The Ariana Trilogy

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  “So what are you telling me?”

  “The doctor thinks he should have a year, maybe more, depending. But he’ll become very sick. He won’t be capable of taking care of two small children.”

  “Even if he was and could work,” Paulette added, “I want my daughters to have a mother during the day, not a baby-sitter.”

  “But Pierre’s their father! You can’t expect Marie-Thérèse to cope with losing both of you at once.”

  Paulette shook her head. “You’re right. We’ve given this a lot of thought, and we came up with an idea, even before we knew about the cancer. The wall between our apartment and Louise’s could be removed, and you could change apartments with her. With the joined apartments you would have five bedrooms—as good as any house in the country.”

  What she said made sense. As in any big city, houses were a scarce commodity. Most people bought apartments instead, and two linked together was not uncommon, especially for those who were well off.

  “You’ve been saying you wanted to put your boys in a room together,” she continued, “but you were afraid Josette would be scared alone. Well, now she can share with Marie-Thérèse. With you and Jean-Marc in one room, and Pierre in ours, you’ll still have an extra room for the baby.” Her voice dwindled to a whisper. “Or for a nurse, if Pierre needs one. We’ve got pretty good insurance to pay for a lot of it. Plus our savings.”

  I shrugged the last bit of information aside. If there was one thing Jean-Marc seemed to be good at, it was making money. My father was also wealthy, and the bank was always giving charitable contributions of some sort. Money was the last thing to worry about. Paulette had obviously been doing a lot of thinking. Belatedly, I wondered if I wouldn’t have done the same thing in her situation. Knowing you were dying had certain advantages over the sudden deaths people hoped for.

  “I’ll understand if you don’t want to do it. And I won’t hold it against you. It’s a risk having an HIV baby around your other children and a lot of extra work.” Paulette closed her eyes again. She lay motionless; only her rasping breath told me she still lived. Then her eyes opened. “Louise said she would move in with Pierre and take care of him and the girls until—” She broke off. “I know she means well, but it’s not the same thing as having a mom and a dad, and it’s not really fair to her. Her health isn’t too good.”

  I knew exactly what she was saying. Louise would do her best, but she couldn’t play ball with the children or take them camping or to the beach on vacation. It would be too strenuous for her.

  “My mother also volunteered to raise the baby,” Paulette continued. “But how, when she works so much? And she can’t teach her about the gospel.”

  Another point well taken. In similar circumstances, I would have chosen Paulette over my parents to raise my children. Being firmly entrenched in the gospel was all-important to me.

  “Think about it and tell me later.” Paulette seemed to be gasping for breath.

  I glanced at Giselle anxiously, but she smiled. “She just needs to rest.”

  I stared at my friend, lying so helplessly on the bed. I wanted to reassure her, to tell her I would love her babies as my own, but something inside me wouldn’t allow me to lie. If I told Paulette I would do it, then I would have no choice but to follow through. I couldn’t say the words. Marie-Thérèse I would accept gladly, but the baby? She had HIV and would develop AIDS; with that came all the opportunistic illnesses. I had learned enough to know this was no small favor she asked of me.

  “Give me a little time,” I said. “I need a little time.”

  Paulette’s eyes drooped. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  I wasn’t too sure she spoke the truth, but I nodded and left the room.

  Louise and Simone still sat in the waiting room, but Pierre and Jean-Marc were nowhere to be found. My mother and the children, including Marie-Thérèse, were also gone. “Josephine took them for a snack,” Louise said when I asked. “They were getting restless.”

  “How is she?” Simone motioned to the door with her hand.

  I gazed at the ceiling, blinking back the tears. “Not good.” I paused and then continued, still not meeting their eyes. “She said she wants me to take care of the girls—to adopt them, so to speak.”

  “What about Pierre?” asked Louise.

