by Robin Wells
“They had a boy and a girl, both grown and married. They didn’t live here,” the woman said. “I believe the Browns were Catholic, though.”
Jack turned to me and translated.
“We can ask at the local church,” I ventured in French.
“Do you know which church they went to?” Jack asked the couple.
“There’s a Catholic church down the street,” the woman volunteered.
“Thank you. We’ll try there.”
We got back in the cab. Jack looked as if he were working hard to control a rising tide of anger. His voice was controlled, but his eyes flashed as he turned to me. “When did you last hear from your aunt and uncle?”
“It was . . . during the war.”
“How long ago?”
My insides felt as if they were shrinking. “A year . . . or two.”
His gaze was incredulous. “They didn’t know you were coming?”
“Oh, yes! I wrote to them!”
“And they wrote back?”
I felt seasick all over again. “The mail—it wasn’t reliable. Especially the incoming mail. We were told that mail posted out, however.”
He stared straight ahead, as if he couldn’t bear to look at me. “You told me they were expecting you.” His voice was flat and cold.
“Yes. Because I wrote them.”
“But you didn’t hear back,” he repeated.
“N-no. I couldn’t imagine . . . I had no way of knowing . . . I never dreamed they would move.”
“You didn’t send them a telegram when you learned your departure date?”
“I—I did not think of it.”
He gazed at me, his expression one of disbelief and icy fury.
“It—It just didn’t occur to me,” I said.
“I see.”
“No, I think you do not. From the angry look on your face, it appears the only thing you see is that I am an idiot or that I am somehow trying to trick you.”
His eyes snapped. “I just can’t believe you would cross an ocean—and marry a stranger!—on the off chance that your aunt and uncle had received your letter.”
“You are right. It was very stupid of me.” It was not an act for tears to course down my face.
“I’m trying to understand, to give you every benefit of the doubt, but it doesn’t make any sense. Why wouldn’t you send a telegram?”
All of my Resistance training came back to me, especially the words of Mme Dupard: Stick as close to the truth as possible. Tell the truth whenever you can.
“A telegraph was like a . . . a big steak, or an airplane ride. So beyond my reach or everyday thinking that it wasn’t in my frame of reference. During the war, telegrams only came for Germans. The French people—at least the ones I knew—never received them. Not when someone died, or was arriving . . . Never.” I met his eyes, though mine were blurred with tears. “The last I heard, my aunt loved her home and neighborhood. I never dreamed she would move. It never occurred to me that a tragedy such as a fire could happen here. Those were horrors that belonged to war. In my mind, America was paradise—a place where everything was always good.” Elise was asleep, and slipping down in my arms. I struggled to readjust her.
Jack inhaled a long slow breath. He seemed to be pulling something into himself, some something stronger than air. He took Elise from me and gently cradled her. She opened her eyes and looked at him. I thought she would cry, but she just closed her eyelids again.
“You have been through an ordeal that is hard for an outsider to understand,” he said at length, as the taxi stopped before a small church. “Come on. Let’s see if the priest can tell us anything about your family.”
—
The church was deserted. At length a woman dressed all in black came in to light a candle.
“Do you know where we can find the priest?” Jack asked her.
“The rectory is around the back.”
Jack translated into French. I realized that I probably should have told him I spoke English when I first got off the ship, but I had thought I would only be with him for an hour or two, and an explanation would have involved more lies. Now, when he was already viewing me as either an idiot or a con artist, it seemed too awkward to tell him. For the time being, at least, I would let sleeping cats lie.
We knocked on the door, interrupting the priest’s supper.
Jack explained our situation.
“Ah—the Browns. Such a tragedy, that apartment fire! So many parishioners lost everything, but everyone escaped with their lives, praise God.”
“Do you know where they went?”
“I know Mr. Brown had a married sister in California—or was it Texas? It was out west, I’m sure of that. Maybe Oregon or Arizona.”
“Do you know his sister’s married name?”
“I’m sorry—no. I never met her. I only saw Mr. Brown on a couple of occasions. He seldom came to church. He was a Protestant, I believe. The missus, though—she was fairly devout.”
“Were the children christened here? Maybe the aunt was a godmother.”
“Sorry, no. They were older when they moved to the neighborhood.” The priest gave an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry I can’t be of any real help.”
Jack turned to me once we were outside. “Do you happen to know what your uncle’s occupation was? Perhaps we can track them down that way.”
“He—he was a construction worker,” I invented.
“Did he have a specialty? Iron work, perhaps?”
I shook my head. “He—he changed jobs quite often. It was a worry to my aunt.”
Jack marched to the taxi and yanked open the door for me, his face hard.
I couldn’t help it. I cried. I tried not to, but tears rolled down my cheeks. He handed me a handkerchief. I wiped my face. Elise awoke and howled. I took her back from Jack and cradled her in my arms.
“What does she need?” Jack asked.
“She’s hungry.”
“What does she eat at this age?”
