They’d had so little contact since she’d dropped Bebe off at the farm, and that had been her doing. It was uncharacteristic, but she was behaving like a coward, and she admitted it. Instead of confronting Reuben, she’d chosen to return to her hospital work, leaving early in the morning and returning late, after dinner. In some ways she knew she was acting like Bebe, but she seemed incapable of stopping herself. Prisoners of silence they were—she, Daniel, and Reuben. Reuben would have to make the first move, and then she would react. That was the only decision she seemed capable of living with.
The clock on her bedside table told her an hour had gone by. Reuben wouldn’t be coming to her room tonight or any other night. Ordering herself to relax, she returned to the dancing flames, and eventually she slept.
Thanksgiving and Christmas came and went, ordinary days with no special preparations.
Four days after Christmas, Reuben made up his mind to tell Mickey he had booked passage for America on January 15. If it had been up to him, he would have told her that same night, but Henri Simone arrived at the château in the middle of the afternoon in a state of agitation and demanded Mickey go with him to the farm, seeming not to care that she was in bed nursing a sore throat and heavy cold. Henri spoke so rapidly in French, it was impossible for Reuben to follow his conversation.
Mickey didn’t return that night or the next.
“Did something happen, Henri? It is too soon. Did you fetch the doctor?”
“Nothing happened. There was no fall, no exertion. Yvette coddles her like a baby. We know it is too soon, and yes, the doctor is there. Yvette said I was to fetch you.” In typical Gallic style, he took his hands off the wheel of the car and threw them in the air. Mickey screamed for him to take the wheel and keep his eyes on the road.
“Henri, you don’t think Bebe did…she didn’t do anything to herself, did she?”
“It was my first thought, but no, the doctor said the child wants to come feet first and the cord is around his neck.”
“How is Bebe?”
“She screams before the pain comes. She screams when the pain arrives, and she screams when the pain lets up. Her suffering is real, the doctor says. She will suffer more, for it is going to take a long time.”
“What are we to do?” Dear God, what if something happens to her? Sol will never forgive me. I will never forgive myself. “How has she been behaving these past few days?” she asked.
“Well. She is at Yvette’s side at all times. She cries when Yvette goes to market and then she comes to me. She is afraid to be alone. My heart breaks for her. Yvette scolds her, but it does no good. The baby is too fat,” he said bluntly.
“Fat! What do you mean, fat?” Mickey cried. “How do you know this?”
“Because he won’t come out is how I know. I know these things, Mickey. I have the animals and sometimes I have to help them. Fat,” he repeated.
“You say he. Is it a boy, can they tell?”
“I say it is a boy,” Henri said, taking his hands from the wheel to thump his chest. Then, remembering Mickey’s hair-splitting scream, he grabbed the wheel. “When I left she was screaming that the child is to be…buried when…when it finally comes. She is…crazy with the pain.”
“No, she isn’t crazy with the pain. She hates this child she carries.” Mickey patted his arm. “Do not fear, Henri, it will not be buried. Did Yvette find a nursing mother?”
“No, chérie, the little one will have to take a bottle. The doctor knows of no nursing mothers…. Ah, we are here.”
Mickey was white-faced when she entered Bebe’s bedroom. Henri was right: her screaming could be heard in the next province. She looked at the pleading faces of Yvette and the doctor. They had obviously been at this for a while.
“That will be enough!” Mickey shouted above the din. “If you are woman enough to get yourself into this condition, you will behave like a woman and bear the pain. Here,” she said, giving Bebe a folded washcloth, “bite down on this. We’ll help you, but you must help us, too.”
Hatred spewed from Bebe’s eyes. “Get this bastard out of me and drown it before it cries. Do you hear me?”
Mickey shoved the wadded cloth into the girl’s mouth without responding. You are the one who should be drowned. she thought bitterly.
“You take one hand and I’ll take the other,” she instructed Yvette. “Doctor, you will do what has to be done. Now!”
Bebe groaned through the washcloth. This was a part, a scene in a movie, and they were just making her do it over and over again until she had it right. It was just another role for her. A starring role, her most important performance to date.
“I don’t know why the laudanum isn’t working,” Yvette said nervously.
“Because I can’t give her too much,” the doctor said. “I don’t want her going completely under.” In his entire career he’d never had a patient like this one. Birth was a miracle of God. Maybe this girl would change her mind once she saw the infant and held it in her arms. Maybe he was getting too old to deliver babies. Maybe this was the way American girls acted. Most of his patients went through birthing with hardly a sound. They nursed their babies and were back in the kitchen in two days’ time. I am too old, he thought. First the young man at the Fonsard château and now this. Any fool could add two and two and get four.
Two hours later Bebe Rosen gave birth to a five-pound baby boy with a bluish tinge to his skin. The doctor worked quickly to unwrap the cord from his neck.
