The Ariana Trilogy

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  “Okay, okay,” I said. The lady at the counter smiled and rang up my order. I paid and waited outside while Paulette ducked into the shop next door for cheese and fruit. Purchases in hand, we walked down the street until we found a bench overlooking the canal and settled on it. The children scampered on the cobblestones nearby, eating and trying to attract the pigeons flying overhead.

  Paulette dabbed at her nose with the tissue she carried in her hand. “So what’s up?” she asked. “You’ve been going around all day glowering and looking like you lost your best friend.”

  I scowled. “Maybe I have.”

  “Jean-Marc?”

  I nodded.

  “He loves you, Ariana.”

  I wasn’t so sure. After all, he had left. And not knowing where he was and who he was with drove me crazy.

  She put her arm around me. “I’m here for you, you know.”

  I leaned my head on her shoulder. “Thank you. I do need you.”

  “I’m glad.”

  Something in her voice made me look up. Her eyes had the faraway glaze that signaled a return to the past. “Don’t,” I said softly. “Leave the past alone. We’re happy now.”

  She smiled, her hands moving to her stomach. “Do you remember how I longed for this baby?”

  I remembered well. After having Marie-Thérèse, Paulette had been unable to conceive until five months ago.

  “I worried I wouldn’t ever have another child,” she continued. “I think I must have felt like Queen Marie-Antoinette. Do you remember what she did?”

  “What? You mean how when she couldn’t conceive, she took the child of a peasant woman to raise as her own?”

  “Something like that.” Paulette’s laugh was low and husky.

  “You’d never steal a child,” I said, smiling at the idea.

  “No,” she agreed. “But I wanted to. I understand Marie-Antoinette’s need.”

  “I remember reading that she was criticized for doing it,” I mused. “And later, that child—a son—became one of her worst opponents during the Revolution.”

  “But that’s because she neglected him after finally having her own children,” Paulette said. “I would never neglect any child. Not now, anyway.”

  And I knew she wouldn’t. Once she had been able to discard the heavy weight of the drugs, Paulette had uncovered the inner part of herself that was good almost to the extreme. At times I envied her.

  “So what happened with Jean-Marc?” she asked, returning doggedly to the subject of my husband.

  I shrugged and looked away. “I’m not sure. Let’s walk, okay?” I knew I was hiding from the issue, but Paulette would let me, at least until I felt I could talk about it. That was one of the reasons she was such a good friend.

  We walked for a short time, until Paulette began wheezing. “We’d better head back now,” I said. She nodded and coughed into a handful of tissue. Her coughs and sneezes had become more frequent during our outing, causing her frail body to shudder with each exertion. It didn’t take me long to realize that she had come today because of something she had heard in my voice rather than any desire to leave her warm bed. Suddenly I was anxious to get her home.

  We took the subway back to near where we had parked the car. On the train, André sat on my lap, yawning. The girls were also tired and sat languidly across from me next to Paulette.

  Marc stood on the seat and tried to climb the bars next to it. A man standing and holding onto the bar in the crowded train eyed him indifferently, but I grabbed my son and pulled him down, shaking my head. He frowned, huffing emphatically. I hid a smile in André’s hair. Marc was impulsive and wild, just like my brother had been. Antoine had always hung on the bars, especially to amuse me. The memory made me warm.

  After leaving the subway, we walked the short distance to our car. Near where we had parked was a short stone wall encircling several trees, the only greenery in sight. Marc immediately jumped up on the wall and stuck his hands in the soil. Then he stood up, extended his arms for balance, and began walking the length of the wall.

  “Get down, Marc!” Josette cried.

  “No!” Marc said, sticking out his tongue. He started to lose his balance.

  I dropped André into the car and rushed to grab Marc. I was too late. He fell to the cobblestone sidewalk, his head making an ugly cracking noise as he hit, face first. There was a brief second of stunned silence before he started to wail. I turned him over to see a small river of bright red coming from his chin.

