It all feels like a euphemism now. Like he’s really saying I’m sorry I confused you with my wife.
“It was fine,” I reply.
25
SARAH
The next day things are more uncomfortable than ever. It’s unbearable that it’s gotten this way. I love him, I love his daughter, and I want to stay. But how can we continue like this?
When he comes in at lunch he barely looks at me.
“I need to go into town,” I say, rising.
“I’ll give you my list and the two of you can go,” says Marie. “I’ll watch the baby.”
I want to be alone with him, and yet I also don’t. I’m scared that he’ll apologize again, or even worse...that he’ll imply there’s something about Yvette he misses.
We walk in silence. It’s not until we’ve reached the town that he turns to me.
“Can we talk about yesterday?” he asks suddenly.
I tense. “What about it?”
He closes his eyes and exhales heavily. “It’s not how I’d have wanted our first time to be, and I feel as if it ended badly, but when I try to discuss it with you, you end the conversation.”
“I don’t know what you want from me,” I mutter. “I told you it was fine.”
His laughter is short and bitter. “Yes, that’s what every man wants to hear. It was fine.”
Tears spring to my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I snap. “I’m sure Yvette was much better at demonstrating her appreciation.” I start crossing the street toward the general store.
“Amelie, wait,” he says.
“Just leave me alone,” I hiss over my shoulder. “I’ll meet you at the butcher shop.”
I walk into the store, trying to compose myself. This is a small town and it’ll just take one person seeing tears in my eyes to get the rumor mill running.
And who am I fooling? It’s already running full speed, I’m sure. A year ago, the whole town was gossiping about Henri’s possessiveness of his cousin, and as soon as the cousin returns his wife runs off. It’s easy enough to imagine what they are all thinking.
I grab a package of pins and then ask Madame Fournier for ten yards of cotton for diapers. She tells me to give her a moment, so I turn to walk down the aisle and run right into Luc.
He looks startled to see me, and then glances at the pins in my hand and gives me a small smile. “And?” he asks. “Are the rumors true?”
“What rumors?”
“That Yvette left. She told Claudette Loison that you and Henri were lovers and she caught you together.”
“No,” I gasp. “Of course not. Yvette was…unhinged. She was constantly making accusations and had no interest in being a mother. Her departure had nothing to do with me.”
He steps closer. “My leave is nearly over. I haven’t seen you in town once, though.”
“I’ve been taking care of the baby,” I argue. “She’s still fragile. None of us have been around.”
He nods and then his hand slides out to grab mine. “Just be careful,” he says. “Please. His wife is gone and I’m sure he’s ready to take you back with open arms, but he’s hurt you once and that situation is a landmine. The woman just had a baby. Her emotions are all over the place but she’s going to come back. Surely you realize this.” As he says the words, I realize I’ve been saying them to myself as well. Asking what will happen if Yvette changes her mind. Cecelia is her daughter and Henri will go where she goes. “You’re beautiful, and I’m not saying he doesn’t care, but if he has to decide between taking her back or losing his daughter, what will he—”
Luc’s words die off suddenly, and before I can ask him what’s wrong, I feel Henri move behind me, standing too close.
“Drop her hand,” he growls.
Luc’s eyes darken. “I’m getting tired of these little interruptions, Henri,” he replies, his hand still on mine. “Perhaps if you took better care of your things, you wouldn’t need to guard them so zealously.”
Henri’s hands go to my shoulders and he starts pulling me behind him, which means, no doubt, that he’s anticipating a fight. Madame Fournier and her assistant peek around the corner at us.
“Stop,” I hiss, locking myself tight so Henri can’t move me easily. “Both of you. We’re making a scene.”
Their gazes flicker toward Madame Fournier, but I get the feeling neither of them cares all that much at this precise moment.
“I should go,” I say to Luc, slipping my hand from his. “Thank you for your concern.” I turn away, all but shoving Henri in the opposite direction. We haven’t bought anything we needed, but I sense an explosion coming—his or mine, I’m not sure—and it can’t happen here.
