Across Eternity

by O'Roark, Elizabeth

  I could leave. I could tour Europe with Rob Chapman. Let Henri explain to his wife how I’ve disappeared. It’s not my problem.

  I throw off the blankets. I feel a twinge of guilt at the idea of leaving without telling Marie goodbye, but surely she will understand. I can’t be expected to sit downstairs making nice with Henri and his glowing wife.

  Except…Cecelia. I promised her.

  A part of me is tempted to ignore it. I’ve sacrificed enough. I’ve given these people a year of my life and my heart and I doubt I’m getting either of them back. I’ve done enough. But then I think of the way Cecelia protected me when I first arrived, how she was willing to let me cling to her when I was scared of everyone else. She was more of a mother to me than my own mother has ever been, and this is the only thing she’s ever asked in return. And she wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t important.

  I put on the dress Marie has left. My favorite one. It was thoughtful of her, sweet to remember, except it was my favorite because of Henri. Because of the way he looked at me when I wore it, the way his eyes dipped to that small hint of cleavage like it was the Holy Land or water to a man dying of thirst. Well, let him look again. Let him get a good look at all the things he will never have again, all the things I will give away to…Rob Chapman? I want the idea of it to appeal to me but it doesn’t.

  And why would Henri care? He has a wife now. He chose someone else.

  I go down the stairs, fueled by my anger. They are putting food on the table, and Henri is standing there when I reach the bottom step. Our eyes hold, and lock. For a moment my anger disappears and I’m nothing but bottomless sorrow, a well of grief that has no end.

  “Awake at last, cousin!” Marie says with forced heartiness, looking between us like a deer in headlights. She rushes over to usher me to the table. “You must eat.”

  Yvette walks in, yawning, a hand pressed to her stomach as she stretches. “I thought I could nap, but you take the cake, Amelie.”

  I hate her. She’s done nothing to me whatsoever, aside from unwittingly stealing the worthless piece of shit I fell in love with, but I hate her nonetheless.

  I glance at Henri and Marie. Has Henri uttered a single word since I arrived? I’m not sure he has. “You’ve slept most of the day,” Marie says. Her smile is so feigned it looks painful. “Your journey from America must have been a tiring one.”

  Yvette takes a seat, reaching for the bread. “What a way to arrive. I can’t believe they even stole the clothes off your back.”

  I suppose this is how Henri and Marie explained the fact that I arrived naked, but I get the feeling she relishes the idea of my hard journey, my stolen clothes.

  The tension in the room is palpable. I see it in Henri’s hands on the table, holding the edge hard, in his tight jaw. The urgency in Marie’s eyes. We have so much to discuss and not a word can be said with Yvette here.

  “Can I help?” I ask, turning toward Marie.

  She clicks her tongue. “Of course not. You need food and more rest.” So you can go where you belong. She hasn’t said it, hasn’t even implied it, but they must want me gone, mustn’t they? I’m just a painful, awkward thing to work around now. Another mouth to feed. My presence something they’ll have to create lie after lie about because of Yvette.

  Marie places bread and cheese and milk in front of me, along with a slab of ham. Yvette’s eyes dip to my plate. “I thought we were saving the pig for after the baby was born.”

  “We’ll have other foods to celebrate with then,” says Henri tightly, looking at neither of us. Apparently, he does still have a voice, though I’ve rarely heard it sound as strained as it does right now. “Today we celebrate the return of our cousin.”

  Something inside me softens, begins to ache for him and I fight it, search myself instead for that spark of anger. Anger is all that will keep this from being the saddest day of my entire life. He began dating her weeks after you left, I remind myself. He married her.

  “So much has changed since your last visit, Amelie,” says Marie, joining us at the table. “We have ration cards but not much is available. It’s all going to the front.”

  “Yes,” I reply, raising cold eyes to Henri, who sits across from me, beside his wife. “I never dreamed so much would have changed.” All of his promises about marrying me after I came back…did he mean any of them? Was he really that fickle or was I really that stupid? I turn from him to his wife. “When is the baby due?”