  Now I had to look at her, but it made me angry. I shouldn’t be the one to tell this woman her son would be dead in a year. “Pierre has cancer,” I began tightly, steeling myself against Louise’s pain. I repeated what Giselle had told me and then described Paulette’s idea for me to move into the apartment. “I can see why she wants this,” I said. “But I don’t know if I’m able.”

  “You don’t have to do it alone,” Simone said. “We’ll all take turns. I can take the baby two days a week.”

  Louise nodded. “And I’ll take her two. Lu-Lu can take her part of the time, and that will only leave a day or so for you.”

  I felt relieved at their words, but inside something asked me what kind of a life the baby would have. Four homes instead of one? And all because she had HIV—something that wasn’t her fault to begin with. Didn’t the child need a stable home?

  “I’m going for a walk.” I pushed past them and their plans and ran for the elevator. I thought fleetingly of trying to find my children, but my mother had taken them often enough so I knew they were all right.

  I didn’t realize where I was going until I ended up at the ICU nursery. Silently, I studied the baby inside the incubator to be sure she was only sleeping and not dead. But her little chest rose and fell at a regular rate—still without the help of an oxygen tube. She seemed so vulnerable, so unprotected with all those wires coming from her, dressed in nothing but a diaper and a small crocheted hat.

  Even as I looked at her, I knew I wasn’t capable of taking care of her alone. I couldn’t even consider having a healthy baby yet, with all the other responsibilities I shouldered alone. I just couldn’t.

  Maybe it was better for her to die.

  I practically fled from the nursery and my macabre thoughts. Before I knew it, I was in my car, driving to the cemetery. Making my way to Nette’s grave, I knelt there, crying and wondering how I could tell Paulette I couldn’t submit to her dying wish.

  I prayed long and earnestly, ignoring the few people in the graveyard who glanced curiously in my direction. Over and over I relived the pain of my daughter’s death, remembering how empty my arms had felt then.

  I don’t know how long I had knelt there when I heard footsteps behind me on the path. Could it be my father?

  “I thought I might find you here,” Jean-Marc said as I looked up at him. He had André in his arms and the twins by his side. André held out his chubby arms for me, and Jean-Marc let him down. All three children greeted me with wet kisses and warm hugs before wandering off to play by the trees. Instinctively I scanned the area for the caretaker, but he was nowhere to be seen.

  “They told me what Paulette wanted,” he said, sitting beside me.

  I said nothing for a moment but gazed at the pattern the sun, filtered by the leaves, displayed on the gravestones. “And?” I finally prompted.

  “I think it’s a good idea. For the children, I mean. Less of an adjustment in the end. And Pierre will need someone to look out for him when he’s no longer able.”

  Anger flared to life at the comment. “And who will that be?” I said vehemently. “Me? Is that before or after I take care of all the needs of five small children under the age of four? And one with HIV? All by myself? And is that before or after I go crazy?”

  “We’ll do it together.”

  I didn’t doubt his sincerity, but the idea made me laugh. “You aren’t even home for family night! No.” I held up my hand to stop him from speaking. “Don’t give me that story about how it is all for us. We don’t need more money, we need you! By the time you have finished building your empire, the children will be gone and it will be too late. And you and I will be too far apa
rt to do more than say hello.”

  He stared at me, and I watched anger, fear, and disbelief wrestle for dominance in his face.

  “Your priorities are turned around,” I continued, standing up and brushing my hands on my pants to clean off the stray pieces of grass clinging to them. “We were supposed to do this together, but who gets up at night when the children need something? Who can calm them when they’re upset? Me, that’s who. We had the children together, but I’m raising them alone! The fact remains that they are just small children who need to be taught how to act, how to become big people. You have to be patient and enter their world, to try to understand them, even if you think their logic is stupid.”

  “You always take them from me,” he rejoined hotly. “Every time they cry or need something. You won’t let me take care of them, even when I am home.”

