I felt the paper in my pocket. “Just some things that happened today, that’s all. Tomorrow will be better.”
He grinned. “That’s my Ariana. You were always so positive.”
I wasn’t his Ariana any longer and hadn’t been for many years. It bothered me to hear him say it. “Why have you come to Paris?” I asked.
“We’ve moved the company headquarters here.”
“That’s nice.” Glancing at my watch, I saw that I’d been at the cemetery for more than two hours. “I’d better get home.” I stood to leave, and the wallet on my lap plummeted to the cobblestones in front of the bench. Jacques bent swiftly to scoop it up. When he straightened beside me he was staring at a picture that had fallen out of the wallet. It was the twins at less than a year old.
“They look like Nette.”
“They are her brother and sister,” I said, more sharply than I’d intended. His face looked pained.
I softened. “Didn’t you ever marry again? Don’t you have children?”
He shook his head. “No.” He seemed about to say more but stopped himself. Handing back the picture, he said, “You’d better get going. Your family needs you.”
I nodded. And though I felt a little strange doing it in front of him, I crossed to Nette’s headstone and bent to touch the letters in her name. When I rose, Jacques was there beside me. He stooped and arranged the white flowers in the vase cemented at the base of the waist-high structure. He was close enough for me to smell the tantalizing aroma of his aftershave. For no reason I could define, my heart began to beat erratically.
“Good-bye,” I said hastily.
“Wait!”
I paused. His brown eyes studied me, as if taking in every bit of my face, memorizing it. He held out a single white rose in his hand, which was shaking slightly despite his warm glove. “Here.”
I took the flower in my bare hands. The white rose had always been my favorite.
“You have my card,” he said. “If you ever need me for anything—money, to talk, anything at all—please, please call.”
“I’m fine, really,” I lied. I knew he must still be trying to atone for the accident that had taken our daughter’s life.
I backed away. “Didn’t you listen to the missionaries?”
“The what? Oh, you mean those young foreign men. I did hear them, but then they made some rule about them not coming to the prison. I meant to look them up after I got out, but we lost touch. Once I was back with my father, it hardly seemed important. I had already stopped the drugs.”
I wanted to tell him that there was so much more to it, but I felt too uneasy in his presence. Besides, now that I had his card, I could always send in the referral. “Good-bye,” I said.
“Good-bye.”
This time he let me go, but I could sense his eyes, searing and intense, following me on the pathway. I felt strange leaving him alone with Nette, but there was nothing he could do to her now. Cold had seeped into every part of my body, yet somehow I felt hot inside. Alive.
“Mom!” Josette was waiting by the cemetery gate. She was dressed warmly, yet her nose was red with cold. Instinctively, I cast a backwards glance at where Jacques still stood by Nette’s grave, though the distance made him quite unrecognizable. How long had Josette been watching us? I clutched the rose stem even more tightly in my hand, feeling the thorns bite into my skin.
“What are you doing here?”
Her expression was guarded. “I knew you would probably come here. I wanted to say I was sorry about how I acted.”
I put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. “I’m glad you came.” This was the part of Josette that I admired. She was always repentant and worried constantly that something might happen to us. As a child, she had mothered her siblings so much they rebelled. Now her concern for me was shining through, and it made me want to hug and kiss her as I had done when she was young.
“I cleaned the kitchen.”
I smiled. “Good.” She must have done it quickly and then caught the subway to the cemetery.
As we walked in the direction of my car, Josette looked over her shoulder. “Who is that man?”
“Just someone I used to know.” I couldn’t keep the nostalgia from my voice.
“Someone special?” she asked curiously.
“No, not anymore.”
Suspicion clouded her face. “Then why did he give you the rose?”
Without thinking, I brought it to my face and breathed in the sweet fragrance. I said nothing to Josette but opened the door to our van. She slid in next to me as I fumbled for the keys with frozen hands.
“Tell me, Mother—who was it? I saw you hug him while you were sitting on that bench. Tell me, who is he and why did he give you that rose?” Her voice bordered on hysteria.
I turned to face her. “It’s not what you think.” I looked down at my left hand, which still held the flower. When I opened it, I saw the drying bits of blood where the thorns had pierced my soft skin. It was what Jacques had always done to me, coming with a beautiful cover and ending up wounding me—and much more deeply than this.
“Here.” I handed her the rose. “Keep it.”
“Who is he?” she pressed.
“He brought the roses for his daughter and gave me one, that’s all.”
She waited for more.
“It was Jacques,” I said finally. “Your older sister’s father.”
“Nette’s father?” she gasped. “What does he want?”
She had pinpointed it exactly. “I don’t know.”
But I wondered if I did. The way he had stared at me wasn’t the way one looks at a friend or even an ex-wife. Then I felt absurd. It had been twenty years since our marriage ended and seventeen since I had last seen him. Jacques could have no hidden motives.
Why did he have to come back now? I thought. Yet even as I thought it, an unquenchable curiosity rose to the surface. Jacques was no longer the dashing, impetuous boy I had loved but a successful businessman. I couldn’t help thinking that he knew exactly how to get what he wanted.
