He nodded and turned his head down and started reading the novel, his mind seemingly a million miles away.
HENRY
He’d been in surgery for a long time. Five hours at least. Every once in a while a nurse would find me in the Pediatric ICU waiting room on the third floor and say, “He’s doing fine, Mr. Hughes. Still in surgery. Don’t you worry.”
I didn’t know what else to do with myself but read and walk and drink some more Coke.
About one or two in the afternoon, having texted Libby three times, I went back down to the cafeteria to get some lunch. I was just sitting down when I looked up and in walked Miz Bourdillon’s daughter. Again.
She sat down across from me and asked, “Is he still in surgery?” She had this expression on her face, like she really cared about my boy.
“Yep. They been letting me know every hour or so how it’s going. Last time the nurse said maybe only another hour. Thought I’d get a quick bite before they’re done.”
She was running her hands through her thick hair and staring at the novel by her mother, trying to read the title, it looked like to me.
“It’s the one about the alcoholic and the way she’s tryin’ to make up with her family.”
“Oh yeah. That one is a bit sad.”
That surprised me. “Doesn’t it have a happy ending?”
“No, it ends all right, but there are a lot of sad parts.”
I got up my nerve and said, “Can I ask you something, Mia Bourdillon?”
“You can call me Paige.”
“Okay. I’m Henry. My boy, his name is Jase.” I was fiddling with the novel, turning it over in my hands. “Have you read every one of your mother’s books?”
“Sure. I’ve read them all.”
“Do you think she believes all that stuff she writes about?”
She frowned at me. “What do you mean?”
Slow down, Henry. Slow down. Don’t go scaring this girl. Take it nice and easy.
“About forgiving people. Did she mean what she wrote in that first one—about the teenager forgiving the man who abused him so bad? Do you really believe people can forgive?”
She sat silent for a moment, then said, “Well, I know my mother believes in forgiveness—on an eternal scale and a very small human scale too. And I have to admit, I’ve seen it happen lots of times in my family’s life—people forgiving each other.”
I couldn’t help it—I blurted out, “What does it look like?”
That made her nervous, and she started twirling a strand of her hair around her finger, staring out the window. “It’s a little complicated to explain.”
I didn’t think she was gonna say anything else, and I was kicking myself for asking too many questions. But after a while she said, “But when it happens, you feel it, a relief, a long sip of water on the hottest day of the year.”
I think she was surprised at herself, too, because she paused again and her pretty face got all red. Then she started blinking back tears, and I was gonna say, “Never mind,” but she kept talking.
“It’s like Momma says—the forgiveness isn’t for the one who hurt you; it’s to keep all the bitterness out of your own heart. And it’s spiritual. That’s the only way to say it. It changes something in your heart.” She smiled a little, and her face was so pretty when she did, her big brown eyes sparkling a little with tears.
“Yeah, it sounds spiritual, or something, in her books.”
“I can tell you for sure that Momma believes what she writes. I don’t always buy it, but she does. She’s very spiritual.”
“I like the things she says, but I don’t think they can be true.”
The girl—Paige—shrugged. “Yeah. Well, sometimes I feel that way too. But she’s been through a lot and forgiven some pretty awful things.” She flashed me her cute smile. “I haven’t forgiven a lot of people, but somehow Momma has.”
I had nothing to say to that, but fortunately my phone beeped with a text from Libs, and Paige said bye and left.
JOSEPHINE
1990 . . . It always came back to the blood. So ironic. Seeing the blood every month was a vivid reminder that she was not pregnant, but also a scarlet memory of the miscarriages. She wrote for the paper, collected rejection slips from magazines, and watched Patrick’s passion ebb as he left his dream of playing on a top-level soccer team for a job in insurance.
And then the monthly blood.
Again the darkness encroached. “You’ve given up so much for me, Patrick, and I can’t give you the one thing we both long for.”
“We’re okay, just you and me, Feeny.”
