A Roux of Revenge

by Connie Archer

  “And how does Paula feel about you?”

  “She’s great. She knows that we’re just friends. And she really wants to work hard and fit in here—in Snowflake. Her goals have changed. Can you understand that?”

  “Yes, I think I do understand.” Elias, how can you be so blind? It was obvious to her that, assuming Elias was being completely honest, Paula had another agenda. The fact that Paula was staying at his house meant that he and Lucky wouldn’t have that space to themselves. He had to be deceiving himself about Paula’s intent, and his cavalier attitude was making her angrier.

  “I just didn’t want you to feel that I hadn’t been honest with you.”

  Lucky twirled her wineglass around in a pool of condensation that had formed on the tabletop. “Well, actually, you weren’t honest with me.”

  “What are you saying? I’ve never lied to you.”

  “There are lies of omission, Elias.” She stood, leaving her wine untouched.

  “Are you leaving?” He looked shocked.

  “Yes. I’m very tired. I’m going home.”

  “Let me walk you back, then.”

  “Don’t bother. It’s not necessary.” Lucky stood and slipped on her jacket. Elias followed suit.

  “I’m walking you back to your apartment. After all, I’m the one who dragged you out.”

  She had no choice. It was obvious he was going to insist. Frankly, she would have preferred some private time to sulk and feel justifiably angry on the way back to her very nonprivate apartment. Elias quickly threw some bills on the table and followed her as she hurried through the pub and pushed through the door to the street. She was silent as they walked along Broadway, passing by the darkened Spoonful. It was just as well Elias didn’t try to make conversation, because she wasn’t sure what would pop out of her mouth next.

  When they arrived at her building on Maple Street, Elias followed her up the flight of stairs to her apartment door. “Lucky, look, it’s obvious you’re upset with me. We should talk about this.”

  She took a deep breath. “I don’t know what I am right now, Elias. I feel . . . disoriented, I guess. It doesn’t make me feel comfortable that Paula is staying in your guest room. I mean, how would you feel if the situation were reversed?”

  “You mean if you hired a former love from your past and they were staying in your apartment?” Elias was silent for a moment. “Okay, maybe I wouldn’t be thrilled, but I do think I’d have a bit more faith in you than you’re showing me right now.”

  Lucky hated to admit it, but Elias had a point. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . if Paula were a different person . . .”

  “Different how?”

  “There’s something about her that just gives me the willies. I can’t explain it.” Actually, Lucky thought she could probably explain it quite well to anyone but Elias. She recalled the slow smile and the movements that reminded her of a cat preening itself.

  “Now you’re being silly.” Elias smiled and leaned down for a kiss.

  Lucky turned her face up to him. The kiss, when it came, felt like a perfunctory action, a necessary chore. It bore no resemblance to the heat and ardor he had shown on her threshold on prior nights.

  “This week will be crazy for me. I’ve got to get Paula acclimated to our procedures. I have three patients scheduled for surgery in Lincoln Falls over the next few days, and all the rest of the stuff that goes on in the Clinic, but I’ll give you a call in a day or so. We can go someplace special for dinner, if you like.”

  Lucky nodded. “Sounds great.” She was glad the light from the hallway sconce was dim. She hoped the worried expression on her face didn’t show. “Good night.” Lucky turned away and slipped her key into the lock.

  Elias hurried down the stairs and out the front door. Lucky leaned over the banister and watched his retreating back. Damn, Paula, she thought. You don’t fool me one bit.

  Chapter 15

  LUCKY HEARD THE front door of the apartment slam as Janie left for work the following morning. She groaned and buried her face in the pillow, unwilling to face the day and embarrassed at her behavior the night before. She felt as if she had carried on the argument with Elias in her sleeping state. She cringed when she reviewed her words to him. As much as she was angry at his comment about her jealousy, she had to admit he was right. She was angry. She was jealous, and no doubt with good reason. She hadn’t misread Paula’s intent that day in his office—the strange woman’s familiarity with him. Lucky was certain Paula had designs on Elias, a desire to renew their past relationship, for whatever reason. She was certain of it.

