”

  “I told you. I can’t see him as a replacement. It isn’t fair.”

  His mouth tightened. “Is that what you think? That I see him as our second Roger? Do you think I’m that apathetic, that callous? That we lost one son, so we can never have another? Is this where we stand? Is it because I stopped crying? Is what we’ve done the wrong way to grieve? Is there a wrong way when you’ve been told all your life that a strong, steady person cannot falter and endanger his family?”

  “You can falter with me.” When he didn’t respond, she scoffed. “We’re both inept at helping each other, it seems.” Rosalie fidgeted with her hair. “And our daughter feels better with a near-stranger than here with us. It’s my fault. I’m not normal.”

  “I don’t know what to say to that.”

  “You know it too, and you need someone normal. Someone who can go cycling with you or spend a day without loathing herself.”

  “What does that mean? What is ‘normal’ for us, for me? Over two decades ago, my normal was an eccentric drunkard for a father and dissecting sparrows and squirrels at his bidding and seething with bitterness I couldn’’t show. Before we met each other at the cycling club. Before I knew I could be loved despite the job others find grotesque or evil.”

  “I just don’t want Marcy to be like Roger, even if that means leaving.” Because of her. Because she was poison and ruined all she surveyed.

  “I understand.”

  “You’ve said that, you say that, you always say that, but do you? You’ve killed men, but do you know what it’s like to kill something that grew inside you? Something that is you, yet so much more? To have your son leave you empty when he’s born, to spill everything for him, and then be empty again?”

  He broke eye contact. “No, I can’t say I do.”

  “You only cried a few times, and I stopped because I thought I would’ve moved past it.”

  “Move past it like you thought I did?”

  “You deserve better than a miserable woman. You need a new wife, a better wife. Is that what you want? Do you regret our marriage? Do you regret me?”

  He didn’t answer, which was answer enough. Her throat swelled. She needed to sleep.

  Just as she went to leave for bed, Anatole spoke.

  “It—it hurts to feel like I need to help you, but I’m useless no matter what, whether I’m silent or doing something. Every treatment causes you pain, and I’ve caused you pain, and God, Rosie, I don’t know how the hell to do anything outside of using the blade.”

  “That isn’t—”

  “And though that hurts, it hurts more to know you think so little of me that after all we’ve survived together, you believe I’d abandon you without a second thought.”

  “I won’t martyr you for my sake, won’t keep you caged with me.”

  “Caged?”

  “You’ve stayed through the worst. And is that only because I was your second option for a wife? Because there were and are no good choices left?”

  He rapped his knuckles once against the table, mouth bending inward. “Do you want me to go? Is that really what this is? Would it help you if I left?”

  God, even now, he didn’t comprehend. “No, I told you it isn’t your job.”

  “It isn’t, isn’t it, if it makes you and the children unsafe?”

  Rosalie steamed over his reply. “But maybe it’d be best for you and the children if I left. Perhaps they’d stand a chance. Perhaps all they need is the one who isn’t sick, the one who always says ‘yes.’”

  “God damn it all. You truly think none of us would care if you left? That we’d be better? That we’d throw you out and never miss you? That I care more for someone who left me because of my job than someone who’s stayed and cared, even when I’d have nightmares or bury myself in minutiae?” He dragged his hand down his face and beard, his knuckles white as classroom chalk. “That, Rosie, is the worst insult I’ve ever been given.”

  “You asked for my feelings, and I told you.” It was Anatole who faced away from her now, and coldness was all Rosalie knew. “Tell me what I should do to make amends. To be a better person, a better wife and mother.”

  “That’s just it. You are enough now, yet you won’t believe it.”

  In resignation, Rosalie offered a bitter smile he couldn’t see, barring any extra senses. “I’m always to blame, aren’t I?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “God, this is just like you to say things like that. That I’m enough, that I haven’t done anything wrong when we both know you’re lying. When your daughter and nephew left because of me.”

  “A liar. You won’t believe anything I say because you think I’m lying with each word.” His forehead rumpled like old parchment. “Maybe I very well am, with all my little roses and comics, all my unconvincing normalities, but if we can’t trust each other’s words, then what else is there?”

