The French War Bride

by Robin Wells

  “You look upset,” she says to me.

  “I am.” My voice holds an unflattering virulence. I try to modulate it. “Of course I am!”

  “I thought that letter was a kindness to you.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes. I deliberately wrote things I thought would soothe your rumpled feathers.”

  “The phrase is ‘smooth your ruffled feathers,’” I correct in a curt tone. Some odd wordings in the letter are suddenly thrust into a new light. Vintage point—surely Jack would have known that the correct word was “vantage.” Fallen into the madness of love—Amélie probably meant “fell madly in love.” You will soon be snapped—I’m sure she meant “snapped up.” I’d thought Jack had just been in a hurry or an emotional state and simply left out a word.

  “Ah. Well, you understand the meaning,” Amélie says. “I confess, however, that your feelings were not the primary reason I wrote it. I did it for Jack. If he was to live and work in Wedding Tree, it was important that he be seen as an honorable man.”

  “Honorable,” I scoff.

  “Yes, honorable. Jack was not a perfect man, but he was a man of honor. He tried to do the right thing. When he made a mistake, he tried to correct it, even when that meant putting his own wishes aside for someone else’s best interests.”

  “And whose best interests did he serve by bringing you here?” My tone is sharp. “Yours?”

  “Oh, no. He did it for Elise. He did not want to be married to me back then—not at all. He only stayed married to me because he feared I might be pregnant, and if I had been, he wanted to be able to claim Elise as his own, as well.” Amélie tilts her head at a speculative angle. “You know, if you had slept with him before he left for the war, I’m sure none of this would have happened.”

  The utter gall of the woman! “Of course not,” I say indignantly.

  “But you wanted to wait for a big wedding.” Amélie shakes her head. “I have never understood women who put the ceremony of getting married ahead of the actuality of being married.”

  I will not let her hurt me with this line of reasoning. I refuse to deal in regrets. I lift my chin. “A wedding is a common girlhood dream.”

  “Yes, I suppose. Did you have your dream wedding when you married your husband?”

  “Oh, yes. We had a big extravaganza in Dallas. I had nine bridesmaids and a reception at the Dallas Country Club and a European honeymoon.”

  “Well, then. Sounds like you had everything you ever could have wanted!”

  “Yes. Everything and more.” And yet, I have always felt a vague dissatisfaction. Lately I’ve been wondering if I wanted the wrong things, if I somehow sailed right past what was truly important. I have wondered if my dissatisfaction has to do with Jack.

  Well, that is why I am here now—to find out.

  “Go back to your story,” I urge her. “Tell me about your married life in Wedding Tree.”

  “You know the beginning of it.”

  “Yes, but not from your perspective. I want to know what happened between you and Jack.”

  66

  AMÉLIE

  1946

  Elise and I went to bed early that first night. Jack didn’t come home until after eleven. Bruce and Caroline were already in bed. I pretended to be asleep when he crept into the room, thinking that he might climb into bed with me if he thought I wouldn’t know it. My heart pounded hard. Instead, to my disappointment, he pulled out a blanket from the closet and slept on the floor.

  He left the house before the sunrise, leaving a note that he was going to the hospital to be there when the doctors for his mother and Dr. Thompson made rounds.

  I decided to lay low for the day. “Elise is still getting well,” I said to Caroline that morning. “I want to keep her away from sick people until she’s a little stronger, and I desperately need to do some laundry.”

  Caroline had nodded. “Best to give things a little time to simmer down, anyway. I’ll show you how to use the washing machine.”

  —

  Jack came home in the middle of the morning, when Elise was down for her increasingly short morning nap. The moment I saw his face, my spirits sank. His eyes blazed with anger, and his lips were pressed so hard together that his mouth nearly disappeared. He advanced toward me until I was backed against the stove. “You forged a letter from me?”

  “I thought it would help your cause.”

  “My cause? My cause is to live an honest life! Yet every time I turn around, there’s a new lie I have to deal with.”