  It wasn’t that Elias had actually done anything unforgiveable. She didn’t believe he had. It was just that in all the time they had been together, he had never even mentioned a prior important relationship. What else hadn’t he mentioned over the past eight months? She took a deep breath. Her blood pressure was probably rising, and she hadn’t even crawled out of bed. In fairness to Elias, she had never actually asked about his love life before they were together. In truth, because she didn’t want to know. She was well aware she had been falling deeply in love over the past months. She wanted to leave the past unspoken. She had had boyfriends in college and after, and never felt any of her relationships or friendships worth mentioning to him. They simply weren’t important anymore. What was significant was the fact that this striking, educated, urbane woman who had sat so close to Elias in his office the day before had actually been heavily involved with him. And now she would be working with him every day.

  Lucky wanted to cry. She felt a heaviness in her chest. No matter how she covered up her feelings, the fact remained that Elias couldn’t help comparing the two women. And she, Lucky, would definitely be found wanting. She wasn’t sophisticated. Pretty, yes, in a girl-next-door sort of way, but highly educated, no. Involved in the same profession? No. She ran a restaurant. A restaurant in a small town. How could she possibly compete with the glamorous, accomplished Dr. Paula Sarens?

  She knew she had to stop obsessing about the situation with Elias. There were other things to take care of this morning, getting her apartment to herself again for example. As much as she loved Janie and didn’t really mind the fact that Janie was staying with her for a few days, the breach between Janie and her mother needed to be healed. This couldn’t go on forever. It was time to have a real heart-to-heart with Miriam Leonard.

  • • •

  MIRIAM SAT AT the kitchen table, nervously wringing her hands. Her eyes were rimmed with red. She had obviously been crying on a regular basis. Her face was swollen, and now she was doing her best to maintain some semblance of control. Two cups of coffee were on the table along with a pitcher of cream and a sugar bowl. Miriam sat, stirring her coffee. She stared into the mocha-colored mixture for several minutes, lost in thought.

  “Janie told me,” Lucky spoke.

  Miriam looked up quickly. Her hands started to shake.

  “In all fairness, I more or less pried it out of her. I hope you’ll forgive me, but I just had to get to the bottom of it. I couldn’t watch her sulk and carry on needlessly.”

  “There’s no need to apologize.” Miriam took a shaky breath. “You had every right, Lucky. I’m sure it’s been a burden on you, having her there.”

  “No burden. But I wish she’d talk to you. I’m sure it’s breaking your heart.”

  Tears sprang to Miriam’s eyes. “You have no idea. I’m sure you’ll think I’m foolish, but I really never thought this day would come. That my past would come knocking on my door so to speak. She caught me in a vulnerable moment; otherwise, I never would have told her. You see, the other day, I found an envelope in my mailbox. A blank envelope, nothing written on it at all, and inside was a forget-me-not. You know those little blue flowers with the yellow centers. It was from him. He must have left it. Only he would know about that flower. He knows where I live—where Janie lives. Her father . . .” Miriam hesitated. “Janie’s father has found us and . . . well, he must know
that she’s his daughter.” She laughed ruefully. “How could he not? The resemblance is striking.”

  “And your husband—Doug? Did he know?”

  “Oh, yes. Douglas saved my life. Literally. You see, my family . . .” Miriam looked at Lucky, a frightened look on her face. “We were travelers . . . gypsies, I guess you’d call us. It’s impossible for you, or anyone like you, to understand.”

  Lucky could feel Miriam closing down, guarding her words. “Why do you say that? Someone like me?”

  “You . . . you had a home, a real home. A real identity. A birth certificate, a driver’s license, an education, for God’s sake. The way I grew up, none of that was possible. We lived under the radar. None of us had . . . has . . . a real identity in the outer world. Oh, we knew who our parents were, our brothers and sisters, and we were given names, but that was all.”