Chapter Three
In the parking garage under our building, I heard my older son before I saw him. The clank and rolling of wheels on the rough cement echoed in the nearly empty expanse before Marc burst from behind one of the thick supporting pillars.
“Marc, you scared me!” Josette said, looking up at him. A sudden growth spurt had left him taller than Jean-Marc—not that my husband had ever been very tall.
Marc laughed, grinning as he hugged me and kissed my cheeks. “Mom, you gotta see this.” In an instant, he whirled from me and zoomed away at top speed on his roller blades, swerving occasionally to avoid parked cars, his dark, short-cropped hair ruffling from the velocity. He came back even faster, this time steering toward a ramp he had set up in the middle of the garage.
“Marc, no!” I heard Josette scream. But he was far from hearing her. He leaped at the end of the ramp, spinning in a circle before hitting the cement. He nearly toppled and smashed into a car but recovered at the last minute.
He came up to us grinning. “See, I can do it!”
I closed my eyes for a second. There were some things I would prefer never to see my children do, but I had to allow them a measure of agency. “I see,” I said. “I’m impressed. But where’s your helmet?” My judgment with Marc was often clouded by the fact that he so closely resembled my impetuous brother, Antoine, but not so completely that I couldn’t reprove him when necessary.
Josette frowned. “And your knee pads? What would you have done if you had fallen? Marc, you have to think. I don’t want to be the one to pick your guts up off the floor.” There was nothing ladylike about her words or her grimace.
Marc’s grin widened. “Oh, don’t worry, Jose. Nothing’s going to happen.” He skated in a circle near her, his expression taunting.
“Promise me you’ll never do it again without your helmet!” she pleaded.
His smile dimmed. “You’r
e really frightened, aren’t you?” She looked away and didn’t answer. Marc skated into her line of sight. “I’m sorry, Jose. If it means that much to you, I’ll promise.”
Josette’s smile was genuine. “Thanks.”
He held up his finger. “On one condition.” He paused dramatically. “You have to go blading with me.” He skated to the row of small storage units that flanked the garage, stopping short before the one marked 5-B. Pulling a set of keys from his pocket, he opened the door to grab Josette’s roller blades and two helmets.
Josette opened her mouth. “But—”
“No buts,” he said.
She threw back her head and laughed. “Okay, you win. But you’re buying the hot chocolate at the café.”
“Deal.”
“Here, Mom.” Josette pushed the white rose into my hand and ran to her brother. I watched them, remembering my own childhood. I hoped they would always be so close.
“Be home before dinner,” I shouted after them.
Marc flashed me his teasing grin. “Maybe.” I knew he would do his best.
As the elevator climbed the five flights, my mind returned to the problem of what I would say when I faced Jean-Marc. The bank’s failing was a problem, to be sure; but together we could overcome this. Jean-Marc would get another job, and maybe I could, too, for a time. We would simply limit ourselves to only the necessary spending, and somehow we’d get through.
I tried not to dwell on the problem of Pauline’s costly treatments. We had made sure that she had the best doctors and the most expensive drugs, which alone consumed more than two-thirds the salary of the average person. Our insurance had paid a great deal, but now that would end. And our savings . . .
The anger I had first felt when learning about the bank came back, but this time I channeled it into plans for the future. I rapidly calculated what I would need to support my family. It had been a long time since I’d had to worry about such things, but I had always been good with numbers.
I walked into the apartment and was greeted in the entryway by André and Pauline.
“We fixed the sink,” André said. “And it was mostly me. Dad couldn’t figure out how to get the pipe off, but I found out how.” He was nearly bursting with pride.
I hugged him. “Good.” But my stomach twisted; now I knew why Jean-Marc hadn’t called a professional as he usually did when either of the two single grandmothers needed something fixed. There were a lot of things we would have to do ourselves for a while. And a lot of things the grandmothers would have to pay for themselves.
Pauline lifted her face for a kiss. “I missed you. Where have you been?”
I glanced at the rose. “The cemetery. Would you put this in water for me?”
She accept the flower, her sweet round face eager. “I love roses.”
I removed my coat as André watched me. “What’s wrong, Mom?” Sometimes he was too sensitive.
“There is something, André, but I need to talk to your father. Where is he?”
“In your room, I think.”
“Thanks.” I gave him an encouraging smile before making my way down the hall, but André’s face was pensive. For the second time that day, I felt eyes following me.
Jean-Marc stood by the window, his shoulder leaning into the wall as he fingered the lace curtains. His boyishly handsome face was bleak, his eyes far away. He started slightly when he heard me enter, and his ever-ready grin came to the surface, though it didn’t reach his eyes. How could I have missed these signs?
“Ari! Where have you been?” He held out his arms.
I didn’t reply but drew out the letter. His face fell, and tears came to his eyes. It had been a long time since I had seen him cry—ten years to be exact—since his brother’s death. I went to him, and for a long, silent moment we held each other.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured finally.
“It’s not your fault.”
