Tangled Ashes

by Michele Phoenix

  Elise stood so quickly that she toppled her chair. “They don’t want me back!” she yelled at her friend, her face contorted with grief, fresh tears on her cheeks. “They called me a prostitute and told me never to show my face again. Never!”

  Marie was speechless. The Dupuis family had always been loving, welded together by adversity. She couldn’t imagine the power of emotion it must have required for them to disown their daughter. “Oh, Elise,” Marie said, going to her friend and embracing her. “Maybe they’ll come around. Maybe—if you just give them time . . .”

  Elise shook her head. “I had to sleep at my aunt’s last night. They sent all my stuff over to her house.” She took a tremulous breath. “And now she wants me to move out too.” More tears streaked down her cheeks. “And I can’t even move in here because I don’t have the papers they want.”

  “We’ll figure it out, Elise,” Marie said, holding her friend closer. “We’ll find a solution.”

  As it turned out, it was Marie who had been able to convince her friend’s parents to provide the manor with proof of their daughter’s heritage. They had answered the door with suspicion on their faces, and Monsieur Dupuis had tried to shut it before Marie was inside when she’d told them the reason for her visit. It was Madame Dupuis’s hand on her husband’s arm that had prevented it. “Let her speak,” she’d said, deadness in her voice.

  Marie had spent just a few minutes in their home. She’d listened to the mother’s anguish and been stunned by the father’s anger. But when she’d asked for the paperwork Elise needed to be admitted to the manor, they’d relented. Their daughter was a traitor and an unwed mother, but she was still their child.

  So in a matter of hours, Elise had gone from maid to resident, and she now lived as one of the Führer’s prized daughters in this place of birth, this “Fount of Life” operated by the army of death. Though Marie had initially balked at the idea of being Elise’s companion for fear of being associated with the rest of the manor’s occupants, her friendship had dictated the risk. She still saw Elise’s parents on occasion—they crossed paths in the street or saw each other during Mass on Sunday mornings—and sometimes, Madame Dupuis whispered an inquiry about her daughter. But aside from that, the family ties were severed. The longer the chasm existed, the easier it was for Elise to accept. She was steeped in a place where the higher goals of the Führer trumped familial loyalty, and Marie could see her friend’s zeal increasing with every day that brought her closer to giving birth.

  IT WAS THE moment of truth. The new steps were installed, and with the help of two carpenters, Beck was assembling the staircase, simultaneously aligning each of the interlocking parts and fitting them into place with the portion of banister he had finished just days before. He’d been meticulous in the staining and polishing that had followed completion and had sanded down a section of the existing staircase on either side of the gap, applying that same stain and finish to it. The slightly distressed, deep-colored new cherrywood was a near-perfect match to the rest of the antique structure.

  As if they’d sensed the importance of the moment, both Fallon and Thérèse had materialized to watch the installation. They stood on the marble steps leading up to the staircase, pleasure on their faces. A little farther back stood the children and Jade. There had been a slight thaw in Beck’s relationship with the kids since he had appeared in the kitchen on the morning after his confrontation with Jade and, as best he could, blurted out an apology. He’d sat down at the table opposite both kids and tried not to register the chocolate milk dripping off their chins. He’d folded his hands in front of him and let a few moments pass while he’d selected the words he would use for the first apology he’d made in recent memory.

  “I was wrong to yell at you,” he said, looking sincerely into the widening eyes across the table from him. “I was wrong to yell, and I was wrong to tell you to get out of my office. And I should have taken a closer look at your knife—” Somewhere behind him, Jade cleared her throat. “At your saber,” he amended, “because you’d gone to the trouble of bringing it to me. You probably wanted me to be excited for you. Which I should have been. But I wasn’t. And I’m sorry.”

  Though Eva blinked, there was little more coming from the twins to prove they were alive and had been listening. He turned to Jade and asked, “Did I say too much? Not enough?”