“Please,” Mickey whispered, “you must save this child.” When at last she heard the feeble cry, she raised exultant eyes to Yvette. She looked down at Bebe, who was now sound asleep. She hadn’t heard her son’s first cry.
“Come,” Yvette cried to Mickey. “We must clean and polish this little gem until he sparkles. Why do I feel like a mother?” she asked happily.
Tenderly the two women ministered to the child, taking turns, crooning and making silly sounds like new parents. When at last the baby was dressed and diapered, they sat back to view their handiwork. “Now. What are we to do with him?”
Mickey stared at the tiny bundle, mesmerized by his perfect features. Reuben’s son! And she had helped to deliver him. How beautiful he was. She bent over the tiny basket and picked up the baby, her face bathed in wonderment. Yvette watched as she touched her cheek to the soft, downy head, then moved him slightly until his tiny chest was against her heart. Her smile was radiant when she turned to look at her friend. “What did you say, Yvette?”
“I said, so, what I suspected all along is true. The father of this child is Reuben. Now, tell me what we are to do.”
Mickey smiled ruefully. “You will keep this secret, chérie.” It was a statement, not a question.
“And whom would I tell?” Yvette grumbled. “I have a teat and some fresh goat’s milk.”
“Who is to feed him first?” Mickey asked.
“Since you are already holding him and he is warm and toasty, I guess you are,” Yvette replied good-naturedly.
“But the teat’s too big, he’s choking. He’s so hungry, this little piglet. What does Henri use for the animals?”
“Teats like this, and this is the smallest. His mouth is too small. A dropper! Wait, I will fetch it.”
For two straight weeks, night and day, Mickey, Yvette, and Henri took turns feeding the infant with the dropper. They tried the teat at the end of two weeks and the baby gobbled down his goat’s milk as if he’d been doing it from birth. Mickey beamed with pride.
“You act like a proper mother, Michelene,” Yvette said. “Ah, you feel like one, too, is that it?”
“I cannot express my feelings, Yvette. Has Bebe asked about him?”
“Not a word. It is as though he does not exist. When are you going to tell me how this happened? I am your friend, and you kept this secret, you suffered alone. For shame!”
“I could not tell you because I do not know. Look in my purse and read the cable from Pamela. That is all I know. And
as for the rest—what I have surmised—I do not wish to discuss it.”
“I can see that. Tell me one thing. Reuben is not to know about this child?”
“No. Yvette, I have decided to raise him as my son. We will tell Bebe the curé has taken the child to Paris to a family there. What do you think?”
“I think you are crazy and stupid, Michelene Fonsard. You are too old to raise a baby, and people will talk. Bah, you are a fool! But if you weren’t going to take him, I was. We will tell the village that Henri sneaked out of my bed. He will like being famous. For you, my friend, Henri will go along with our story.”
“I think,” Mickey said, nuzzling the baby against her chest, “Reuben and Daniel are preparing to leave. I…I haven’t been able to face him, knowing what I do. Several times I wanted to go to him to ask, to demand an answer, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I couldn’t burden him with my knowledge. I think Bebe may suspect that I know, but she has said nothing. With Bebe it is so easy to pretend nothing happened. I don’t want to know the sordid details. It happened, and what kind of person am I if I can’t forgive? Bebe is a child, a sly, manipulative girl who wants her own way. I’m not saying Reuben is faultless. But Bebe could have…the pitchfork speaks for itself, and Reuben’s…lie that it was an accident to protect her…I don’t…whatever will be will be, eh, my friend?”
“You are a better woman than I, Michelene. I would have scratched his eyes out, jabbed him in the groin with my knee, and chopped at his neck. I would have spanked Bebe’s bottom till she was sore and then I would have sent her back to her father with a letter telling him what she did.”
“You are bloodthirsty, chérie. I love Reuben, nothing will ever change that. I knew he would leave someday. That day is arriving sooner than I expected. We’ve said enough. Here, it is your turn to hold this precious bundle. Be sure to give him as much love as I do. I’ll be back tomorrow. Good night, old friend.”
Bebe lay propped against the lace-edged pillows, a book in her hand that she had no intention of reading. She was freshly bathed and combed with just a touch of color on her lips. For days now she’d been up and about, sitting on a chair by the window, but she preferred bed. Tomorrow she would get up, dress in street clothes, and leave. There was one last thing to do before this role could be put in the can: she had to wait for Henri to fall asleep so she could visit her son for the first and last time. The infant had been fed and now Henri would struggle to stay awake in case the little one needed its pants changed. Yvette had gone to sleep hours earlier, exhausted, but with a smile on her face when she’d come in to say good night.