  Miriam stared out the kitchen window at her garden. Her face had taken on a far-off look. “My name was Morag. We moved constantly. We were always warned to stay away from strangers—people who weren’t like us—anything to avoid involvement with the outside society, particularly the authorities, border guards, police, school systems. Someone like you, you have a real history, so did your parents. You had ancestors, official records, lives that were lived aboveboard. We had nothing like that. Truly we were second-class citizens or worse—not even citizens.”

  “You didn’t know where your family came from?”

  “We knew our ancestors were from Nova Scotia. Originally Scottish. And we always maintained a connection with that place, but we traveled constantly. The men would pick up work wherever they could, and every few years we’d return to Cape Breton. We speak . . .” Miriam caught herself quickly. “They speak Gaelic, our dialect. We would always speak Gaelic when we were with our own people. But we also spoke English and French—had to in order to survive, especially traveling through Quebec and New England.”

  “But if you had no identity papers, how were you able to cross borders?”

  “That was nothing. Our people knew all the byways, all the small roads and fire trails. We usually knew which country we were in, but it didn’t matter to us. Countries, nationalities, those things had no meaning for us.”

  “How did you come to leave? Was it not the life you wanted?”

  Miriam laughed ruefully. “I never knew there was any other kind of life. There were ‘us,’ and there were ‘the others’ that we must at all costs not become involved with. We were told we’d be taken from our parents; the police would arrest us; we’d be put into homes with strangers. It was drilled into our heads. Our only safety was in obeying the rules.” Miriam took a sip of her coffee and looked around her kitchen. “This,” she said, indicating the walls of her home, “this was unheard of, unthought of, something that we could never hope for. In truth, something we should not even want. It was a strange, xenophobic mentality. To me, now, it feels as though I was raised in a time period that would have made sense several centuries ago.”

  “And you left that life?” Lucky asked.

  Miriam shook her head. “I never intended to. I never knew anything else. We didn’t have books to learn about the outside world. I could speak three languages, but I couldn’t read or write any of them. Can you believe that? How helpless we really were in terms of the real world.” Miriam paused to take a sip of coffee. She seemed calmer now that she was speaking of her past. “It was a strange world, stranger than you could ever imagine. We . . . we had certain rituals.” Miriam pursed her lips, as though aware she had gone too far.

  Lucky’s curiosity was piqued. “Rituals?”

  Miriam stared into her coffee. “I never realized until many years later how strange this tradition was.” She paused for a long moment, lost in thought. “Once a year, at the winter solstice, someone, one of the adults, would be chosen to be the Keeper.”

  “The Keeper?” Lucky asked.

  “Yes.” Miriam nodded. “The keeper of the secrets. It was considered an honor but it was a terrible burden as well. Every adult in the clan had to confess one secret to the person chosen as the Keeper. Something they had never told anyone else. Something that they never would tell anyone else. And the Keeper could never, upon pain of shunning, reveal those secrets. When I look back on that now, I am horrified. When or how this practice started among us, I don’t know. Perhaps it was invented as a form of confession, a method of chastisement. If someone knew a terrible secret about you, something shameful you had done, something dishonest, something you had lusted after in your heart, then you’d be forced to admit to yourself you could no longer commit that transgression. I imagine it had the effect of keeping everyone in line. The purpose of everything we did was to keep our clan together.”

  “I couldn’t even imagine being put in that position,” Lucky said. “And you’re right. What a terrible burden to bear, and to never be able to speak of it.”

  “I never intended to leave,” Miriam continued. “I fell in love . . . with Eamon. Eamon MacDougal, Janie’s father. And he with me. We were so young, but we loved each other with an intense sureness that only the young can experience when they know nothing of life. We were so certain we would be together.” Miriam took a deep breath. “But it was never to be.