  She pats her stomach with a condescending smile. She couldn’t possibly know about us, but something in her expression says I have what you want. And the Coron in me surges. I could take it back from you, I think.

  “Two more months,” she says, smiling up at Henri.

  My fork falls to my plate. If she is seven months along right now, she got pregnant in February. Which means he waited less than three months after I was gone to marry someone else. Three months. While I spent all that time trying to get back to him. Plotting, conspiring, starving, forcing myself to keep going. I held on, comforted only by the memory of him, the feel of him against me at night, and all along he was with someone else.

  I jumped out of a window to get back to you, I want to say. I nearly died. I will never again feel completely safe, or worthwhile, because of what I went through. But all you had to do was wait and you couldn’t even do that.

  Yvette is waiting for some kind of predictable response from me about how wonderful it is that they’ll be parents and I just can’t bring myself to offer it.

  “Eat,” whispers Marie. Her hand squeezes mine for a moment.

  My lips are dry and my tongue darts out to wet them. “I’m not feeling very well,” I reply. I cannot look at Henri, or Yvette. The sight of them both makes me sick.

  “You’re too thin,” she says. “You need to try.”

  Yvette shifts across from me. “Oh, leave her alone, Marie. She’s skin and bones but she’ll fatten up once she gets home, I’m sure. Americans are all fat. So yes, the baby is due at the end of November. Henri will make a very good father, don’t you think?” she prompts.

  I search myself for that anger before I answer. It’s all that will keep me from bursting into tears. “Who knows?” I finally reply, raising my gaze to meet Henri’s. “A man can seem perfect until he’s tested. And then the whole charade falls apart.”

  Henri’s fist grabs his mug so hard its contents slosh over the sides, while beside me, Marie makes a choked noise of admonishment. “You’ll find, Yvette, that Amelie is full of jokes. She’s teasing you now. She knows Henri will prove a good father.”

  Her hand rests heavily on my shoulder, as if warning me not to take this any further. For her sake, I won’t.

  “We thought you were dead,” Henri says suddenly. He sounds as angry as I feel. “We were certain of it. Why did you wait so long to let us know you were alive?”

  My body jerks as if he’s struck me. Is he actually trying to deflect blame for this? Does he think I don’t know how long it takes a human baby to grow? “I couldn’t get away,” I say between my teeth. “And then, when I finally did, I fell two stories from a window. I broke fifteen different bones, fractured my skull, and spent nearly six months in a coma.” And you were supposed to be at war, I long to add. How exactly is he here now? Did something change or did Cecelia lie to me, knowing there’s no way I’d stay until the end of October if I came any sooner? I swallow hard and look Henri dead in the eye. “I left as soon as I could. I’m sorry if that wasn’t fast enough for you, but you certainly seem to have kept yourself occupied.”

  Yvette looks between the two of us. “I don’t understand what the fuss is all about, Henri. You’ve never mentioned this cousin of yours once and now you act as if the world is caving in because she didn’t write?”

  All the accusations have left him. His head hangs. “You’re right,” he says, his voice muted, low with guilt and shame. “I have no right to complain, especially after what she’s been through.”

&nbs
p; My glance flickers to his wife. “It’s funny. I was only here last November, and Henri never mentioned you either. It must have been quite the whirlwind courtship. Or perhaps he just had a few special friends back then he chose not to introduce me to.”

  Henri’s jaw grinds. “It happened very quickly,” he says, staring at his plate.

  “It was so romantic,” says Yvette, putting a proprietary hand on his arm. “I was living in Paris when we met—I was an actress—and then he came one night and asked me to give it all up and come live with him in the countryside. You’d think I’d say no, wouldn’t you? Giving up Paris for this rural life? But I knew a love like ours is a rare thing. He was worth the sacrifice.”

  Henri stands abruptly, clutching his side, pale beneath his tan. “Excuse me,” he says, and then he turns and walks out, letting the door slam shut behind him.