  “Here.” Paulette shoved a wad of tissue in my hand, and I held it tightly against the wound. Marc was still crying, and I pulled him onto my lap and cuddled him.

  “Try to lie still,” I said. “Let me see what’s happened.” He tried bravely to obey, letting me remove the tissue and take a peek. My insides churned at the sight of the deep gash.

  “That’s definitely going to need stitches,” Paulette said.

  Marc started to cry again, louder this time. I soothed him as best I could. “It’s all right. I’ll be there with you.”

  I held him on my lap as Paulette drove to the hospital. Once there, she sat with the children in the waiting room while I talked to the nurse. I wished I could call Jean-Marc, but even if my pride would let me, I had no idea where he was.

  At last the doctor arrived, an older man with graying hair and a kind face. He looked like someone’s grandpa, and Marc gazed at him trustingly.

  “Let’s put this over your face so the light won’t hurt your eyes,” the doctor said gently. In his hand he held something that looked like a sheet of white wrapping paper with a hole cut in it to expose the chin area. I knew its real purpose was to hide the sight of the shot needle they would have to use. Despite the doctor’s gentleness, Marc screamed as he received the injection of painkiller in his chin. He clutched my hand, and tears squeezed from the corners of my eyes. I wished I could spare my little boy this suffering.

  After the stitches were in place, I went into the waiting room. Paulette was sneezing again, and her face glistened. I felt her forehead. “You have a fever,” I said.

  She groaned and clutched her chest. “I thought I was feeling strange, but I figured it was being here at the hospital.”

  “Come on. I’ll get you home.”

  Marc fell asleep in the car on the way, sporting a row of tiny stitches on his chin. Josette watched over him, occasionally smoothing his forehead. Maybe she would be able to protect her brother as I hadn’t my own.

  We were nearing our area of town when Paulette started coughing violently. In the tissue she clutched in her hand, I saw blood. She was in no condition to be alone. “You’re coming home with me,” I said.

  “I don’t want to get in the way,” she murmured. “I’m sure Jean-Marc is waiting for you.”

  I gave a short, bitter laugh. “No, he won’t be.” She gazed at me, a question in her light brown eyes. “He left last night with his suitcase,” I explained quietly.

  Her eyes grew sorrowful, but she said nothing as another bout of coughing shook her.

  The apartment was ominously quiet when I finally succeeded in opening the door with my key, burdened by Marc’s sleeping form. I felt my hopes dwindle; Jean-Marc hadn’t come home. I laid Marc in his bed, disturbing him only enough to remove his shoes. I was sure he would wake up before I finished dinner; a small accident like this wouldn’t cause him to lose his appetite.

  “Mommy, come quick!” Josette’s worried voice called from the bathroom. I hurried from the twins’ room and found her and Marie-Thérèse watching Paulette, who sat on the edge of the tub, hunched over the toilet. The water inside was red.

  I pushed past the anxious girls and little André, who stood in the doorway. “Are you all right?” I said, reaching out to Paulette.

  “I feel so tired,” she said, “and my chest is hurting.”

  She looked exhausted. Her face was pale against the red of her lips, stained with bright blood. A streak of crimson marked her cheek.

/>   I pulled some tissue from the roll and wiped her face tenderly. “Can you walk?”

  “I think so.”

  “Let’s get you to bed, and then I’ll call your doctor.”

  Paulette gasped in pain as I put my arm around her and helped her to the door. She pasted a smile on her face as we passed the children, but Marie-Thérèse wasn’t fooled. She watched her mother without speaking, her eyes plainly showing fear.

  We were almost to the bedroom when Paulette collapsed in the hall, unconscious. I nearly dropped her as her weight sagged against me. The children started to cry.

  “Wake up, Paulette!” I cried, gently slapping her face. There was no response. She lay on the floor, pale and still.

  “It’s going to be all right,” I said to the children as I ran to the kitchen and called the ambulance.

  I had been terrified—more terrified than I had ever been since the night my firstborn had died. Nette had been so young, only eight months old. And now, as I stood next to Paulette’s bed, the vivid memories of my daughter’s death vied with the more recent ones of Paulette’s collapse.

