“What’s the next step?” Fallon asked.
“We get Jacques and his seven dwarfs into the cellars and figure out where the problem is. I thought we’d given them a good once-over before we started, but—” he looked out the window to situate the ballroom in reference to the rest of the structure—“I don’t think the cellars we explored extend this far. There might be a separate entrance somewhere, or a blocked one. Once we know what state the support columns are in, we’ll also know if we need to start from the foundation up. If we’re lucky, we’ll just have to rip out all the joists and flooring, plus a good portion of the floor-level plaster, and start from there.”
Thérèse was already moving toward the door. “I’ll get Jacques.”
The problem with nights at the castle was that they were completely still. In the two days of Jade’s absence, Beck had eaten all his meals alone, without the usual short exchanges with Jade that had until then accompanied their delivery. Sylvia and the children had come by every day, but Beck had found himself missing Jade’s presence in a nearly visceral way. And then, when the workers and Thérèse had gone home every evening, he’d found himself alone within the constantly creaking and settling halls of the castle. Those were the hardest hours. He’d known they would be and had braced himself for the inevitability of the cravings that would leave him holding his head and pounding walls with his fist, but even with full knowledge that the weaning would be torture, he’d been surprised.
On the first two nights, he’d taken to the woods again, his pounding feet imprinting the path with the ferocity of his determination. On the third night, his body too exhausted by resistance to run again, he tried to dull the ache with Internet searches that only served to accentuate the permeating sense of aloneness that made of his battle a very private hell. Every hour that passed was a new record, and every day without an outburst was his prize.
Beck was quickly finding out that raging headaches could be crippling. He medicated them with caffeine and the aspirin Thérèse had donated from her purse. He’d also learned that tremors couldn’t be suspended, not even if an urgent task required stable force. He’d hidden the affliction behind a semblance of teamwork and encouraged others to do the jobs he would normally have done himself.
He’d been practicing new skills on an oblivious Thérèse, sometimes stunning her into silence with questions about her work, her home, and her family. She’d been particularly taken aback when he’d said, “So, tell me about your parents,” during a grueling conversation in which she’d assaulted him with so many details about the kitchen’s new appliances that he’d wanted to strangle her with his bare hands. After the question, though, she’d fallen silent—and Beck had thanked his lucky stars for Sylvia’s instructions to “get down on their level and ask them questions.”
He and Jacques had spent most of Monday afternoon exploring the musty space again, entering each of the small, arch-ceilinged cellars and looking for any passageways into the area beneath the ballroom. One cellar led into another, debris hampering their progress until they got to the southernmost room. There, Beck tried to gauge their position under the castle. He looked up. “You think that’s the ballroom above us?”
Jacques hadn’t answered. His eyes were on a pile of old bookshelves stacked against the far wall. “Help me move those,” he said.
Becker found it refreshing to have someone else giving orders for a change and moved quickly toward the other end of the room. They dispensed with the wood in record time and stood staring at the brick wall that spanned a rounded opening.
“My guess is that the ballroom is through there,” Jacques said, a pleased glint in his eye. “You want to get some hammers?”
They worked off some of their frustration tearing through the wall, and when the final fragments of red brick had been broken off, made their triumphant entrance into the cellar beneath the rotten joists. Beck was relieved to find that the floor was dry and the columns seemed solid enough to support the floor for at least another century or so. But there were watermarks on the rough walls that proved the space had not always been dry. “Any history of floods in this area? Does the river ever jump its banks?”
Jacques shrugged. “Not in my memory. But the castle’s been around for a couple hundred years and I haven’t.”
Beck shone his flashlight in a slow circle around the foundations. “Looks like it was about a foot deep at some point,” he said, following the light beam. “There’s a good chance they built that brick wall to prevent any more flooding from reaching the rest of the basement.”
“Meanwhile, the damage was already done in here. You leave a foot of water sitting for however long it took for it to go down, and it’s prime conditions for dry rot.”
Though the discovery hadn’t solved the problem, it had at least relieved Beck’s mind. With the plaster-covered stone columns still in good shape, “all” that would have to be replaced were the supporting beams, the joists, the floorboards, and portions of the plaster on the walls. The work would have to cover the entire ballroom, and Becker was glad to hand the bulk of that job off to Jacques and his men with strict instructions to work as quickly as they could.
Now, as Beck sat at his computer distracting his mind with online research, he heard something in the basement that made his ears perk up. It wasn’t unusual for small noises to rise up through the floors, but they usually sounded like scurrying rodents or shifting floorboards. On this night, however, the sound was loud enough that it startled Beck and sent him to the basement for the second time that week.
He entered through the door just around the corner and down a couple steps from his office. As the basement wasn’t wired for lights, he carried in his hand his trusty flashlight, sweeping the floor with its beam as he went. The first room held nothing suspicious. Just the usual debris that had accumulated over years of use as a repository for unwanted items—wooden planks, broken flowerpots, an old length of rope. The next two rooms seemed equally undisturbed. Beck shone the flashlight into the corners of each room, and though a rat or two scurried through holes in the walls, there was nothing else moving there.