I march back toward the farm and he’s on my heels.
“Is that why you were so eager to shop?” he asks, the words hissed more than spoken. “Your secret meeting with Luc?”
“Secret meeting?” I demand. “Are you kidding me?”
I walk ahead as fast as I can and don’t say another word until we’re just outside of the village and on the quiet road to the farm. “I spoke to him for all of a minute before you steamrolled over us both.”
“He held your hand!” he shouts. “Don’t pretend for a moment you were merely talking!”
“Did I fuck him?” I demand. “Because until I have, I still won’t have caught up with you.”
He pulls me off the side of the road, into the grass. “Is that what it’s going to come down to?” he asks, gripping my shoulders. “Will you need to punish me for it before we can move forward? Do you need to go be with Luc so things are even? Fine. Do it. Just stop throwing it in my face again and again when there’s absolutely nothing I can do to fix it!”
“So, you want me to sleep with Luc.”
“Of course I don’t want you to sleep with him!” he cries. “I want you back. I want you to stop hating me for what I did, and if this is what it will take, then I’ll learn to live with it. You’re mad, and you have every right to be. But I’m mad too, Sarah.”
My jaw drops. “You’re mad? About what?”
“I begged you not to go. My God, I begged, and you didn’t listen. What I wanted was meaningless, and you will always be able to disregard my opinion, won’t you? You will always be able to leave for a year and return, buffed to perfection after a trip to your own time, talking about some musician you were with.”
“I didn’t leave you,” I tell him, and now the tears are rolling down my face whether I want them to or not. “You left me and you’ll leave me again if she comes back.” My chest aches as I say the words. This fear has been knife-sharp all along, the thing I can’t get past, the reason I don’t want to trust him.
His arms come around me. “Is that really what you think?” he asks. His voice breaks. He sounds devastated. His lips press to the top of my head, to my temples, to my eyes. “Sarah, I could barely make myself stay when she hadn’t left. There’s not a chance I’d take her back now.”
“What if she threatens to take Cecelia?”
His lips move over my cheeks, slick with tears. “She won’t take you, or my daughter, and God help her if she tries to do either one.”
I stare at his chest, tucking my chin to keep the wobble out of my voice. “I don’t want you comparing me to her…not with that.”
He looks truly dumbfounded. “Are you talking about sex? How could I possibly compare the two of you when I can’t remember ever being with her in the first place?”
“She said you couldn’t keep your hands off her.”
He sighs. “And you believed her? She was petty and cruel and jealous. Why would you believe a word that came out of her mouth?”
“When we were together,” I say, finally glancing up at him. “The things you said at the end…” I shake my head.
He raises a brow. “You seemed to like the things I was saying well enough at the time.”
“Yes,” I cry, “until I realized you weren’t even thinking of me when you said them! That was nothing
you ever did with me. And if you’re going to be pretending I’m her, I’d rather just leave.”
He pulls my face to his. “The way I was with you last time, Sarah…it’s because I was desperate. It’s because I’d thought of nothing but you for a year, and because I’d fantasized, and because I hadn’t had sex I was sober enough to remember once since you left.”
He holds my face in his hands as if nothing has ever been more precious to him and he kisses me. An apology, a plea. His mouth moving slowly over mine as if relearning its every dip and curve. My mouth opens and he steps in closer, his tongue gently making me forget where we are and what we were discussing. My coin purse falls to the ground and his palm slides to my ass as he pulls me toward the trees on the side of the road.
I arch against him, seeking friction, and his mouth moves over my neck. He undoes my first two buttons and, when it’s still not enough to reach my bra, he leans over and pulls at my nipple with his teeth through the fabric of the dress. I reach for his belt.
“Please,” I beg him. “I need more.”