  His words hit me like a bucket of cold water to my face. Was it possible I was partly responsible for his alienation from the children? I thought back, and yes, I did take them from him when they were upset. But it was only because if I didn’t, the crying would go on and Jean-Marc would become impatient. What he needed was to spend more time with them, to understand them, and to grow to love them through service.

  My own thoughts condemned me. Perhaps if I had given him more practice during the brief times he was home, he would have learned to be better with them, as I had. Maybe he would have realized how much we all needed him.

  “You’re a good mother, Ari,” Jean-Marc said. “Sometimes I’m jealous because you’re so much better with the children than I am.” He put his arms around me tentatively. “The point is, I recognize we have a problem, and that I’m a big part of it. Can’t we work things out? I want you to be happy, and the children, more than anything else. I want to be a good father.”

  It seemed we were finished blaming each other; now we could take responsibility for our happiness and not leave it to chance. “I need you to help out more,” I said. “That’s all.” It seemed so simple, yet it wasn’t.

  He smiled. “That’s what Paulette said to me.”

  “What?”

  “Yesterday morning. When I came by to give the baby a blessing. Paulette looked straight into my eyes and asked me what I would be doing if it were you who had AIDS, or me, or one of the children. At first I couldn’t believe she’d ask me such a thing, but then I thought about it. And I realized that I certainly wouldn’t be working. I’d spend every second with you and the kids, making memories to last long after I was gone. Then it hit me. There are no guarantees in life. We may not have AIDS, but anything could happen to separate us—an accident, another illness, who knows? Life is too short; we never know when it will be taken away. Paulette made me see it’s now that counts. You’re right about my needing to get my priorities straight.” He pulled me close and nuzzled my neck with his nose. I hugged him back, wanting to believe.

  “Like my father.” He spoke softly, but his mouth was so close to my ear that I couldn’t mistake the words.

  I drew back and stared at him. “Your father?”

  He nodded, and when he spoke his voice sounded strangled. “When I went to bless the baby, I had a strange experience—two, really. As Pierre asked me to do the blessing, I suddenly remembered being with my father in the hospital when two missionaries gave him a blessing.” Jean-Marc’s eyes became unfocused as he remembered. “We were all there: Mom, Pierre, me, and even Lu-Lu. She was almost one—just a baby, really.”

  “After the blessing, Dad looked solemnly at Pierre and me. I remember what he said, word for word. He said, ‘Sons, I’m sorry I haven’t been with you more. I’ve put far too much effort into the store. I thought I was building a secure future for you, but now we’ll never have the time to get to know one another. May the Lord forgive my error.’ He sighed and shut his eyes, and I remember wanting to run and get the doctor. I was so scared. But then he spoke again. ‘At least I have found the true gospel for you. Now use it. Follow the Church programs. Don’t neglect your families until it’s too late—like I did.’ He held out his arms to hug and kiss us. When it was my turn, I ran away. I just ran. I didn’t want to kiss him, to feel his tears on my cheeks. I didn’t want to smell the death. It was the last time I saw my father alive.”

  “You remembered all that?”

  “It came back in an instant, like I was seeing it in fast motion on a movie screen. Suddenly I could remember the late nights when he would come home and was too tired to do anything with us—play, I mean. Then I realized the real reason I couldn’t remember my father was because we had made no memories I wanted to hold on to. I didn’t want to remember him the way he was.” His shoulders shook with emotion. “Isn’t that horrible?”

  I held his face between my hands. “No. You were only seven. You didn’t understand what it was to be a father, to be responsible for supporting a family. That’s a heavy burden. Now you know and can forgive him.”

  “I do understand him,” he said. “And I am just like him.” His words were desolate.

  “Yes,” I said. “You love your family as much as he loved you.”

  “But I ran, Ari. I ran.” He gritted his teeth. “Just like I did before our wedding, when I realized how strong and good you were and how weak I was in comparison, and just like I did when you challenged me about my neglecting you and the children. I ran from my father, and I haven’t stopped running since. I finally understand that all these months I’ve been afraid of being close to the children because I’m afraid they’ll feel about me the same way I felt about my own father.”