As Beck got to the final cellar that led to the space under the ballroom, he noticed that the stack of old bookshelves he and Jacques had displaced Monday afternoon had fallen. They’d been propped up against the wall when the two men had left, but now they were scattered on the floor. He stepped into the dark and musty room ahead with a little less confidence in his gait, grabbing a two-by-four from the pile near the destroyed wall. There was nothing in the farthest cellar that hadn’t been there earlier. Beck stood in the doorway and shone the flashlight around, letting the beam alight on the rocks and pieces of timber that lay here and there on the floor, vestiges of the construction that had taken place so long ago. Nothing amiss. Nothing remotely interesting either. A little embarrassed by his eagerness to pursue ghosts through the château’s dungeons, he turned and retraced his steps, wondering if his newfound sobriety might be causing more hallucinations than the drinking had.
When Jade arrived at the castle the next day, Beck was in the kitchen. He’d made the coffee and generally cleaned up the mess he’d left there in the three days of her absence. The night before had been another rough one, starting with the basement expedition.
Beck wiped bread crumbs off the kitchen counter and tried not to let his nervousness disarm his most honorable intentions. He remembered what Jade had said during their heart-to-heart and wasn’t about to go against her wishes by dragging her into his battle for wholeness, but he also remembered what Sylvia had said. Her words had anchored themselves in his mind during those sleepless hours when he’d had to weigh oblivion against returning to the ranks of the living, and they had swayed him toward the courage the harder path required. “We need to feel known, we need to feel loved, and we need to feel safe.” He hadn’t felt any of those things in recent memory, and he wasn’t sure if they were in the stars for him, but the look on Jade’s face when he’d so r
uthlessly disparaged her had left him yearning to offer at least some of those things to her. The list of Becker’s altruistic élans in recent years was short indeed, but he didn’t question the impulse.
Jade arrived shortly before nine. She carried in her arms three full plastic bags from which baguettes, leeks, and rhubarb extended. If she was surprised to see Beck standing by the sink, she didn’t show it. “Sorry I’m a little late. I needed to wait for the stores to open. Are you hungry?”
“Just . . . cleaning up a little before you got here.” He cursed the nervousness that nearly made him stumble.
“No need to clean up on my account,” Jade said, emptying the bags and stowing the groceries. “It’s what I’m paid for, you know.”
“Are you feeling better?” The moment the words left his mouth, Beck wondered what had prompted him to say them. He’d wanted to shoot the breeze for a while and make a smooth segue into asking her about herself, but that plan had been shot to smithereens by his agitated state of mind. He knew the challenge he’d put before himself was not solely to blame for the jitters that had his brain working overtime. He knew that because the craving for a strong drink was increasing with every moment that passed.
Jade turned from her groceries long enough to give him an inquiring look. “Yes, I am.” She searched his face. “Thank you for asking.”
The subtle approach wasn’t working. Beck didn’t want to muck around with pleasantries and talk slow circles around the real reason for his presence in the kitchen. Taking a resolute breath, he marched over to the counter, then balked, his courage dimming with the proximity to Jade. But the stubborn streak that had mostly harmed him came to his rescue this time. He wanted to reach out and turn her toward him but ended up touching her arm rather gingerly and asking, “Can I say something?”
Jade looked up, startled. “You can say anything you like, Mr. Becker. France, like the United States, is a free country, after all.”
“Jade,” he began, feeling his determination ebb as she raised an expectant eyebrow and leaned a hip against the counter, arms and ankles crossed. Beck closed his eyes and reminded himself again of the rationale that had led him to this critical point in his life. What he did right now—this moment—would be the hopeful precedent on which future courage would be based. And if he failed, if he cowered and hid behind his usual scare tactics, he’d never know if he possessed the strength true vulnerability required. “I need to tell you something,” he said when the dueling voices in his head had called a truce.
“So you’ve said.”
He held up a hand in warning. “I know we don’t know each other very well, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that talking is not my forte, so if you’ll keep your witty little quips to yourself for just a minute . . .” He looked at her expectantly.
Intrigued, Jade nodded her consent and made a zipping motion across her lips. “Please,” she said, clearly perplexed. “Be my guest.”
Becker took a moment to observe the woman who stood before him. Her color seemed a bit improved since the last time he’d seen her, but her face was still gaunt. Her eyes had a spark in them despite the dark circles and dullness that hadn’t entirely disappeared. She wasn’t the fresh-faced, energetic sparring partner she’d been when he’d first arrived, but this woman casting him an inquisitive smile was still the incentive he needed to be bold.
“Okay,” he said, then let out a breath. “I’ll try to make this really quick because I know you have work to do and I have work to do and . . .” He stopped himself. “Actually,” he admitted, “that’s not true at all. I’m trying to make this quick because I am so far out of my element right now that the faster I get this over with, the faster I’ll be able to make a beeline out of this kitchen and hide in my office for the rest of the day.” He offered a tentative smile and was pleased when she returned it, though her answering smirk held a little more good-natured mockery than he liked.