  “Our clan . . . our extended family if you will, was, simply put, a completely patriarchal society.” She looked up quickly. “I don’t mean to say that women were held prisoner, nothing like that. The women supported this structure. What else could they have possibly done? They all grew up like me; they knew no other life.” Miriam sighed deeply. “You see, I had been ‘promised’ to another man. My father had arranged the marriage. I begged and pleaded with him, but he had made up his mind. He didn’t know about Eamon. It wasn’t easy, but we were able to keep our involvement secret. Although, when I look back on it now, I think my father suspected, and for whatever reason he insisted I must marry another man. I was out of my mind with grief, with rage, and no amount of argument could change my father’s mind. He was set in his ways. He wasn’t violent, but he was . . . a throwback, you’d consider him.”

  “How awful!” Lucky tried to imagine what it would be like to have your life choices irrevocably set by another.

  “Yes.” Miriam smiled slowly. “How awful.” She was silent for several minutes. She took another deep breath and continued. “Eamon and I hatched a plan. He was as determined and rebellious as I. We decided that if our families wouldn’t allow us to be together, we’d run away. We’d leave, and for better or worse, we’d make our way in the world. At least we would be together.” Miriam closed her eyes. “I loved him so very much. He was my life, my future path; I was sure of it.

  “When the day came, I slipped away into the woods. We were camped about a hundred miles north of here. I know that now, but I didn’t at the time. Eamon was to follow. But he never came. I waited at the spot we had agreed upon. I waited for three days. I had taken only water with me. I had no food. And after three days, I was growing weaker.”

  “Had he changed his mind?”

  “I thought so at the time. I cried bitter, bitter tears. On the last day I finally had to admit to myself that Eamon would not be joining me. Something had gone wrong. He had lied. Or he had changed his mind. I didn’t know why, but I was devastated. I was starving, half frozen during the night, and terrified as well. Eamon had abandoned me. There was no other explanation. I couldn’t go back. If he didn’t love me, there was nothing left for me. I didn’t want to live any longer and . . . I’m ashamed to admit this now, but in my delusional state, and I’m sure I was delusional with hunger and grief, I decided to kill myself.

  “What I can remember now is stumbling out to the road. A car pulled up. College kids. They offered me a ride and asked me where I was going. They must have thought I was hitchhiking. I wasn’t in my right mind, and I’m sure they thought I was sick or stoned or something, but at least they were kind enough not to leave me in the road. They were heading for Bennington, and they as
ked me where I was going. I told them I’d had a fight with my boyfriend and my name was Miriam. I just made that name up on the spot. I was afraid if I told them my real name, it would sound strange to them and they would know who and what I was. I told them I wanted to get home to Lincoln Falls. It was the only town I knew the name of. There were three boys and two girls. They looked at me strangely, but they bought me food and promised to take me to my home.” Miriam laughed. “Home. What a joke that was, but I knew it was safer to tell them a lie.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I was very lucky. We stopped for gas in the town. I told them I could walk from there. I was stronger by then. I’m not sure they believed me, but they didn’t argue, and we said good-bye. I owed them my life I guess. When I think what might have happened to me all alone out there . . .” Miriam trailed off.

  “I wandered around Lincoln Falls for several days. I was hungry again. I had no money, of course, and I looked like a street urchin. One night I waited in the bushes behind a restaurant. The cooks who worked there were tossing food away in the garbage can. I was so desperate. I waited until I was sure no one was in the parking lot and went to the bin. I opened the lid.” Miriam looked up. “I’m sure you’re horrified to hear this. That someone could stoop so low as to eat garbage from a restaurant. But I was starving, literally. Just as I reached for a discarded chicken leg, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I almost jumped out of my skin and tried to run away, but this man had grasped my arm. He told me not to be frightened. He had no intention of hurting me.” Miriam pressed her lips together in an effort to stem the tears. “He . . . he had a bundle of food from the restaurant that he was taking with him. He asked me if I wanted his food. All I could do was nod. Something in his voice made me trust him. He told me again not to be frightened, but I should sit in his car to eat. If I was afraid, I could leave the door open. He told me again he wouldn’t hurt me or even touch me. I knew he was telling the truth. That man, that wonderful kind man, was Doug Leonard, my husband. May the heavens keep him and bless him.”