  The silence in the wake of his departure is so awkward Marie actually winces. But Yvette recovers quickly, giving us both a trained actress’s smile. “He’s just come back from the front, you know, and he was shot in the side. He was so worried he might not live to meet his child. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  “I’ll go check on him,” Marie says faintly, beginning to rise.

  I place a hand on her forearm. “I’ll go.”

  This seems to send Yvette spinning into motion for the first time all night. “He’s my husband. I’ll go.”

  * * *

  It’s only when the door shuts behind her that Marie turns to me with tears in her eyes. “My God, Amelie, what happened to you? We were so certain you were dead.”

  With Henri gone the fight has left me. I bury my head in my hands. “I wish I was. I should have just died there.”

  Marie’s arm wraps around me. “I know this is a shock. But don’t say that. You have no idea how sick we’ve been, thinking you’d died. I had so much guilt about leaving you. But…I don’t understand. We found your body. We went to Paris and Henri climbed into that hole and found you, wearing the necklace.”

  “Found me?” I repeat, before realizing he must have found Iris. Coron probably buried any remaining skeletons under the floor, after that fire. Fewer questions asked that way. And Henri found one and assumed it was me. I shudder at the idea, until I remember how quickly he seemed to have recovered. There’s so much I could tell her—about my aunt, about the babies, about all the women who died after they left. I don’t have the heart. Maybe this, here, is my punishment for it all.

  “I lent it to someone,” I say simply. “There was a fire and I was able to climb upstairs and jump out the window. I’d hoped to time travel while I was in the air, but it didn’t happen fast enough.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “For what you’ve suffered and for what I put you through when it was...all for nothing. When my mother must have been killed right away.”

  I’ve had the same thought, at times, and yet I can’t blame her for wanting to know. “You’d never have been sure about her if you hadn’t seen it for yourself.”

  “Thank God you survived,” she replies. “To see you here now, in perfect health. I can’t tell you what a miracle it is.”

  “Not perfect. I can’t have children now, because of the fall.” I laugh and it turns into a sob. “I guess Henri dodged a bullet, didn’t he?”

  She squeezes me tight. “God…this situation…I’m sorry. Henri would never, ever say he dodged a bullet, but I’m sorry. It must be such a shock for you.”

  “Cecelia—the woman who helped me the last time I went back—she warned me,” I whisper. “She tried to warn me that things would not be as I hoped when I arrived here. She made me swear I’d stay until the end of October. I should have refused.”

  Marie places a palm on my face. “A piece of Henri died, thinking you were gone. You need to know…it was not the way Yvette made it out to be. Henri grieved for you. I watched him hold your skeleton. He wept like a child. I’ve never seen him, the way he was that day.”

  I feel sick at the thought. I can’t imagine Henri crying. But I can no longer afford to feel sympathy for him, over anything. His words and his actions toward me were meaningless when I was here before, easily discarded. Why should anything else he does be judged differently?

  Humans lie, I think. Humans do whatever makes them feel good in the moment, without loyalty, without a thought for others. Perhaps having some of Coron and Iris is a good thing. If I’d had their chilly self-interest a year ago, none of this would have happened.

  “Do not expect me to feel sorry for him,” I reply, my voice low and gritty with the need to cry. “If the situations had been reversed, I’d have mourned him for years, Marie. Years.”

  “It’s not what you think,” she pleads, clasping my hands.

  “How? How is there possibly an alternate explanation?”

  She hangs her head. “It’s not my story to tell. But this is hard for him too. You could, if you wanted…” She stops, and her voice drops to a whisper. “You could undo it.”

  I blink. “What?”

  “You could go back in time and warn yourself, refuse to go.”

  The whole stupid trip to 1918. I could go back to the previous fall and tell Marie the truth: Your mother died immediately. You and I go, and we suffer terribly, so let’s just stay here.

  “I thought of doing it a thousand times,” she says, staring at her hands. “But I assumed you were dead so it would do no good.”

  I’m surprised she’s even suggesting it, under the circumstances. That’s her niece Yvette carries. “I can’t,” I reply, my teeth grinding. “There were two infants there. Girls. I helped get them out. At least I hope I did. Did your mother ever say anything about them?”