  “I did it to shift the blame where it belongs—from you to me.”

  He glowered at me. “Amélie, you forged a letter!”

  “It was the type of letter you surely would have written if the circumstances were as we say, yes? In the real world, you would have written Kat before you married another.”

  “Damn it, Amélie, this is the real world. That letter is a falsehood!”

  “It is proof you are a caring man. I did it as a kindness. I don’t see how that is so wrong.”

  He threw out his hands. “It’s wrong because it’s a lie! You don’t seem to grasp that simple, basic fact.”

  “I do—of course I do! But in times of war, everything is turned upside down.”

  “We are no longer at war!”

  “Oh, no?” I glared back at him. “You and I seem to be very much at war right now.”

  “This. Must. Stop!” He pounded the counter with the flat of his palm, accentuating every word. “No more lies!”

  “Jack, we are living a lie.”

  He raked a hand through his hair. “I get that. But no more new lies, Amélie! No more embellishments, no more exaggerations. Do you understand me?”

  “I have never exaggerated anything.”

  His mouth curled. “Dead babies on the ship? Come on.”

  “It was the truth!”

  He turned on his heel, walked away, and then paced back. “Look, I understand how hard—impossible, even—it can be to back down from a lie once you’ve told it and defended it. I’m not pressuring you to admit it. Just . . . no more.” He made a slashing gesture with his hand.

  Despair filled my soul. “Jack, that was the truth!”

  “I lose a little more respect for you every time you say that, so let’s just not discuss it.”

  Tears filled my eyes. It was so unfair—and yet, how could I blame him?

  He leaned forward, his eyes hot as blue flames. “I refuse to live my life walking on eggshells, always afraid to find out what you’ve said or are about to say. If I learn of any more new lies, I’ll get custody of Elise and send you packing back to France. If you’re pregnant, I’ll get custody of that child, as well. Are we clear?”

  “Y-yes,” I stammered.

  He stared at me, as if he were trying to see behind my eyes, into my mind, into my soul.

  “I wish to God I could believe you,” he said.

  He turned on his heel and left the house without another word.

  67

  AMÉLIE

  1946

  The evening after our argument, Jack came home with a stroller, a high chair, a baby bed, baby sheets, a baby swing, and about a dozen toys. Caroline and I were in the kitchen fixing dinner and saw him struggling to get the stroller out of the trunk. In those days, strollers didn’t fold.

  Bruce went out to the car to help him carry everything inside.

  “Oh, Jack, how wonderful!” I said when I saw all the baby paraphernalia. Jack pulled Elise into his arms and gave her a big kiss, then guardedly gave me la bise—only, I am sure, because Caroline and Bruce were watching.

  “A patient gave me all this.” Jack shot Bruce an apologetic look as he set the high chair in the breakfast room. “I promise we’re not permanently moving in with you.”

  “You�
�re welcome to stay as long as you like,” Bruce said.

  “I’ve checked into rental property, and there’s nothing available right now,” Jack said.

  “Why don’t you just buy a house?” Caroline asked.

  “I’m, uh, waiting to see what happens with Dr. Thompson.”

  My chest tightened. Did this mean Jack was still considering leaving Wedding Tree? Or was he holding off because he might divorce me?

  I was tense during dinner. Caroline and Bruce carried most of the conversation. Jack was polite but quiet; he had nothing to say to me directly. I was uneasy about where we stood with each other.

  I was thrilled when he followed me into the bedroom as Caroline and Bruce retired for the night. Perhaps we were going to talk. Perhaps we were even going to kiss and make up.

  I turned toward him, my heart pounding as he closed the door.

  “Tomorrow you can take Elise downtown in the stroller and buy both of you some new clothes.” He handed me five twenty-dollar bills. “And there’s a grocery store on Oak Street, just off the town square.” He peeled off two more twenties.