His hands are up my dress, sliding up my bare thighs. In a moment he’ll discover that I’m so wet it embarrasses me. My legs spread in anticipation as I undo his pants.
But he stops, his chest rising and falling quickly. “No.”
“No?” I ask. I’m humiliated by how distraught I sound right now.
“It won’t be just like last time,” he says. “I won’t let this be rough and frantic and perfect only to end with you unable to look me in the eye.”
“Fine,” I say, reaching for him. “It won’t be.”
“No,” he insists. “No more sleeping in another room. No more awkwardness. No more using Cece as an excuse to avoid me. The next time we do this, we do this in our bed, in our room.”
“Have you even changed the sheets yet?” I ask, bitterness in my tone.
“Marie did the day she left.”
I frown. “I still hate that she was in there, but fine. I’ll sleep in your room.”
I reach for his pants a third time, let my hand splay over his cock, jutting against the material. He hisses air between his teeth, but then his fingers twine with mine and he pulls my hand away. “I want it even more than you do, little thief, I assure you. But if this is what I have to do to have you back in my bed, begging for it, I will.”
I arch toward him. “I’m begging right here.”
He laughs. “Not good enough.”
* * *
When we return to the house, Marie looks at us askance. “You’ve been gone nearly two hours and you return empty-handed? Dieu. You’re both absolutely worthless.” Henri ignores her, grabbing the key to the truck off the peg by the door.
“Where are you going now?” I ask.
A hint of a smile graces his mouth. He leans over and presses a kiss to his daughter’s forehead, and then a kiss to mine, before reaching for the door. “Just a little insurance policy.”
“Were you fighting?” asks Marie after he leaves.
“No,” I say, lifting Cece from her crib. She burps loudly and I grin at her as if she just got into Harvard. “Such a good girl,” I coo.
“He didn’t say anything? You don’t think he—” Her question trails off as she looks away, and I know what she was going to ask.
“No, he didn’t go to bring her home. That I am certain of.”
Hours pass. Marie continues to fret, and it’s time to put Cece to bed but…well, I promised. And more to the point I want what he promised me if I stayed in his room. The truck pulls up at last and he comes in, moving past us but flashing me a quick grin. Seconds later, he’s pulling the mattress from the room. He dumps it outside, without ceremony, and then drags in a new one, wrapped in plastic sheeting.
“Henri,” breathes Marie, “what on earth?”
He ignores her, going to the linen cabinet just off the hallway and grabbing clean sheets. And then holds out a hand for me, formally, as if he’s a foreign prince meeting his new bride. “Marie, do you mind very much taking Cecelia tonight?” he asks, never looking away from me once as he pulls me into his room.
When the door shuts behind us, he begins pulling a fresh sheet over the mattress. “I was already going to sleep in here, you know,” I tell him. “You didn’t have to take it quite this far.”
He meets my eye with a single brow raised. “Just so we’re clear, you’ll be lucky if you do any sleeping.”
I blush, feeling suddenly shy and uncertain. Somehow, we never went through this awkward stage the first time around, but I’m going through it now. I reach for the door. “I should check on—”
He comes to where I stand and presses his left palm flat against the door so it stays shut. With his right, he begins unbuttoning my dress. “Stop avoiding me, Sarah,” he says. His voice is a low growl, one that unsettles me as much as it makes me want everything he’s promised.
“We still haven’t finished making up the—”
“Close enough,” he says, pulling the dress over my head and swinging me onto the mattress. He tugs my panties down, then slides down until his head is between my thighs, letting his tongue dart out to taste me while his fingers push inside.
“Henri,” I groan. “Oh my God. It’s too much. Just come up here.”
He laughs. I feel the pulse of his exhale against me, just where his tongue is still flickering so, so perfectly. “All in good time, little thief. But first I’m going to taste your tight, wet-”
“Henri,” I warn.
“I know you like it,” he says. “And I want to make sure you know whose tight, wet, delicious-”
“Henri. Stop.”