But every phone call with her mother suggested a new treatment or asked if she had contacted a different infertility specialist.
“Yes, we’ve tried, Mother,” she’d confide. “But I’ve gotten pregnant before. The doctors say it will just take time.”
Josephine thought about loss and how it drew so many closer to God. She reached out for her Bible and whispered, “Just make everything I go through worth it, Lord. I don’t know how you’ll do it. But please just somehow make it worth it to you.”
———
1992 . . . When Patrick found her in tears that night, he drew her into his arms. “Your period?”
She shook her head and whispered, “No.”
“Then is it something with Kit?” Her sister had never asked to live with them again, but that didn’t mean she didn’t ask for other things.
“No, no. Not at all. Just a rejection letter from a magazine.” She swiped her tears and tried to smile through them. “My third this month.”
“Let me see that thing,” he said. Before she could protest, he had pinned the rejection letter to the rubber dart board in their little study and began throwing darts at it. “Didn’t some famous writer say that rejection slips are badges of courage?”
She laughed. “I haven’t heard that.”
“Well, I say it’s just a matter of time until they’ll be calling you the next Victor Hugo, and Jean Valjean will rise from the grave and christen you a genius.”
“That sounds heretical, soccer boy,” she teased back, then took a dart and threw it with all her might. She hit the letter right in the center.
———
“I know what we need, Feeny,” Patrick said after pinning two more rejection letters to the dart board. “We need a vacation. La Grande Motte is calling. Maman and Papa are dying to see us. Mamie too. Please, let me suggest it?”
“Another handout from your parents. And you don’t even have vacation time.”
“I have ten days.” His eyes, those beautiful soft brown eyes, were twinkling. “I’ll go for ten days, and you’ll stay for a month.”
“A month!” The thought of it made her heart race with excitement. “I have a job, too, remember.”
“But didn’t your boss say that you can now send him your articles through fax?”
“Only if your parents will let me use their fax machine.”
He raised his eyebrows and gave a wink. “I imagine I’ll have to twist their arms, but it’s worth a try.”
As she walked on the beach with her feet in the icy water, the darkness began to dissipate. And when Patrick returned to the States, she sat down at the little table that gave a view of the Mediterranean and started writing her first novel.
______
Josephine watched her bulging stomach with wonder. Twenty-eight weeks. Every time she caught her reflection in the mirror, she blushed and smiled and thought of the gift it was that this baby had been conceived at La Motte. “A French baby,” she teased Patrick.
The early contractions kept her bedridden. The dry heaves never ended. She lost weight. But the baby grew. When Kit called, high and needy, Josephine simply said, “Kitty, I can’t come. Not this time. I want this baby to make it.”
The jealousy and anger in Kit’s voice felt like just one more stab, an agonizing and never-ending contraction.
———
1994 . . . She cradled her daughter in her arms and stared into those dark gray eyes that stared back at her. Hannah Isabelle. Named after her American and French great-grandmothers. Life and lightness returned to their apartment. And hope.
PAIGE
I tiptoed into Momma’s room; the sun was setting outside the window, and it made the leaves shimmer like multicolored pennies. I took hold of my mother’s hand. She still lay there, eyes closed. Her head bandaged, with a tuft of hair, dark and matted, escaping beneath the gauze, tubes all around, the beeping sounds, the calm.
“We had the best time last night, Drake and Hannah and I,” I told her. “Just like old times, sitting in front of the fireplace. Drake was actually able to build a roaring fire. Remember how he never did a very good job, and we called him a failed Boy Scout? Well, anyway, we sat there eating all this absolutely yummy food. So many people have brought food . . . the neighbors, people from church and from Daddy’s work, from the library. And to date you’ve received over ten thousand emails and Facebook posts from your readers. You sure are keeping me busy, Momma.
“Can’t wait till you’re back in the kitchen baking your delicious blond brownies. The desserts that people are bringing from the Chocolate Fetish and the French Broad Chocolate Lounge are awesome, but nothing can beat your blond brownies.”