  I looked at the money. It was a fortune in those days—especially to me. It was far more than I could imagine spending on clothes or food. I smiled. “Thank you, Jack.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I stepped toward him, wanting to give him a kiss, thinking this heralded a new beginning.

  He stepped back, his expression cold and remote. “I’m going back downstairs to read for a while.” He opened the door and left, closing it quietly behind him.

  —

  The next morning, Jack once again was gone before anyone awakened. Apparently he had admitted a couple of patients to the hospital, and he also wanted to confer with his mother’s doctor and the physician treating Dr. Thompson.

  The weather was lovely. In Fahrenheit, it was about 65 degrees. After breakfast, I bundled Elise into her coat, put her in the new stroller, and headed downtown. This was my first chance to really see Wedding Tree.

  The town was centered on a redbrick courthouse in a parklike town square. The square had a fountain and benches, and was filled with enormous live oaks and magnolia trees that stayed green in the winter. Stores lined the streets facing the square on all four sides. I was totally charmed by this lovely American village.

  I glimpsed a shop with children’s clothing in the window and went inside.

  “Hello,” said a middle-aged woman with her hair in a fishnet snood, standing behind the counter. I thought she wore too much rouge and the green of her dress was all wrong for her complexion, but she was attractive all the same. “May I help you with something?”

  “I am looking for clothes for my baby,” I said.

  Apparently my accent immediately called attention to me, because two women in the back of the store turned from a rack of clothes. They looked at each other, then marched up to me, like soldiers advancing on an enemy. “You must be the war bride,” said the one in front, a curvaceous woman dressed all in pink with short platinum blond hair, heavy red lipstick, and large button earrings.

  I tensed. I wasn’t sure what I disliked more—the term, or the way she said it. “I am married to Jack O’Connor, yes,” I said.

  “Well, I have to say, what you did was just awful.”

  I froze, unsure if she was unbelievably rude or if there were a slang meaning for “awful” that I didn’t understand. “Pardon?”

  “You stole Kat’s fiancé, then didn’t have the decency to even mail the letter Jack wrote telling her about it.” The other woman leaned in. “And I heard you wrote phony letters to Kat to string her along.”

  I didn’t know what “stringing along” was, but I knew it sounded malicious. “That is not true.”

  “Jack’s own sister said you did.”

  “I wrote the letters, but not for any stringing. I did it because I thought I might have to stay in France with my ailing mother and I thought Jack might return to Kat. I didn’t want to ruin their lives.”

  The blonde sneered. “You’d already done that when you stole Jack from her.”

  “That is impossible.”

  “What?”

  “A man can’t be stolen, like a—a watch, or a pocketbook, or a potato.”

  “A potato? Who would steal a potato?” The two women looked at each other and laughed.

  “Someone who is starving,” I said in a low, somber voice. “Someone trying to feed a family during a war.”

  The blonde quit laughing, but she didn’t apologize. “Well, our men aren’t potatoes, and we don’t take kindly to you Frenchies stealing them. So don’t expect to find yourself welcomed in Wedding Tree.” She turned to her friend. “Come on, Maura. It smells in here.”

  “Yeah. It smells like frog.” They both giggled as they minced out the door.

  I stood there, feeling small and devastated.

  “Were you looking for something specific?” the clerk asked.

  “No. No, thank you.”

  I, too, headed out the door, blinking back tears. I turned the wrong way, but finally found the grocery store. It seemed that everyone there stared at me. Several women at the meat counter stood together, whispering and pointing. I bought a piece of beef, some fruits and vegetables.

  “Did you find everything you were looking for?” The cashier, a fortyish brunette with a friendly face, smiled at me as she punched in the numbers on the large black cash register.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Why, you don’t sound like you’re from around here, honey. Where are you from?”

  “France.”

  “France! Heavens to Betsy! What brings you all the way to Louisiana?”

  “This is my husband’s home.”

  “Oh, yeah? Who’re you married to?”

