That’s why he had sat in the middle of the restaurant, in front of everyone, the coward.
Rosemary wouldn’t remember what she did next: pushing back her chair and standing up, putting on her jacket and gloves, slipping her purse strap over her shoulder, lifting the edge of the black Formica table and tipping it onto Nate’s lap. (It was lighter than she’d ever imagined.) She seemed to float out of the restaurant, though she could hear the clicking of her boot heels on the sidewalk like the tick-tock of a grandfather clock or, better yet, a cooking timer counting down the minutes until the marriage was done. Click. Click. Click. She had to stop the sound. She turned into an alley, bent over, and threw up 26 years.
There were few unoccupied seats when Nancy boarded the train at Tende, where she’d been visiting her old college friend Judith. The passengers were mostly Italians who must have gotten on at Cuneo or Torino, across the border, and like herself, were headed to Nice.
An elderly gentleman took the precious window seat in the first row of the car. Nancy claimed the aisle one alongside him. She didn’t mind traveling backward the way her husband, Jean-Georges, did. However, Jean-Georges never came with her on this annual sojourn during their vacations in France; he preferred to stay with his family at their summer home in Nice. Across from the old man sat a young businessman with wire-rimmed glasses, who tightly gripped the handle of the attaché case that rested on his lap; his large valise in the seat opposite Nancy completed the little foursome. He could have put his suitcase on the luggage rack above, but he left it there as though it were entitled to the seat, as though it had purchased its own ticket. Nancy crossed her legs and accidentally tapped his, which he immediately withdrew as he turned his head to stare out at the countryside. The old man rested his head against the window and fell asleep.
At the next stop, Saint Dalmas de Tende, a man, most likely in his mid-30s, entered the car carrying a paper bag in one hand and guiding a little boy with the other. Quickly, he scanned the car. Then, in a very determined manner and without asking permission, he placed the large suitcase in the aisle and settled the boy into the seat. The businessman seemed about to protest, but the new arrival’s actions made it clear that his son would occupy the seat. Nancy smiled. The man across from her pursed his lips and returned his gaze to the window. The father crouched next to the small boy, whose legs stuck straight out because they were too short to bend.
He was a big boy for his age, but Nancy had been an elementary school principal long enough to comfortably estimate him to be around three. He was a happy boy, at least he was happy to be there with his father, whom he resembled, with a round face, eyes like large black olives, and plump skin — not fat but meaty like sausage in its casing. The boy was lighter in skin tone with brown hair. One might first assume that they were Italians: they were unlike the man opposite Nancy, who based on appearance alone — auburn hair, fair skin, pointed nose — would have been taken for a Frenchman. The businessman, however, had used his cell phone to speak to an associate in Italian, while the father addressed his son in French. But then, many of the French in these towns looked Italian and the Italians French, since they lived in an area that had changed ownership again and again at the whims of rogues, land barons, and kings.
The father worked hard to keep his son entertained as the train made its way down the snowcapped mountains of the Maritime Alps, and the child’s smile never faded. That made the boy ever so endearing, because it was a genuine smile, eager and full of appreciation, one that could belong only to an individual who was experiencing such a ride for the first time. Clearly secure and content, his good disposition never waned even for a moment. He was the type of child you wanted to hug and take home, to give hot chocolate and cookies to, because it would be impossible to spoil him. Some children are good-natured from the moment they emerge from the womb.
The father performed something like “Itsy Bitsy Spider” with his hands and then did a magic trick, making a coin disappear and reappear. Next, he was a creeping bug climbing the boy’s leg, threatening to and then succeeding in tickling the child’s stomach. The boy’s body convulsed with such delight that several times Nancy laughed out loud, catching the father’s eye. The Italian across from her shifted in his seat. The old man began to snore.
How the father’s thighs must have ached, crouched as he was at his son’s level. Where were they going? To visit grand-mère — the father’s mother, of course. But just for the day, since they had no luggage. Why wasn’t Maman with them? Perhaps she needed time to herself, or was in the last trimester of pregnancy with another child — a girl — and was too tired to make the trip. She was a beautiful woman, Nancy decided: luscious golden tresses like Catherine Deneuve’s, slim when she wasn’t expecting, blue eyes and a light and clear birdlike laugh. They had grown up together — the mother and father — and fallen in love in grade school. Oh, she hadn’t admitted to liking him at first, because he wasn’t the cleverest student and always played the prankster, but he had won her over eventually. And he adored her, and had settled down. They weren’t rich, but they got by. How proud he was of having won her love, secretly convinced that he didn’t deserve it. Her parents, Nancy went on to speculate, had never fully accepted him and often reminded her that she could have done better; but, nevertheless, the husband was tolerant of his in-laws.
A good father. A perfect father. Would Jean-Georges have been capable of such devotion? He had demanded so much attention since she had lured him away from France after her junior year abroad and transplanted him to Boston (unlike her friend Judith, who moved to Torino with the Italian she had fallen in love with). That’s why she hadn’t insisted on having children: it had seemed the logical and right thing to do — or not to do — all these years, until now, when they were in their early 40s, and Jean-George’s failing kidney and her biological clock obviated the decision.