  “Then we waited until they came and got her,” I found myself saying to the doctor, closing my eyes for a moment to gain composure. It made no difference; open or closed, I could still see Paulette’s inert body on the white sheets—and Nette’s as well.

  “I took the children to my mother’s and came here,” I added, though the doctor couldn’t possibly care about such details. “Is she going to be all right?”

  Dr. Flaubert shook his head. “I don’t know yet. She’s stabilized for now, but there’s something wrong. She seems to have pneumonia, but it shouldn’t affect her the way it has. She’s normally a healthy person. We’re going to know more in a few hours when the test results come in.”

  Guilt ate at my insides. I shouldn’t have hauled Paulette on my family outing. The cold in the tunnel couldn’t have helped.

  “Could she die?” I asked.

  “She’s in very serious condition,” the doctor replied, his jowls shaking as he spoke.

  I wished he would give me a straight answer. “But could she die?” I repeated.

  He nodded slowly. “Yes, she could. The next twenty-four hours are crucial.”

  I didn’t dare ask about the baby, but thoughts of that innocent spirit tortured me. I didn’t know what Paulette would do if something happened to her baby.

  Chapter Three

  I called my apartment just in case Jean-Marc had come home, telling myself it was for Paulette. I needed to find someone to give her a blessing. There was no answer, but I hadn’t really expected one. Next, I telephoned the hotel where I knew Pierre would be arriving later and left a message at the desk. After calling the bishop for the second time that evening and again receiving no answer, I left a message on his machine. I didn’t know Paulette’s home teachers’ numbers, or my own, nor could I find them in the book. The point was moot anyway, as I had run out of change and had left my checkbook at home. For all their smiles, the nurses weren’t allowed to let me use the hospital phone.

  Giving up, I settled into a chair, refusing to leave Paulette’s bedside the rest of the night. Occasionally she awoke, and each time she clutched at her chest as pain racked her body.

  “Why does it hurt so much?” I asked the nurse who went mechanically about filling the doctor’s request for additional tests. Her gray-speckled hair was swept on top of her head in a tight bun, and her thin lips were pursed in disapproval. I wondered if, like the woman at the desk, there wasn’t somewhere else she would rather be.

  She withdrew a needle from Paulette’s arm, full of dark red blood, before replying. “Pleurisy,” she said. “A complication of pneumonia. It’s very painful but should get better in a week or so.”

  “Stay with me until Pierre comes?” Paulette asked during one of her short lucid periods.

  “Of course I will.”

  “You’re such a good friend,” she murmured. “Much better than I ever was to you.”

  I knew she was thinking of Nette and how she hadn’t been able to prevent her death. Though she knew I didn’t blame her and that God had forgiven her for being drugged up that night, she still remembered it with a certain degree of pain. As did I. But our Savior, who had endured so much more, helped us survive even the most severe bouts of memory. I opened my mouth to comfort her, but she was already asleep.

  * * *

  Pierre came in about seven o’clock Sunday morning, his short black hair tousled and a worried expression on his face. He closely resembled Jean-Marc except that he was taller and his large eyes were a simple brown instead of my husband’s unusual green-brown color. He also had an ample waist, whereas Jean-Marc had always been slender.

  “Is she all right?” he asked, as he came into the room. Paulette was sleeping.

  “But you were supposed to be out of town!” I exclaimed.

  “When I called to tell the hotel I’d be delayed a day at my first stop, they gave me your message. I drove all night to get here.” His eyes never left Paulette’s face as he spoke. “How is she?”

  “It’s pneumonia,” I said. “The doctor says she’s stable for now, but—”

  “Oh, thank you, Father,” Pierre whispered, falling to his knees at the foot of the bed. He stayed there for a full minute in silent prayer before adding aloud, “I don’t know what I’d do if something ever happened to Paulette.”