  “Infants? Why would my mother know?” she asks, and my heart sinks. Marie was a newborn herself at the time. Of course she wouldn’t know.

  “Your mother is the one I wrote to. I asked her to find them homes.” I shrug. “It doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t go back and change it all anyway.”

  Her head tilts. “No? Why not?”

  “Because it’s better this way,” I reply, anger steeling my heart, making all of this bearable for a moment. “If it hadn’t happened, I’d never have realized how little Henri actually cared. I’d never have realized he didn’t deserve me in the first place.”

  * * *

  I spend much of the next day sleeping. I don’t need it, not the way I did before I took my aunt’s spark. I just don’t have the heart to do anything else.

  When Henri comes in that afternoon, his eyes go to me. I see misery there, and hunger too, but I no longer trust my ability to read what’s in his heart. Look how wrong I must have been the first time around.

  He sits stiffly beside a yammering Yvette, pale beneath his summer tan. The two of them make a lovely couple. Perhaps this is how it was always supposed to be, and I am the intruder. Watching them, I don’t see how I can possibly keep my promise to Cecelia. Remain here a full month? I’m not even sure I’ll make it through the next twenty-four hours.

  Marie begins to put dinner on the table. I rise but she presses a hand to my shoulder and tells me to sit. Yvette, I notice, hasn’t lifted a finger once since I arrived. I push the food on my plate around, wishing I had an appetite. When I look up, Henri’s eyes are on me again.

  “So how long do you plan to stay, Amelie?” asks Yvette. She’s smiling but it’s strained, unfriendly at the edges.

  Henri stills, listening. “Until the end of October,” I reply. “I’m meeting a friend then.”

  A muscle feathers in Henri’s jaw at the word friend. Does he want to ask who I’m meeting? Does a hint of his old jealousy still exist? Good. It can only be a fraction of my own, and he deserves it.

  “We love that you’re here,” says Marie, raising a brow at Yvette. “We want you to stay as long as possible.”

  “I’m sure Amelie is eager to see something of Europe other than our little farm,” says Yvette. Our farm. I bristle at her use of the word.
It’s not yours, bitch. But as soon as the thought flits through my head I’m reminded: she’s been here longer than I have. I thought of the farm as mine in a much shorter period of time. I guess she was smart to lock Henri into marriage as fast as she did, since he is obviously a man prone to quick changes of heart. “You should go see things while you’re in Europe. Come back to meet your friend afterward.”

  “This is her home too,” says Henri, hand clenched tight around his fork.

  I laugh. The sound is unrepentantly bitter. “This was never my home.”

  Yvette looks between the two of us. She’s a smart girl, a crafty one. She may not know who I really am, but she knows a threat when it’s presented to her. “You shouldn’t force her to stay when there’s so much to see. Who’s this friend you’ll meet, Amelie?”

  The desire to hurt Henri for this entire experience pulses inside me, swelling and growing. I know it’s juvenile. I know I should be better than this.

  I simply am not.

  “He’s a musician, beginning a European tour next month. He asked me to travel with him.”

  “A musician!?” squeals Yvette. “How very scandalous of you. Musicians have no money, but I’m sure you’ll have a lovely time.”

  Resist, resist. I can’t. “This one has money. A lot of money. He’s got his own plane. I kept a photo of him on my wall at home, in fact, as an adolescent.”

  Yvette’s face goes from shock to suspicion. The idea, I suppose, of some girl in borrowed shoes having a lover wealthy enough to own a plane is beyond her comprehension.

  Henri rises, gripping his side, and walks straight out the door. It’s only been two days, but it seems to be becoming a habit.

  Marie watches him go, flinching, and then she grabs a pail off the counter and hands it to me. “I forgot to milk the cows,” she says. “Can you?”

  I reach for the pail but she doesn’t release it until I meet her eye. I know what the look says. Hash it out. Have your fight so you can stop bringing it under my roof.