I wasn’t sure, but I almost thought I felt a very slight movement in Momma’s hand.
“We talked about how much fun we’d had on those weekends when the youth group came with all of us scattered around the house in our sleeping bags. And how the first year you made that huge pan of lasagna. You bought this enormous lasagna dish and then once you got everything ready to bake, you discovered it wouldn’t fit in the oven! You had to get Drake and Dad to carry it over to Mrs. Swanson’s and use her brand-new, state-of-the-art oven. Mrs. Swanson, bless her heart, was thrilled of course.
“Can’t wait till we have the youth group over again. I’ll help you with the lasagna. Or spaghetti. Remember, I know how to fix that too.” I chuckled. I had never been interested in cooking, but Momma insisted I know how to make one meal, and so she taught me how to make spaghetti sauce—Bolognese—which could also be used for lasagna.
“And Drake acts all worried about his last year in school, but you and I know he will do great. I’ll bet he gets a job offer after his very first interview.” I knew I sounded a bit desperate, wanting to keep talking, to keep giving her a chance to connect. But then not wanting to wear her out.
“And Hannah will tell you herself, but she agreed to go back to Aix on Saturday.”
Momma definitely squeezed my hand with that. I jumped a little and got chills—of excitement—and tried to continue talking normally.
“Yes, that’s great, isn’t it? She’s going to be touring five or six art museums in November. The Musée d’Orsay and the Louvre, of course, and several others when they go up to Paris, but she’s also going to see the Bayeux Tapestry in Caen. And take the course on painting en plein air from the wonderful lady who teaches in Aix.
“And Daddy said we’ll keep the plans just like we had them. We all know you’ll be excited to go back to La Grande Motte—we’ve still reserved it from Mamie and Papy for those two weeks at Christmas, and of course Hannah will be with us. And if you want to go in early November, that can still work too, and you’ll just stay and write until we get there. Think of it, Momma, two months at the beach!”
I had made up such a string of lies that I felt like I was in the middle of inventing one of my own stories.
“And Drake is interested in coming to La Motte, too, and Ginnie even said she might enjoy a break at the beach. She calls at least three times a day. Daddy isn’t letting anyone but family come yet—well, and Drake. But Drake is just like family. . . . But in a few days, when you’re feeling a little stronger, we’re going to let others come, little by little. Mrs. Swanson first. She’s been an angel with all the mail and the food and Milton. Oh, Milton! He misses you something crazy, and you know how Mrs. Swanson bosses him around, poor devil. But he’s getting walked twice a day, and I promise I won’t let Mrs. Swanson stay with you too long. . . .”
On and on and on I talked, but Momma didn’t move again. I read her more emails and letters from fans and friends, and then the sun set and I sat in the dusk, feeling the coolness descend on the room and the little flutters of hope float off with the last rays of sun. In the silence I heard again the beep of the machines, breathing in and out, in and out, for little Momma.
HENRY
Libby hadn’t made it to the hospital yet, but they finally let me in to see Jase after the surgeon came and said that everything went just fine. The doctor had a confident look about him, but I figured he had to look that way. I went into Jase’s room and sat down by his bed and couldn’t keep the tears from falling. They’d broken open his chest—didn’t say it like that, but that was the truth—and put in a pig’s aorta instead of whatever was in there first. And Jase seemed more fragile and frail and white than ever.
Everything in me was shaking, my hands, my head, my mind, especially my mind. I felt woozy, weak-like, even scared. Yeah, terrified for my boy. You’d think I’d be all relieved when that surgeon said things had gone well, but I didn’t trust anyone too much, and there wasn’t nothing good in the whole wide world about watching your boy lying there so still and pale and looking just about dead.
I got up and then sat back down, up and down, with every beep of those machines. Up and down, watching to make sure his little chest was going up and down too. Like to drive me crazy, all that noise, not too loud, just constant, and then some other machine chiming in, as if they were trying to make music for some horror film. I’d seen plenty of those. Too quiet, too loud, too much.