  She pointed with her chin toward Eva. The little girl had gotten off her stool and walked around the table to Beck’s side. Then she’d taken Beck’s hand, saying as maturely as a six-year-old could, “We’ll forgive you once you’ve spent an hour in the time-out chair.” And with that, she’d pulled him to his feet, marched him to the chair that stood by the pantry, and instructed him to sit and not talk until he was released.

  At the sink, Jade had watched the exchange with a combination of horror and delight. When Becker had looked to her for rescue, she’d merely thrown up her hands, shaken her head, and let Eva exact the punishment she felt the infraction had warranted. But after Beck had sat on the small chair for a few moments, she had finally suggested to the twins that they reward his “great apology” with a little lenience.

  Philippe had come marching up to the chair and said, “You can get out of time-out if you say my saber was a saber!” And then he’d crossed his arms again, a position Beck had come to recognize as his “don’t mess with me” stance.

  Looking the little boy straight in the eyes, Beck had said, “To you, it’s a saber. And that’s all that really matters.”

  With that admission, Philippe had run to the window ledge where the “saber” now rested and climbed on a footstool to reach it.

  “Careful,” Jade had mumbled under her breath.

  Back in front of Beck, Philippe had laid his rusted knife on the sitting man’s shoulder and declared, somber and serious, “I dub you ready to get out of the time-out chair.”

  So as the kids stood by on the day Beck reassembled the stairs, the caution between them had vastly decreased. His interactions with Jade had gotten a little easier too, though they’d never referred to their brutal conversation again. He’d tried to mitigate the harshness of his words with deliberately cordial exchanges in the ensuing days, and Jade had responded in kind. He was still processing her comments—though not out of choice. He wanted to forget what she’d said and go on with his life, but the moment his mind was unoccupied, her words came back to haunt it. Between that and his cycle of drinking and desperately trying to quit, his head was not a pleasant place to live. He’d finally assuaged some of the chaos with a couple swallows of whiskey that morning. A little bit couldn’t hurt.

  While two of his men held the ornamental pieces in place, Beck and another carpenter slowly lowered the banister section into the gap. Several holes had been routed into the underside of the carved wood. The tips of the sculpted accents would fit into the holes, locking the elements into place like a giant jigsaw puzzle. It was the kind of work that required complete coordination and the smallest of adjustments. In other words, it was the worst possible task for large men who lacked experience. The presence of the usual group of onlookers, gathered to watch the pivotal moment, only exacerbated the tension. Beck ignored the audience as best he could and snapped instructions at his helpers as if he were the skipper in a boat race. “Lower. To the right. Hold it still. No—go back.” It was essential that each piece be exactly aligned and vertical before the railing could be put in place.

  When one of the workers lost his focus, an expletive erupted from Beck like a gunshot. “Come on, man, hold it still! Every time we get within a millimeter of getting it right—” He halted, becoming aware of the group around him. The twins stared at each other wide-eyed and Fallon’s smile showed signs of strain. Thérèse looked anywhere but at Beck.

  Tempering his impatience, Beck growled, “Let’s try it one more time,” and he removed the banister to start over again.

  Jade, apparently deciding the children’s vocabulary didn’t need any more expan
sion, propelled them toward the château’s doors. Just as they were about to exit, one of the craftsmen who were sanding the floors in the ballroom came hurrying out. “We have a problem,” he said without preamble. “The plaster at the floor line in the ballroom is bad. It’s frittering away every time we come near it with the sander. You know what that could mean. . . .”

  Beck paused, still bent over his work. “How bad is it?”

  “We won’t know until we tear up the floorboards, but the deterioration runs the length of the room. No visible dry rot in the boards that I can see, but if the plaster’s going, you know there’s something major happening down there.”

  Beck knew the news wasn’t good. He also knew it should have been discovered weeks before. “Didn’t they just redo all the wainscoting in the ballroom? Tear it off the walls and restore it?”

  “Sure—and it’s going back up when we finish the floors. Don’t know how the guys didn’t catch it.”

  Beck managed to maintain his composure, but there was a rigidity developing in his shoulders and neck that belied his calm tone. “Who was the project leader in that room?”