“Formula and soft foods.”
“Let’s go get dinner, then, and try to figure this out.”
—
We went to Schrafft’s. It was large and modern and unlike any restaurant I’d seen in Paris. It had glass blocks on the outside, and mahogany on the interior. “This looks terribly expensive.”
“Oh, no, don’t worry. The prices are very reasonable.”
“I—I still don’t think I can afford this,” I said.
“I wouldn’t dream of letting you pay.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
A waitress with a thick accent—I think it was Irish, but my English wasn’t precise enough for me to tell—approached our table. I wasn’t sure what to order, so Jack did it for me. He ordered a steak—maybe because I’d mentioned steak as one of the things that was beyond the scope of my world in France, like a telegram—with a baked potato, green beans, a salad, and warm rolls with butter.
“Oh, my—oh, this is enough for four people!” I said when a white-aproned waitress set a heaping plate in front of me.
“That’s just for you and Elise.”
“Well, we must save the rest.”
“We have no place to keep it.”
All the same, I put a roll in my purse.
Jack ate a steak as well, and then he looked at me. “I’ve made a decision.”
“Yes?”
“I have a hotel room for the night. We’ll get another room for you and Elise, then in the morning, we’ll catch a train for Whitefish. Since we can’t find your family, we’ll take you to Doug’s.”
My stomach suddenly felt as if I had just eaten a box of rocks. “But . . . I don’t know them. And they’re not expecting me! I bet they don’t even know that Doug and I . . .�
�
He leaned forward. “I’m sure they’ll be thrilled. But just to avoid anything like what we just encountered, I’m going to give them a telephone call.”
“Oh, la!”
“Don’t worry, I’ll do all the talking, since you don’t speak English.”
Thank God I hadn’t told him I spoke English! “I’ll tell them that I’m coming to see them, and that I’m bringing them a surprise from Doug.”
I numbly nodded.
“Once they see you and Elise, why, there’s no way they’ll want to do anything but welcome you with open arms, don’t you think?”
All I could do was once more, dumbly, nod my head. “I hope so,” I murmured.
“I’m sure they’ll want their grandchild close,” Jack said. “Doug was an only child, so Elise will be their only close family.”
He helped me gather up my belongings. Yvette’s camera fell from my shoulder tote.
He picked it up and looked at it. “Looks like you have one photo left.”
“Let me take a photo of you, then. But you’ll have to hold the baby so I have my hands free.” I handed the baby to him.
“Would you like for me to take a picture of all of you together?” asked a gentleman at the next table.
“Why, that would be very nice,” Jack said.
We stood together and smiled as he raised the camera.
“Why don’t you put your arm around your wife,” he said to Jack.
“Oh, she’s . . .” Jack abruptly broke off. I could tell he’d been about to say that I was not his wife, and then he must have realized I was. His ears reddened. “Yes,” he conceded. “Good idea.”
His arm came around my shoulders, and I leaned in toward him.
We were in the middle of a brightly lit restaurant. It was a pose, that is all. There was nothing genuine about it—much less anything romantic or sentimental or sexual. And yet, my heart started to pound. I inhaled the scent of him—the warm, man-scented wool of his jacket, the clean starchiness of his shirt, that undernote of soap and shaving cream and testosterone—and I felt slightly woozy. My skin felt strangely vibrant and alive where we touched, as if those were the only places on my body where blood flowed freely. The warmth of his arm, the feel of his fingers, gave me goose bumps. Being close to him made me want to inch even nearer.
I told myself it was the suggestibility of it all. The man taking our photo had referred to me as Jack’s wife. The man thought he was taking a family photo—and yes, we were married in name. Still, it was both a relief and a letdown when the photo was over and we pulled away from each other.
It was a few moments, that was all, less than a minute in total. And yet being that close to Jack for even that short a time—well, it changed something. I found myself increasingly, uncomfortably aware that he was a very attractive, appealing man.
46
KAT
2016
She has finally admitted it. “You were attracted to him!”
“I didn’t want to be,” Amélie says. “I didn’t want to think of him that way at all. I knew he was taken.”
“But you were attracted. And you were willing to go to Montana and tell these poor people who had lost a son that you were the mother of their granddaughter? You were willing to pass Elise off as their blood kin?”
“I wouldn’t say I was willing, no.”
“But you were going to, all the same.”
“That was Jack’s plan, yes. At that moment, I didn’t know what to do but go along with it.”
“Good heavens! The deceit!”
“Well, I was in a difficult position. I had the baby. And my biggest fear was that Jack was going to march me back to the Red Cross and put Elise and I on that death boat.”
Oh, but that they had! I am fairly quivering with indignation. “In the meantime, I was sitting in Wedding Tree, expecting Jack to come home and marry me, and I didn’t have a clue what was going on!”
“I know he called you that night.”