  “I’m sorry I ruined our home for Marcy and André.”

  “Rosie—”

  She put her face in her hands. “I’m sorry I made everyone loathe me.” Her vision narrowed until all she knew were the dark shadows of her palms.

  Her husband pulled her close. It was a perfunctory, hollow gesture, done before and done now out of tired desperation. Despite their closeness in this inane American gesture, Rosalie earned no peace, yet all the same, numbness thrummed in her veins like hundreds of vibrating needles. She heard the thunder of seawater in her ears. The wintry finality, that black trench. He was her sunrise, but twilight was here in the walls. In the corner of her eye rested the hearth.

  She opened her mouth—

  Rapid, hard knocks on the front door.

  Not again.

  The knocking was insistent, and a hot tension coiled in her heart.

  Rosalie squeezed Anatole’s wrist when he started toward the door. “Who do you think it is? André took his key, didn’t he?” She worked to calm herself. She had guns if anything terrible happened, and it was like André to lose his house key.

  That comforted little.

  He raised a thumb and brushed her cheek, and she released him; they went toward the noise together. When Anatole opened the front door, they were met with the grim scowls of two policemen.

  14

  Jehanne

  She traced her nails along the spine of her Arthurian book when Marcy opened the door.

  “Jehanne?”

  “Good morning.”

  “G’morning.“

  Jehanne settled her hands in her lap. “Did you not sleep well? You look bothered.”

  “I saw Mlle Clair,” Marcy replied, guarded.

  “Really? Good, I’ve decided I need her for my reading lesson.” It was a tad early, but Clair would have to cope.

  “She was arguing with Moreau in the study, and—and I think something’s wrong with her. That she’s hurt. I don’t know how. She’s on the floor crying.”

  Panic. “I’ll go to her. Stay in your room.”

  “Okay,” Marcy replied, her brow knit. “When do you plan on coming back?”

  “As soon as I’ve checked on her.” Marcy opened her mouth, but Jehanne swung out of the room and flew to the study.

  When she stopped at the
doorway, she heard Clair before she saw her in the near-dark. She sounded as if she struggled to breathe.

  Jehanne cleared her throat. Clair snapped her head up and hastily wiped her cheeks with open hands. When the girl stepped close, she noticed Clair’s sleeve was up, exposing more than usual. Clair followed Jehanne’s sight, but before she could yank the fabric down, Jehanne saw scores of bruises and burns, knelt, and gently gripped Clair’s elbow. “Was this a demon?”

  “Don’t be stupid.” Clair’s voice had no force in it. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “You don’t be stupid. I’ll worry if I want. Are they back, the devils?”

  Clair sputtered, “I-I can’t.” Jehanne wanted to recoil because she didn’t understand how to speak to a distraught Clair when she was never meant to be distraught. She was meant to be fixed like one leg of a drawing compass.

  “Are there still demons here? There are, aren’t there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Jehanne pushed, her hands hovering. “What happened to you? Did a demon do this?”

  “Quiet down, please. I beg you.”

  Jehanne lowered her voice, not wanting to frighten the woman any more than she already was. It was disquieting, seeing Clair unraveled. Exposed in the heavy light, fragile yet weighted from being crushed between a king’s fingers and turned to gold. Her swollen cheek now had a bruise forming in the corner. Jehanne hadn’t thought to notice before now. “Were you attacked, did a demon do this? Did you see a demon in Father’s room?”

  Had the demon harmed Father, despite what Clair said? Jehanne needed to see him.

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Clair gave a wet sniff, visage downcast. “Quite.”

  “Did a person hurt you?” Somehow, that was worse than a demon. The furious red on Clair’s cheek last night, molded like a hand. Jehanne had tried to ignore it as a trick of the light, but now she sucked in a loud breath. A chill scored her back. A creeping dread settled like worms, squirming and writhing at the base of her stomach. “Did Father do this?” No, he wouldn’t; she felt guilty asking it. Father was a good Christian man. Tormented, but kind. Not him, of all people, not the man who prayed and wept for her.