“Mr. Becker, if you’re going to ask me to marry you, the least you can do is get down on one knee,” Jade said with such a deadpan expression that Beck nearly started to protest.
It was the mischief in her gaze that finally eased Beck’s mind. A little chagrined to have been duped so easily, he blamed his naïveté on the strain of the moment and forged ahead. “Nice. Go ahead and kick me while I’m down.”
“Sorry,” Jade quipped, duly repentant. “Please, Mr. Becker, do go on.”
“I know you don’t want to be my best friend,” he said, quoting her.
She shook her head and reached out to stop him. “Mr. Becker, about that. I didn’t mean to be rude, and I realize that—”
“No, you were right. If you became the person who somehow made the rest of my life bearable, you really would be just a substitute bottle.”
“But I shouldn’t have said it so—”
“Could you just be quiet until I’m finished talking? Please?”
Jade ducked her head. “Yes. Of course.”
“I’ve . . .” He hesitated. “I’ve been doing a fair amount of soul-searching in the past couple of days, and . . .” He took a deep breath. “And I want you to know that I know how rude I’ve been to you. How cold and unpleasant. And I’ve taken frustrations out on you and the kids that you had nothing to do with. And that’s . . . uncool.” He saw her smile a little at his word choice but didn’t let it deter him. “There’s been stuff in my life that I haven’t been proud of. In fact,” he added as an afterthought, “most of the past two years are a complete wash. But there’s something . . . something—I don’t know—happening that I don’t quite understand.”
“Something happening?” Jade was confused, and he didn’t blame her.
“Something good. Like I’m . . . wanting to be alive again—or something. I’m not very good with words.” He finished on a frustrated sigh.
“I think you’re doing just fine.”
“I want to be able to . . . communicate again. And not just with sarcasm and barked orders. And I was wondering . . .” This was where his vulnerability would either take a beating or be validated, so he paused, contemplating the precipice at the edge of which he stood. “I was wondering if I could start on that with you.”
There was a long silence—longer still in Becker’s mind—while Jade appeared to rummage through the plethora of words he’d just blurted to get to the crux of his point. “You want to communicate with me?” she finally asked, looking at him a little askance.
He threw back his head and expelled a loud breath. “Maybe this was a mistake,” he said, staring at the ceiling. He looked back down at Jade and tried again. “I want to be able to talk—just . . . talk—with you. And not just for the practice, though God knows I need that, but because . . . because . . . because I want to talk with you!”
“And you need my permission to speak?”
Beck turned briskly to the table, pulled out two stools, and motioned Jade to take one of them. “Sit!” he ordered.
“Care to rephrase that?” she asked, one eyebrow raised.
Beck held up his hands. “I’m sorry! Getting a little carried away.” He tried again. “Would you mind sitting here? Just for a minute.”
Jade moved to the stool and sat down. It dawned on Becker that she was still wearing her jacket.
“Do you want to take off your coat or . . . something?”
“I’m quite comfortable with it on, thank you.”
Becker sat heavily on the other stool and leaned forward. “How are you?” he asked.
Jade’s giggle brightened her eyes and brought color to her cheeks. “I’m quite well. And you?”
Beck raised both hands, palms upward, in a give-me-a-break gesture that made Jade giggle again. “Come on . . . I’m not just being polite. I really want to know.”
Jade squinted into his face to gauge his sincerity. “I’m really fine,” she said after a moment. “I wasn’t great last week, as I’m sure you noticed, but . . . I’m feeling better today.”
T
here was a pause while Beck took stock of the alterations he’d seen in her since he’d first met her. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?” he finally asked. “I mean—I don’t want to be insensitive, but . . . I’ve noticed that you seem . . . less well than you did a few weeks ago.”
“I look sick,” Jade said, her tone pleasant. “That’s what you mean to say, right?”
“No, I—” Becker started to protest, then stopped himself.
“It’s no secret. I know I do.”
“Is it . . . something serious?” Beck asked, genuine concern sharpening his focus.
Jade bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Mr. Becker. I’m not quite sure I can tell you about that yet.” She reached out to lay a hand on his arm. “I’m not telling you to get lost,” she added hastily. “I’m just saying that . . . I’m not quite to the point where I can discuss it yet.”
Beck nodded. “Okay. But if you need anything—anything at all . . .”
“I’ll be sure to tell you.”
Beck suddenly remembered that the children hadn’t arrived with her. “Are the twins not coming today?”
Jade rose and went back to the task of putting away the groceries she’d brought with her. “The children went to a doctor’s appointment with the Fallons. They’ll get to see an ultrasound of their new brother or sister—which should have them hanging from the rafters when they return.” She shuddered.
“You’re good with them,” Beck said, still sitting at the table. “Mrs. Fallon tried to give me pointers on how to be more comfortable around kids, but . . . we’ll see.”
Jade suddenly paused in her work and leaned back against the tall counter, her face a shade paler.
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