He released me and paced the room. “It’s my responsibility to support our family, and I’ve failed. Oh, I know it’s not my fault, but I can’t help thinking that somehow I could have stopped it.” He came to an abrupt standstill. “And what am I going to tell your father? He’s worked hard all his life, and now that he’s retired, I’ve ruined everything he worked for. I’ve no idea how much he’s lost.”
“He’ll get by, and so will we,” I said. “Jean-Marc, we still have each other, and our family. No matter what, I love you!”
A relieved smile touched his lips. He crossed the room and buried his face in my neck. “That’s just what I needed to hear.”
His lips found mine, and we kissed fervently. Against my will, a picture of Jacques came to my mind. I pushed it away. My love for Jean-Marc was eternal and filled my whole soul; there was no room for Jacques, past or present.
“So where do we go from here?” I asked when we finally drew apart.
Fear and determination mingled on his face. “I’ll look for a job beginning next week. I’ll have some things to finish up at the bank, but basically government investigators are taking over. I have to answer any questions they may have.”
“You’ll easily get a job with your qualifications.”
He grimaced. “I’m not too sure. The unemployment rate is very high right now, and being the president of a failed bank won’t exactly look good on my resume.”
“But it’s not your fault! What about the employees who’ve been embezzling?”
He shook his head. “It’s going to take a long time for the dust to clear on this one. I think we’re going to have to face a lot of accusations ourselves.”
“What do you mean?”
“The press has to point the finger at someone, and unfortunately, I’m that someone.”
“Preposterous!”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Jean-Marc broke into a grin. “You sound like your father.”
I smiled back. “Speaking of which, shouldn’t you call him?”
The grin vanished. “Yes, I’ll have them come over tonight.”
“Afterwards we’ll talk to the children.”
His nod seemed painful, and I reached out to stroke his cheek. “It’s hard,” I said softly, “but not nearly so hard as the last trial. I’ve been thinking; I could get work, too. You know, temporarily—until we get things settled.”
I was unprepared for the intensity of his reaction. “No! Ari, no! It hasn’t come to that, not yet. The children need you at home.”
“The children are in school all day.”
“Please don’t do this—not yet,” he implored. “Just give me a chance. I can support you; I can. I don’t want you to have to work like my mother did. You see how her health has suffered from working and raising a family alone. You won’t have to do that—not while I’m alive.” His determination to care for me moved me like I hadn’t imagined it might. I knew his reaction was old-fashioned and perhaps even a bit chauvinistic, but I loved him for it.
“You’re a queen, my Ari,” he whispered, his voice low. “Please let me treat you like one.”
I kissed him again, passionately, and this time there was nothing of Jacques to destroy the moment. “I love you so much,” I said through my tears.
“Not nearly as much as I love you.”
* * *
Pauline and I were in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner when my parents arrived. Jean-Marc had already explained the situation over the phone, but he and my father immediately shut themselves in the sitting room to talk business while my mother came into the kitchen. Pauline sang happily as she worked, bringing a smile to our faces. André still sat at the kitchen table reading a book, but the twins and Marie-Thérèse had gone into the TV room.
Our apartment was actually two joined together, so our kitchen was double the normal size. The extra sitting room had first served as a playroom and now was used as the TV room. We also had five bedrooms. Marc and André shared one, as did Josette and Marie-Thérèse. Pauline had her own room, and Jean-Marc and I h
ad the fourth. The remaining room was used for projects and for guests. With three grandmothers, one grandfather, and a single aunt in Paris, all of whom loved to spend time with our children, it was used frequently.
“So how are you adjusting to being back in normal life?” I asked my mother. Her hair was a silvery white, and she held her head with an undeniable grace. Her figure, though not as trim as in her youth, was still slender and firm. She was a striking woman, even at sixty-four.
She laughed. “Serving a mission was fun, but I rather prefer France,” she said. “In Quebec the people are great, but I missed you and the kids.”
“How’s Father taking being home from the mission?”
To my surprise, she frowned. “He wants to go again. There or somewhere else. He’s already got the papers.”
“But you just got back!” In fact, only a month had gone by since their first year of missionary service had ended.
My mother sighed. “If it weren’t for this new calling, he would have put in the papers already.”
Father had been called as a counselor in the stake presidency upon his return from Canada. I had seen him only four times in that month. One of those times had been when I went for a temple recommend. “He’s been busy, I take it.”
“I hardly see him,” she grumbled. “It’s much worse than when he worked at the bank. At least then he came home. Now he visits members every day and night. Him at sixty-five! It’s like he is going to single-handedly counsel every member in Paris, as well as convert all the rest of the population!”
I laughed, remembering the zeal my father had shown upon his baptism eleven years earlier. “It’ll calm down, Mother. Don’t worry. It’s the missionary spirit.”
The phone rang, and I went to answer it. “Hello?”
“Is this Madame Perrault?”
“It is.”
The caller identified himself as working for Paris’s largest newspaper and launched into his attack. “What do you have to say to the allegations that your husband stole millions of francs from the bank of which he was president, causing it to fail and costing thousands of people their life savings?”
I gasped. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
The Ariana Trilogy Page 47