As though it were another magic trick, the father removed a pastry from the paper bag and gave it to the boy, who evidently had a good appetite. He bit off large chunks, yet there was nothing repulsive about his eating habits. On the contrary, Nancy watched him enjoy the pastry with the pleasure a mother feels with a child who eats anything she puts before him.
Her cousin’s children, Matthew and Elena, were finicky eaters, while Jill never ate period, and Thomas and Julia would take only what their mother had prepared. The holidays she hosted proved a disappointment. Despite the efforts she put into pleasing the youngsters, Easter biscuits in the shape of birds took nosedives onto the dining room carpet; heart-shaped pink mashed potatoes, carefully arranged on their plates for Valentine’s Day, perished of neglect. This boy wouldn’t have let them die. This boy would have relished such novelties, his eyes glistening with gratitude.
The boy was still eating when the father motioned something to him that Nancy couldn’t make out. The child nodded and the father turned around, opened the door to the foyer between the two cars, and closed the door behind him. He had obviously gone to look for a lavatory, leaving the boy content to munch on his pastry. Nancy wasn’t sure she would have left her son alone, had she been fortunate enough to have one; Americans are so paranoid about kidnapping. When she was no more than five, her mother let her walk to the corner store, on the busy avenue, with two quarters wrapped in a shopping list she presented to the grocer. An unthinkable task to assign to a young child nowadays, one that smacked of stupidity, even negligence.
But the boy was safe, really, with all eyes on him (at least Nancy’s, of which the father had been well aware). There were always those stories of people stealing children in toy stores and department stores when their mothers had turned their heads for a moment, then whisking the children off to a restroom stall, disguising them in dresses and wigs, and walking out of the store with changed-sex toddlers before any alarm had sounded. Where could one to go with a little boy on a moving train?
Police officers came regularly to Nancy’s school and
lectured the children on personal safety: what to do if a stranger approached them on their walk home; what to do if their parents failed to pick them up. But this father would be back before the train reached the next station, and one did have to have some faith in human nature. Still, Nancy would assume responsibility for this child until his father returned. She believed she had a tacit understanding with him. Surely, he had taken her for a good woman.
The train rolled along the mountainside. One stiff wind might send it sailing into the ravine, she thought. Of course that never happened, but she liked to fantasize the way her very young students did: sometimes to try to get into their heads, other times because she preferred their creative minds to those of the faculty. In a week, she would be back with them all in Massachusetts. Summer was coming to an end, as was Jean-George’s and her time in France.
The train came to a stop, jerked forward, as though it had tripped, and stopped again. The boy looked around, his mouth still holding its cherubic smile. He took another bite of the pastry and settled back into his seat. Nancy looked up at the glass door of the vestibule. The old man’s head banged against the window. The man across from her made another business call.
When the train pulled into La Trinité-Victor, the boy looked back at the glass door.
“He’s gone to the toilette, right?” Nancy asked in French.
The boy stared, wide-eyed.
“He’ll be back soon. The train is very crowded. There must have been a long line.”
Maybe he’d met a friend and struck up a conversation, and was on his way back at this very moment; not that much time had passed. The stations were quite close together as they neared the city. Nancy leaned forward.
“What’s your name?” she asked
He didn’t answer. His parents must have instructed him not to talk to strangers.
Passengers began to gather their belongings: duffle bags, suitcases, and laptops were retrieved from the overhead rack and placed in the aisle. One young woman destined for the beach removed a six-foot inflated yellow float. In an effort to be the first to exit the train when the doors opened, the Italian businessman picked up his attaché case and enormous valise and disappeared behind the glass door. The old man, ignorant of the fact that the boy had a father, since he had been asleep when the pair boarded, awoke promptly as the train pulled into the Nice station.
The boy grew uneasy, his gaze locked on the door behind him as the passengers, standing up, suddenly loomed over him.
“I’ll wait with you until your father returns,” she assured him.
She crossed over and took the businessman’s seat beside the boy. The train began to empty out. When they were the only ones left in the car she said: “Let’s go and find him.” But the boy, his head turned away from her as he continued to monitor the door, didn’t respond. It was at that point she realized he hadn’t uttered a word throughout the entire trip and that he might in fact be deaf.
Her overnight bag in one hand, the boy’s hand in her other, Nancy set out to look for a conductor. No one had entered their car to punch tickets, but this was not uncommon on this line.
The boy’s hand was clammy, the perpetual smile gone, the sparkling eyes stone cold. He skipped to keep up with her as she headed for the group of conductors who were chatting on the platform. They would have to search quickly, before the train filled up again and departed, in all the lavatories, and find the locked door behind which the father would be discovered, collapsed on the floor, deathly ill or worse. Poor man. Should he manage to return to his car before the conductors reached him, all he would find were crumbs on an empty seat.
Nancy gripped the pudgy hand of her new charge as tightly as a coveted prize, anticipation nearly overwhelming her.
“There is no one, Madame,” they confirmed as, one by one, they returned. “Your friend is not on the train.”