Oh, I remember that call! I’d been waiting and waiting for it. He’d called when he’d first landed in the U.S., but it had been a very unsatisfying conversation. He had been at a USO club and it was noisy, with a lot of confusion in the background and a five-minute time limit. Mother and I had wanted to go meet him, but he’d flown to San Antonio, where he’d been put to work at a burn unit at the base hospital. He said he was living on base and he was very busy and wouldn’t be able to spend time with us.
When he called from New York, I was surprised to learn he’d left San Antonio—and I didn’t learn until later that he’d already mustered out of the service. I was shocked when he told me he was heading out west.
“Military orders?”
“Um, not exactly,” he’d said. “I’m going to see the family of the man who saved my life.”
“Oh, Jack, no! Just write to them. That should be good enough.”
“I have something I need to take them.”
“Good heavens. Why don’t you just send it?”
“This is something that needs to be delivered in person. I’ll tell you all about it when I get to Wedding Tree.”
“Well, I don’t understand,” I’d told him. “Not at all. And Mother is wanting to know which date is the best for the wedding.”
“As I told you, it’s going to take a few weeks to finish up my obligations. Then I’ll come home and see you, but I need to do six weeks’ training in Reno before we marry.”
“How many weeks, in total? Do you know how long I’ve waited? All our friends are already married!”
“It’s not a contest, honey.”
“I know, I know. It’s just, I’m so eager . . .”
“I know, darling. I understand. Truly. Say, can I speak to your father?”
“Yes, of course.”
It was a relief to turn the phone over to Daddy. Mother had immediately demanded, “Did he give you a date?” I’d shaken my head. She’d bitten her lip, all agitated.
I halfway listened to Daddy. “The womenfolk here are in a tizzy about the wedding plans, wanting a firm date.”
He was silent for a long time. Apparently Jack was talking at length.
“I see. Well, do what you have to do. I respect your opinion. Maybe we should tell them to just set a summer date.”
“Summer? No!” I practically stomped my foot.
When Daddy hung up, I was immediately all over him.
“What did he tell you?”
“Same thing he told you, I’m sure. He had some business in New York, and now he’s headed out to see the family of the man who saved his life. Then he’s coming here, but he’ll have to go back for a six-week training stint in Nevada before you marry.”
“Well, I think the trip to Montana is ridiculous.”
“I think it’s very admirable,” Daddy said.
“I think he’s being inconsiderate.”
“Depends on whom you want him to be considerate of.”
“Of me, of course! I’m his fiancée, and I haven’t seen him in nearly a year!”
“Listen Kat—he’s been through a lot. He’s seen people shot. He’s pulled bullets and shrapnel out of young men who will never be the same. You have no idea how difficult war is, how it changes a man. You can’t expect the same carefree person who left here to just sashay through the door. He has a lot to sort out. He has to learn how to live with the fact that he’s alive and a lot of good men aren’t.”
“I just feel something is wrong, Daddy. I feel like he doesn’t love me like he did.”
“Well, I don’t imagine he feels about anything the way he did before he left. War will do that to a man. But it doesn’t mean he won’t bounce back.”
But I knew something wasn’t right. I lay in bed that night, staring up at the ceiling, and I thought I should get on
a train and go meet him—maybe catch up with him in Whitefish. If his love for me was growing cold, maybe I could reignite it.
“He seemed so different, and I thought it was up to me to help him, to pull him back to the way he’d been before,” I find myself telling Amélie. “I felt it, and I didn’t act on it. There was something I should have done that I didn’t do. Do you have any idea what that feels like?”
“I do,” she replies. “I felt like I let down Yvette and Joshua and my parents, although in reality, there was nothing I could have done to save them. But because I’d felt that way, I was determined that I was not—absolutely was not—going to let down Elise. She had her whole life ahead of her. Thank heavens Jack also wanted to make sure Elise found a home in America.”
“That was because he thought she was Doug’s child.”
“Yes.”
“But she wasn’t.” My chest is hot with indignation. “So how could you let him take you to Whitefish to meet Doug’s family?”
“The question I asked myself at the time was, How can I stop him? If I told him the truth and he learned the extent of all my lies—if I did that, then and there, he would put me back on that ship, and Elise might die. I only saw two courses of action: forward with Jack, or back on the boat. I couldn’t get back on the boat. I saw no other option.”
“There’s always another option,” I hiss.
“Oh, yes?” Her gaze is sharp as a hatpin. “What would you have done?”
“Well, I wouldn’t have gotten myself in your situation in the first place,” I huff.
“And I would not have been in yours,” she says. “Because if I had been you, I would have married Jack before he left home.”
I feel as if all the air has been sucked from the room. It takes me a moment to regain my breath. How dare she? It is a blow straight to the heart, a direct hit to my most vulnerable spot. It is, quite possibly, the one regret of my life—or would be, if I allowed myself to believe in regrets.
Amélie leans forward. “Are you all right?”
I have to unclench my teeth to answer. I will not—not—let her know that her remark had cut me to the quick.
“Yes,” I say at length. “Please go on with your story.”