  Tears gathered in my eyes as I remembered how they had first met: Paulette, a drug addict, and Pierre helping her to overcome the insufferable craving that ate at her body. His love for her and forgiveness of her past was what had saved her in the end, when her testimony of the gospel hadn’t been strong enough to sustain her.

  I remembered, as if it were yesterday, how he had proposed to Paulette. She had been off drugs for a month and was living with his next-door neighbor, Elisabeth. We thought we were over the worst of her drug problem when a large sum of money came up missing at the Perraults’ grocery store, where Paulette worked. Pierre called me as soon as he discovered the missing money, and my missionary companion and I went to his house immediately. I remember wishing that Jean-Marc was not still serving in the army so he could be there to help us.

  Together we went to Elisabeth’s, where we found the outside door ajar. Paulette was alone in her room, staring at an empty suitcase on her bed.

  “Going somewhere?” Pierre asked. His voice clearly showed his suffering.

  She nodded, not speaking, and slumped to the bed in complete abjection.

  “You took the money from the store,” Pierre said. It was not an accusation, only a statement of fact.

  Again she nodded. She reached for her brown handbag, lying on the bed next to the suitcase.

  “No, I don’t want it,” Pierre said hoarsely. Both Paulette and I stared in surprise.

  “Everything I have is yours, Paulette,” he continued. “Everything. Including my heart.” In two strides he crossed the space separating them. “Marry me! Please. I love you!” He sank to the brown carpet, clasping her hands and burying his face in her lap. “Just don’t leave me. Or—” his voice broke. “Or if you do leave, please don’t go back to the drugs. At least I’ll have the comfort of knowing you’re alive somewhere.”

  She gaped at him. “You still want me after what I was going to do?”

  “I love you.” His words were simple, yet the emotion behind them struck me like a blow to the stomach, filling me with longing for Jean-Marc. Suddenly, I was embarrassed to be in the room with them.

  Pierre left then, as if knowing he could say nothing more to convince her. He paused at the door. “I’ll be at the store, waiting,” he said softly.

  After his departure, she sobbed in my arms as if her heart would break. “Were you really going to leave?” I asked her.

  “I—I don’t know. I hadn’t decided. I do know that I wasn’t going back to the drugs, but I was uncertain about the future and what I would do.”

 
; “And now?”

  She sniffed. “I love him. It will break his heart if I leave.”

  “Then don’t leave.”

  She stood quickly. “I’ve got to go to the store.”

  I smiled as she ran out the door. I had never doubted she would stay. I suspected she had unconsciously been testing Pierre to see if he really did love her, despite her faults. And both had passed the test. I didn’t blame her for wanting to be sure; an eternity was a long time to pledge undying love. Pierre was very special to have seen beyond Paulette’s rough exterior to the real woman beneath.

  “Ariana!” Pierre said, jolting me back to the present.

  I looked up, the memories fading. “Yes?”

  “I’d like to stay with her, but where’s Marie-Thérèse?”

  “At my parents’,” I said. “I guess I’d better go and get her. And my own children. They’ll be wondering about Paulette.”

  Pierre stood up. “I appreciate your being here and also taking care of Marie-Thérèse. I’ll call you the minute I know anything.”

  I nodded, remembering that it was my fault Paulette was here in the first place. I wished Jean-Marc was there to hold me, to stave off the chill that cloaked my heart.

  “She hasn’t had a blessing yet,” I said as I left. “But the bishop should be by when he gets my message.” I wondered if Pierre would ask where his brother was and what I would say.

  “Thanks. I’ll take care of it.” He sat in my vacated chair and turned his attention back to his wife. I was relieved that in his preoccupation he hadn’t asked about Jean-Marc.

  I called my parents from the lobby to let them know I was coming, but to my surprise, my mother wasn’t there. “She took the children back to your house to get them dressed for that church of yours,” my father told me, his voice a bit mocking. “She decided to take them herself when we called and couldn’t get hold of Jean-Marc.” His words took on a joking tone when he said, “Where is that boy, anyway? I haven’t seen him since he left work yesterday afternoon with our newest clients. He was supposed to call me and let me know how it went.”