An anxious Jean-Georges smiled when at last he spotted her entering the terminal. He beamed in much in the way an expectant father might have greeted the doctor leaving the delivery room after a difficult labor. And just as the father’s relief would have turned to concern while he awaited the news, Jean-Georges’ eyes now demanded an explanation for the child walking beside his wife.
It’s a boy, she wanted to say.
It was the first day of spring — too cold for swimming, yet the outdoor pool of the Richmond apartment complex was already uncovered. From her ground-level window, Nancy noticed a mallard with his iconic emerald head and gilded beak confidently gliding on the water’s surface; the white neckband, like a starched collar against his rich brown chest, gave him the air of a dandy with not a care in the world. “Lucky ducky,” Nancy said.
The two-bedroom flat was sparsely furnished; it only needed to see them through five weeks of recovery. Nancy had barely had time to locate the nearest supermarket and stock the kitchen with necessities like coffee and tea, milk and cereal, canned soups, eggs, yogurt, peanut butter, and bread. Until she felt up to cooking, anything more elaborate would have to be delivered. Her mother desperately wanted to come down from Boston to care for her daughter and son-in-law; her cousins said they’d put everything aside to be there for her, but Nancy refused their offers. The strength required for what she was about to do for Jean-Georges must not be susceptible to the anxiety of others and hovered over by nervous hens as though it were a communal incubating egg. On a more selfish note, she did not wish to share this intimate experience between her husband and herself.
Her decision to donate a kidney had been an easy one, for the simple reason that she did not want her life with Jean-Georges to end. But they were incompatible in the scientific sense; in fact, until now no one had qualified to be her husband’s donor.
Organ transplanting is a waiting game, and while they had waited for a cadaver donor, Nancy had searched for another option and found a long shot: an in-house swap — a hospital with enough operating rooms, staff and surgical wings to perform multiple exchanges. For many months the hospital worked to find six patients with failing kidneys and six donors who, like Nancy, were incompatible with their relative or friend but compatible with one of the other recipients. Too many cooks spoil the broth, Nancy thought at first; one of them was bound to get the worst doctor, and Nancy feared she’d be the loser. But their choices had evaporated. Jean-Georges was rapidly declining, and they were out of time.
Throughout the process one final obstacle had threatened to stand in the way of the transplant, and in turn, the transplant had threatened to stand in the way of the obstacle. Nancy and Jean-Georges were in the throes of another waiting game: they planned to adopt a child from France — a deaf boy Nancy had found abandoned without identification, on a train in the Maritime Alps. A boy that doctors had determined to be three years and three months old, a boy they had named Pierre.
French adoption authorities had not been perturbed about Jean-George’s history of congenital kidney disease, though they were under the impression he was in remission. And if the transplant team in Richmond had known their adoption of a very young child was in the works, they would have eliminated Nancy and Jean-Georges and upset the entire swap project. But it was not the other five people with kidney disease that Nancy had been concerned with; they were, in her eyes, just organs — a means to an end. She had thought only of Jean-Georges and Pierre, and so they decided not to lie about either the adoption or Jean-Georges’ health status — depending on whom they were speaking to — but instead to say nothing. A sin of omission.
***
Nancy had never doubted their decision to adopt Pierre until now, the night before their surgeries, as she sat beside her husband on his bed in the apartment that contained no trace of their two decades together. She rested her head against the flimsy wicker headboard that moved each time she did and was enveloped with doubt.
“Are we wrong to go ahead with the adoption? Is it irresponsible?” she asked Jean-Georges
. “What if something happens to one of us?”
He was lying face up, eyes closed, in a body aged far older than his 44 years.
“Pierre will be in the best hands with you, should something happen to me. And if it is the other way around, I cannot begin to think about that — but, because you worry, I reassure you that I will be an exemplary father.”
“And if something happens to both of us?” They’d been over this numerous times. “I know. If it’s after we’ve gotten him, Joanna will take care of him. And if it’s before — he’ll be adopted by a French family. I know. I know.”
“Nancy, we’ve looked at this from every angle. Stop torturing yourself.”
“Maybe it was wrong from the beginning, Jean. You never wanted children. I pushed you into the adoption.”
“I never said I didn’t want children. All the rigmarole trying to conceive, all that guilt. You thought that I was too demanding, too needy, but I was trying to make a life with only us in it. I’ll get used to this. It’s just that it’s been the two of us for so long.”
“No room. I told myself there was no room for children in a marriage with you. Tell me I was wrong. You’ll get used to being a father, won’t you?”
“A good father.”
“And the fact that he’s deaf?”
“I’ve accepted that. When I saw you come off that train in Nice holding Pierre’s little hand, leading him through the crowds, I thought: What has she gone and done now? Promised to babysit someone’s child for the rest of our stay in the city? I admit I was a bit jealous. You looked so radiant — happier than I’d ever seen you. I could never make you that happy.”
It hurt her to hear him say that, and even more to think it might be true. “I was a nervous wreck. I kept waiting for the father to stab me in the back or for the police to arrest me,” she said, adding a note of suspense to the scenario they had visited many times.
Thieves Never Steal in the Rain Page 5