  “A vicious cycle. The lucky thing is you’ve realized your error before it’s too late.”

  He hugged me again, squeezing me tightly as if he would never let me go. “I love you so much, Ari. It scares me to think of losing you.”

  “I love you, too.” I hesitated. “So why didn’t you tell me this last night?” At least I knew why he had come home early.

  “I wanted to surprise you today when I showed you this.” He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out an object.

  “It’s a cellular phone,” he said. “I made the company buy it today. In fact, I went straight to the owner—your father.” His grin was back. “Now we’ll never be more than a phone call apart, wherever I am.”

  I took the black object and flipped it open. I smiled. “This is exactly what we need.”

  “It’s how the secretary reached me today when your mother called.” I pushed the phone in his direction, but he grabbed my hand instead of the phone. “I want you to call me whenever you need me. Whenever you feel I’m neglecting you or the children. Whatever it is, I’ll come. I want to make it work between us. I’m through running, forever. You are the most important thing to me, and I want us to be best friends again.” His expression was so utterly sincere and full of love that it brought a strange emotion to my breast. I couldn’t identify it, except that it was akin to love, only much, much deeper.

  “And I promise never to abuse it.”

  He shrugged and put the phone into his pocket. “Of course you won’t.” He pulled me close and kissed me, running a gentle hand through my short hair. A little shiver surged down my spine, making me laugh with the exhilaration it brought to my body.

  “So this is what the extra family night was about?” I asked gruffly. He could always bring out that special feeling in me.

  “It was our first one in a long time,” he said. “Oh, I know you always do it with them, but you can’t have a real family night without the head of the family.” His face was pensive. “The strange thing is that I knew all along what I should be doing, but I figured the children were too young, that it wouldn’t make a difference yet. I was wrong.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with making mistakes.”

  He nodded. “As long as we learn from them.”

  We stood without speaking for a time, linked together and feeling the strength of our love. Our children had drifted from the trees and were ducking behind some of th
e tombstones. The caretaker hated it when they played with such abandon; he didn’t think they were getting a proper, reserved French upbringing. But the man was nowhere to be seen, and we had more important things to worry about.

  “So what are we going to do?” He didn’t have to spell it out for me; I knew he was talking about taking care of the baby and Pierre. “He’s my brother, and I’m willing to do the work or hire a nurse if it becomes necessary. But regardless, I can’t abandon him now.”

  “Of course we’re not going to abandon him. I just don’t know if I’m able to do as Paulette asks.”

  “Don’t you think her idea is best for the children?”

  I chewed on my lower lip. “I don’t know. It would be if I could handle it. I’m not worried about Marie-Thérèse; she’s already like one of ours. But the baby—she’s going to get AIDS.”

  “Yes, but maybe not for ten years, and there may be a cure by then. Meanwhile, she needs a real home. I promise I’ll be there every night to help; I promise on the strength of my love for you. I will be there. And if I forget, you call me.” He touched his breast pocket, where I could see the slight bulge of the phone.

  “Aren’t you worried our children might get HIV?” I protested. “Certainly our first responsibility is to our own children.”

  “We can educate ourselves, and we can teach them,” Jean-Marc said. “The biggest problem with HIV or AIDS is the fear it brings; that much I’m learning. As long as we are careful, nothing will happen.”

  “It’s not going to be easy.”

  “But worth it in the end.”

  His words reminded me of how I had visited my ex-husband in prison after my mission, to forgive him for causing our daughter’s death. I had told him something then, when he had wished aloud that he had not hurt me so terribly; and now, nearly six years later, the words echoed in my mind. “But, Jacques,” I had said, “the making of a queen or a king is never easy, you know, though terribly worth it in the end.”

  It had been true then, and nothing had changed since. Still, I fought against the inevitable. “Your mother and Simone said they would take her a few days each week.”