  “Christophe.”

  “The same guy who assured me last week that he’d inspected the work himself and it was all in order?”

  “Same guy.”

  “And where is he now?”

  Jacques looked unsure. He glanced at Fallon.

  “Jacques!” Beck snapped.

  “He’s on a coffee break.”

  Beck, still holding the portion of the banister in place, looked over his shoulder at the craftsman. “He’s taking a coffee break?” he asked, incredulous. “You’re telling me that we might have to tear up parts of the floor to find God knows what under them, and while you’re telling me this, Christophe is out in the truck having a coffee break?” The menace in his voice was unmistakable.

  “Actually,” Jacques said, “I think he might have gone home for something. . . .”

  Beck tried to stem the outburst he knew was coming. He felt the fury rising but was powerless to contain it. Throwing the banister to the floor, he turned on Jacques and let loose with a dressing-down worthy of any sailor.

  The craftsman was taken aback by the outburst. “Hey, man, don’t shoot the messenger.”

  “Get on the phone!” Becker bellowed, veins beginning to stand out in his neck and forehead.

  Jacques squared his shoulders and pulled himself up taller. He took a step closer, pointing at himself and yelling a defiant “Don’t talk to me like I’m your lackey!”

  “Excuse me?” Beck was incredulous.

  “And you know what? You can call him yourself!”

  Fallon stepped in. “Lads—”

  Becker pointed a finger at Jacques. “Listen, man! As long as I’m the project manager on this gig, you do what I say! Get on the phone! Now!”

  The craftsman stood in defiance for just a moment longer, then stormed past Jade and the kids on his way out of the castle, slamming the door with so much force that Beck was surprised the glass didn’t break. Jade laid a hand on each of the children’s heads and, with a quietly spoken “Let’s go through the dining room,” led them away from the entrance hall.

  Fallon was as serious as Becker had ever seen him. “Give us a moment, gentlemen?” he said to the workers who still stood by, halfheartedly holding the elements of the staircase. They were only too eager to go. That left Becker and Fallon facing off on the marble steps with Thérèse fidgeting nearby.

  “I’ll just . . . go make some calls.” As no one was paying any attention to her, she meekly turned and left.

  “Not exactly the most inspirational performance I’ve ever witnessed,” Fallon said.

  Beck turned on him. “Not exactly the most qualified workers I’ve ever dealt with either!”

  “I suggest you get yourself in hand before you say anything else.” The suggestion was spoken softly enough, but it held the kind of authority Fallon had seldom demonstrated before. “Now, I’ve been in the business longer than you have, lad, and I know there are some things we can’t anticipate. It’s how you deal with those—and with your men—that truly tests your mettle.”

  Becker looked skyward and let out a frustrated sigh, a vein still pulsing at his temple. “Yeah, sorry about that.” It was a mechanical response devoid of any trace of remorse.

  Fallon wasn’t so easily pacified. “‘Sorry about that’?” he inquired, his voice sharp with an edge Becker hadn’t heard before. He pointed at the section of railing lying on the stairs. “You have a temper tantrum that might have damaged the pieces you’ve been slaving over for weeks, antagonizing craftsmen we still need on this job and possibly further slowing a project whose deadline is fast approaching, and your response is ‘Sorry about that’?”

  Becker held up a hand. “I shouldn’t have lost it. . . .”

  “Well, what you call ‘losing it,’” Fallon said softly, “could also be construed as harassment, and that kind of thing doesn’t belong in this line of work.”

  “Christophe should have caught the problem when he was renovating the wainscoting!”

  “Jacques isn’t Christophe!” Fallon said, his voice rising in frustration. “I might understand better if your anger had been directed at the person who rightfully deserves it, but you yelled at the wrong man! And,” Fallon added, his impatience showing in the intensity of his expression, “you blew up in front of my children! Whatever that was, lad, you’ve got to get it under control!”