  “Jack O’Connor.”

  Her brow crinkled. “I thought he was marrying the doctor’s daughter.”

  Oh, here we went again! “That plan changed.”

  “Why, just last week, she was in here, talking about her wedding.”

  I fumbled with my wallet, my head down.

  “Isn’t her father in the hospital? I heard—”

  “I’m very sorry,” I broke in. “I’m in a hurry, so if I can just pay for my purchases . . .”

  “Oh, yeah, honey. Sure thing.”

  I hurried out of the store and down the sidewalk. As I pushed the carriage, struggling to balance my groceries atop the umbrella cover, I noticed that cars slowed down and people gawked at me.

  I felt a hot flush of shame rush over me. It was not unlike being une femme tondue all over again.

  —

  That evening, I told Caroline what had happened.

  “Oh, the platinum blonde—that had to be Minxy. She’s horrid! She used to make fun of me because I lived on a farm. One time in high school she asked me, in front of a group of her snotty friends, if the polka dots on my dress were milk from one of our cows. Once she wouldn’t stand next to me in the lunch line because she said I smelled like manure.”

  “How cruel!”

  Caroline nodded. “It wasn’t true, of course. Mother was such a priss about raising me to be a lady, she wouldn’t let me within a mile of the dairy. Anyway, Minxy is a jealous, petty busybody. Ignore her.”

  “It wasn’t just Minxy. In the store and all the way home—people were staring and whispering and pointing at me.”

  “Well, you are quite the town topic. It’ll die down eventually. Just smile, go about your business, and ignore it.”

  But to do that, I feared I was going to have to ignore the whole town.

  —

  One person I couldn’t ignore was Jack’s mother—who, unfortunately, warmed to me no faster than Minxy. The next day, Caroline agreed to watch Elise in the hospital lobby—they didn’t allow children
on the rooms with patients in those days—while Jack took me to the newly added second floor to meet her.

  “Now don’t let Mother upset you,” Caroline warned. “She’s very outspoken, and . . . well, she’s a big fan of Kat’s.”

  Hiding my trepidation, I plastered a smile on my face as Jack opened the door to her room.

  “Mother, this is my wife, Amélie.”

  She was a beautiful woman, with dark hair and blue eyes like Jack’s. She reminded me of an older Vivien Leigh. She arched her delicate eyebrows as she looked me over. “So you’re the girl who turned my son’s world upside down.”

  “He did the same for me.” I said, with my most charming smile. “That’s what love does.”

  Jack crossed the room, picked up his mother’s medical chart, and began perusing it.

  “Yes, but I’m afraid you’ve made his life here very difficult.” Her gaze raked me from head to toe. I was sure she was trying to figure out what Jack saw in me. “So tell me, Amélie, was your marriage to Jack a shotgun wedding?”

  I had never heard the term. “A what?”

  “Did he marry you because you were pregnant?”

  “No!”

  Jack looked up from her chart. “I already told you that, Mother.”

  “Yes, but I wanted to ask her for myself. Kat says the baby is huge.”

  Oh, mon Dieu! She was going to be what I believe Americans call a tough biscuit. I decided to distract her. “I am anxious for you to meet your granddaughter. She is such a delight. She’s here at the hospital, but regulations prevent children from visiting on this wing.”

  “That’s just as well. I’m far too young to be a grandmother. In fact, I’m worried it’ll make me less desirable to eligible men.”

  Beside me, Jack stiffened. “Mother, I hardly think a man your age would hold a grandchild against you.”

  “Who said I’m looking for a man my age? I’ve been told I look a decade younger than my years.”

  One thing I knew how to do well was to flatter. “You are very beautiful,” I said. “You certainly do not look old enough to be Jack’s mother.”

  The remark earned me a small lift of the corner of her mouth, but it didn’t seem to improve her opinion of me. “Jack, I’ve been thinking. When I get out of here, I’m moving to New Orleans.”