He laughs again. “Why?”
“Because,” I reply, pulling him toward me. At last he complies. “You’re going to end it before it starts.” I tug his pants down and pull him on top of me before they’re even mid-thigh. He pushes inside me and the two of us groan at the feel of it. I lean toward his ear. “Now,” I whisper, arching upward to meet his thrust. “Now tell me.”
* * *
We are exhausted but unwilling to sleep. I doze off, and when I wake in his moonlit room, I’m certain I am dreaming, convinced I’m still a captive and have time traveled to him the way I used to.
He rolls toward me and holds my face in his hands. “You have no idea how many times I’ve prayed I’d open my eyes to find you here,” he whispers, and it comes to me—Yvette and the pain of finding her here, Cecelia’s birth and the way it healed me. A small burst of anger and pain and forgiveness, emotions I run through so fast it’s hard to tell them apart. I can’t wish it away, not when Cecelia couldn’t exist without it, and while a part of me wishes things were still pure and unsullied between us, the way they were a year ago, I know that we are stronger like this. Even the best foundations have some dirt mixed in. That’s what makes them harden into something solid and unshakeable.
He was sure of me back then, yet worried I would someday choose to leave, and now he knows better. I was sure of him back then, yet a piece of me still wondered if he wouldn’t be better off and happier with some normal girl he could count on. But now I know a part of him belongs to me, craves me, in a way that wouldn’t be satisfied by someone else.
I press my mouth to his. In a moment this will lead to other things—to me, rolled on my back and him pushing inside me. But for right now, just in this moment, our kiss is something else. A seal, a promise. The start of a new, and better, version of us. Coron and Iris may be a part of me, but I will never allow them to take over. With Henri and Cecelia by my side, I can close the door on that side of myself. Forever, I hope.
26
SARAH
For the next month, the war seems so far away it would be easy to forget about it entirely. The Germans don’t advance. The French don’t attack. There is rationing, yes, but it affects us little on the farm—between the canned goods and the livestock we have plenty. Henri and most of the young men in town are considered active duty, forbidden to leave the vi
cinity, but there’s not much to it at the moment—daily drills out in the fields on the far side of the village and some target practice, nothing more. Henri still can’t quite believe that Marshall Petain, a decorated war hero himself, will just surrender to Hitler with nary a fight after becoming president, but I shudder when I think about what lies ahead. If Henri died during World War II, that means he’ll die again no matter what I do. I comb my memory for the conversations Cecelia and I had during the visits to my own time—will have, in her case—about her father. She was so careful not to give me a single detail. But did she ever speak of him as if he was someone she knew? Did she ever tell me a single thing implying that they’d been together, shared a meal or a conversation?
I don’t think she did.
I try to content myself with the days I have right now and, for the most part, I’m happy, but I still bear scars from my time in captivity that might never depart. I still wake at night with my heart pounding, certain Gustave’s hand is on my ankle, that Mathilde let the babies die.
Henri quietly soothes me on those nights, running a hand down my back until my heart settles again. “What happened to you there?” he always asks, his voice tight.
“Nothing,” I reply each time. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
One night he asks whose body he pulled out of the hole, wearing his mother’s necklace. I lie and tell him I don’t know, because in spite of everything, our lives are good and I’m not that person now, the one who killed with glee. I refuse to feel guilty about it, I will say to myself sometimes. But what troubles me isn’t that I feel guilt—it’s that I feel nothing but a quiet, simmering pleasure when I remember most of the deaths I was responsible for.
And I’m not the only one who bears scars from our time apart. On those afternoons when he walks into a silent home—when Cece is napping and Marie is in town—I get a glimpse of something haunted in his eyes, the ghost of last winter when the house was empty and threatened to remain so. Then he finds me and it’s gone, replaced by his staggering relief, and quickly followed by the suggestion that we should go to the bedroom while we have a few moments to ourselves.
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