  Coming from anyone else, the order might have been easy to dismiss, but Fallon had been nothing but good to Becker since his arrival in Lamorlaye, and the least he owed him was honesty. Becker rubbed his hands over his face and hung his head. “You’re right,” he said. “I know you’re right.”

  “I think you also know that I’m not the type of chap who likes to prance around giving orders, but I’m going to break with that tradition just this once.”

  Beck met his gaze, trusting the man enough that he was ready to follow his orders. “Okay,” he said.

  “I’m not one for ultimatums, but for the sake of this project and your welfare—not to mention the children who witness your childishness—here’s my final order. You treat people with respect. You check your anger at the door—run it off, sleep it off, will it off—whatever it takes. I don’t want to see it or hear of it again.” He paused, staring Becker in the eye, then took a step closer. “And your breath stinks of whiskey, lad,” he said, equal measures of disgust and compassion in his voice. “If I smell that again, you’ll be out on your ear.” Fallon looked as if the diatribe had cost him dearly. He added, “You’re a brilliant artisan. You’re also a man approaching forty with nothing to show for your life but expertise in your field. Given the sums I’m paying you, I appreciate that trait, but what’s keeping you safe isn’t keeping you warm. And until you get to the root of that, you’ll have nothing of value to offer anyone.”

  With those words, he slapped Becker’s shoulder, his hand lingering a moment longer in a show of support, and then he was gone.

  There had been no drinking for Beck that night. So what if he wasn’t the clinical drunk who couldn’t go an hour without alcohol. Big deal. Whether it was a day or a week, if it eventually sucked him back in, there was a problem. And he didn’t want that problem to be his anymore. After the public humiliation of the afternoon, with Fallon’s words still fresh in his mind, he’d been spurred on to give it one more shot. As fragile as he was, his desire to buck the demon off his back felt strong enough to warrant one more attempt. One last-ditch effort to become human again. He’d done it before. He’d gone four days—five—without a drink, but much as he’d tried to convince himself that those days proved he wasn’t an addict, he knew that each relapse was evidence that he was. He wasn’t sure if his resolve was strong enough this time to resist the lure of the bottles in his closet, but he had no other alternative than to give it another try.

  Becker didn’t empty his bottles down the d
rain. He didn’t remove them from his apartment either. That would have felt too much like capitulation. How would resisting something that wasn’t there prove any degree of sobriety? No, he wanted to do this the hard way. So he moved the bottles to the unused bedroom next door and shut the door on them—just to muffle their voices. And then he went up to the second-floor hallway and began running sprints, as he had on so many occasions before.

  When Beck returned to his bedroom, thinking he was winded enough to sleep, he found that his mind was alert and taunting. He tried to ignore it. Then he tried to discredit it. Then he got up again, threw on some sweats, and headed outside. There was a circular path that led through the woods behind the castle. It started at the kitchen door and, after a large loop, ended at the castle’s main entrance. Beck took it slowly the first time, but by his third lap, he’d reached full speed. His lungs rebelled, his head throbbed as his feet pounded the dirt path and his arms pumped furiously. He stopped counting after the eighth lap, when the exertion that had temporarily rid his mind of its ghosts sent it instead into overdrive.

  As his steps thumped dully on the packed earth, images began to run like a slideshow in his mind. He saw Northwestern’s football field, the flash of pom-poms, heard the boom of the game announcer’s voice over the loudspeakers. He saw the segment of bleachers where Amanda always sat, blonde hair impeccably coiffed and makeup perfectly applied. He saw the smile she returned every time he looked in her direction, the knowing wink, the vicarious pride.

  The slide show fast-forwarded to a frigid December night atop the John Hancock Center. There was lobster and fine wine and crème brûlée. There was the outline of platinum and diamonds in the bottom of a glass, distorted by the champagne bubbles that danced around it. There were kisses and promises and dreams.

  And then, as Beck rounded the castle one more time, his muscles cramping and his vision blurred with sweat, there was a summer day in Maine. The conference center. The flowers in his hand. The fifty to the cleaning lady to have Amanda’s door unlocked.