I was clutching Miz Bourdillon’s novel real tight when I finally decided to sit back down and read it. The story had upset me a bit, and then with her daughter saying it got even sadder, well, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to read it anymore. But I hadn’t brought anything else with me, and I didn’t want the TV to be blaring while Jase was trying to rest.
So I read that book, and nurses would come in and look at Jase, and once or twice I stepped out to the waiting room while they did stuff. And I got to be kind of thankful for the story, because I was getting right caught up in it and forgetting how worried I was for my boy. The words just kept on carrying me along, and I got to the sad part and had a few tears, but right after, this real sweet scene came out of the blue, surprising me. Like the bad stuff hadn’t been able to snuff out the good stuff, or maybe it even happened because of the bad stuff. Yeah, that was it. Got a bit confusing in my mind. And I kept thinking about this line: “You don’t need a candle unless it’s really dark in the house.”
I got to the end, and Libby still hadn’t shown up at the hospital, and it was getting dark outside. And suddenly I couldn’t keep it in anymore. Just right there started weeping, sobbing, and the poor nurses kept looking at me funny, with sympathy but a little something else in their eyes, like people did lots of times around me. I guess they were scared. Or just felt sorry for me.
But Miz Bourdillon had written my story again. It was about good coming out of bad and about new beginnings, and about light shining in darkness. And though she didn’t put it exactly like that, it sounded just like something Jesus or maybe someone else in the Bible might say.
I had to see Miz Bourdillon. I just had to. Had to ask her the questions that was percolating in the back of my mind and then dripping down into my heart. Libby always said I asked the craziest questions and I should leave people alone, and lots of times people got scared when I talked too much.
Couldn’t talk to Miz Bourdillon yet, but maybe when she came out of her coma, maybe Paige would let me talk to her about her stories. And here’s what I wanted to say to her: Miz Bourdillon, you think good can come out of bad, I know, and I’m glad you didn’t die, and I hope you get well, and I bet your next book will be even better . . . but here’s my question:
Maybe good can come out of bad for you, but what about for that person who tried to kill you? Can anything good come out of it for him?
That’s the question I wanted to ask her while machines kept breathing for Jase, and Libby called me on my cell and said she was driving real slow along those curvy roads and she wasn’t gonna get here before midnight.
“But you go back to the Rathbun House and get some sleep, hon. You’ve got to get some sleep.”
So I watched the machines proclaiming my boy’s life on that screen in neon reds and greens, and I went beside his bed and leaned over and said, “Live, sweet boy. Please live. You’ll see. Things is gonna be different. Better. You just keep on breathing and getting well.” I surprised myself with how soft and soothing my voice sounded, and then I shocked myself good by saying something else. “These hard times are gonna be used for good. Make you stronger, son. Make you better inside and out. They’re changin’ your heart.”
In and out, the machines breathed for my boy as the sun set over those fiery mountains, and I sat by his bed and did something I hadn’t done in a real long time. I prayed the only prayer that came to mind. “Let him live, God. Please let him live.”
CHAPTER
9
THURSDAY
PAIGE
Six days after the bullet sped through Momma’s brain, she opened her eyes.
Hannah and I had gone back home, and Daddy had sat with her through the night. I woke to my cell phone ringing at 6:00 a.m. Dread zipped through me as I saw Daddy’s number on the screen. But when I put the phone to my ear, all I could make out was his voice, all happy, almost laughing.
“Her eyes are open, and she squeezed my hand and her score just rocketed up! From a six to an eleven! Imagine that, Paige, she’s at an eleven.”
I listened to his jubilant voice explain how he’d fallen asleep in the chair by her bed, and then when he lifted his head off the sheet where he was resting it and looked at Momma, there she was, eyes wide open, staring straight ahead.
“Feeny! Feeny!” he’d fairly screamed. She didn’t turn her head, but when he grabbed her hand she squeezed it long and hard.
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