Bebe waited patiently, her eyes on the clock. She didn’t know what to expect. In all her life she’d never really been up close to a newborn child. Seeing her own for the first time was going to be traumatic. Her hand kneaded her brow in pretended anguish. The scene had been rehearsed mentally and was ready to be shot: she’d look down at the sleeping infant and say something witty and charming, perhaps meaningful…to herself. Would she cry? Probably not. When one was being noble, one suffered in silence; it was so much more meaningful that way. Clovis had said no matter what the part was, she always came out as a sympathetic figure in the end. Her fans demanded it.
Bebe didn’t need the hands on the clock to tell her she could visit her son now. Henri’s lusty snores could be heard from one end of the farmhouse to the other. She made her way across the kitchen next to the huge fieldstone fireplace where the baby was kept. The pink-cheeked infant in the sturdy cradle wasn’t anything like what she’d expected. With his tiny thumb in his mouth, already being sucked at in some unknown dream of needs fulfilled, he looked so peaceful, a cherub, a sweet angel down from heaven. Bebe dropped to her knees. Tentatively she reached out a trembling hand, then quickly withdrew it. She reached out again and this time touched the downy head. A smile found its way to her lips. New chicks felt the same way. The tiny mouth puckered at the unfamiliar touch, and Bebe’s did the same. “Oooh, hush,” she cooed, “you musn’t wake up.” God, she wanted to pick up the little bundle, wanted it more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life. For a full five minutes, she argued with herself, anxiously eyeing Henri, who was sprawled on his chair by the fire. He was still snoring rhythmically. The baby probably thought it was music. Bebe smiled at the thought.
The child was wiggling now, struggling to fit his entire fist into his mouth. Bebe stepped back in alarm. “Please, please,” she whispered, “don’t cry. Please don’t cry. I want to drink my fill of you. You’re mine, you’re my son.”
Once the little fist was being suckled snugly, Bebe bent over and picked up her son. How still he was, how very warm! With a strangled sigh she brought him closer so she could kiss his plump, smooth cheek. He smelled so clean, but different from anything she’d ever smelled. Better than a thousand bottles of French perfume. “Flesh of my flesh,” she told him. “You’re my special miracle, little one. Daniel says his God gives only one to each of us, so you’re mine. You’ll always be in my heart, right next to Daniel. I wish you could hear me and understand what I’m saying. You’re going to grow up in a strange place and never know me because that’s what’s best for you. It doesn’t matter about me. I don’t deserve something as wonderful and perfect as you, but someday I’m going to come back for you. I’ll find you and claim you as my own then,” she whispered fiercely. “It won’t be for a while, but I will come for you. It’s my promise to you and to myself.” The baby slept on, content in her arms.
Bebe laid him back into his mound of warm blankets. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry, but the tears burning her eyes overflowed. Almost angrily she wiped at them with the back of her hand. “I have to give you a name. I can’t leave till I give you a name.” Her brain whirled frantically. Henri was stirring now, and the baby was starting to fret. Name after name raced through her head. John Paul. She leaned over the cradle for the last time. “I christen you John Paul Rosen Tarz.” Again she brushed away the salty tears slipping into her mouth. “Good-bye, John Paul…for now.”
The real Bebe Rosen crawled into her bed and stifled her sobs until she fell asleep.
The next morning Bebe appeared in the kitchen, suitcase in hand, demanding to see Mickey, then to be taken to the depot. Henri stood uncertainly in the kitchen, not knowing what to do. Finally he called Mickey and handed the phone to Bebe.
“And I want the check my father sent you. If you leave now,” she said to Mickey, “you can meet us at the depot.” Her voice was cold and haughty as she refused to look Henri in the eye.
“Bebe…you can’t just…” She could, Mickey decided, do whatever she pleased. “You’re making a terrible mistake, Bebe.”
“If I’m woman enough to have a baby, then I’m woman enough to go off on my own, to take responsibility for myself,” Bebe said.
“Your father. I promised….”
“And you kept your promise. I’ll write to him and tell him I’m off on my own. I won’t involve you. You are, as they say, off the hook.”
The moon rode high in the sky when Mickey returned to the Simone farm. It had been a terrible day. At the depot, Bebe hadn’t even looked at her as she’d snatched the envelope from her hands and walked onto the train. There had been no sign of her at any window. Henri had gone off to find her but had come back empty-handed. When she got back to the château, Reuben had come to her, saying he needed to talk. All she’d had to do was take one look at his eyes and she knew what he wanted to talk about. So she’d whisked herself away, calling over her shoulder that they would talk tomorrow at breakfast, a late mid-morning breakfast.
Now she faced Yvette as they sat at her kitchen table.
“The child has no name, and he must be christened,” Yvette said.
Mickey sighed. “You and Henri are to be the proud godparents. And you must give a suitable gift. Your love will do nicely.” Mickey smiled. “I contacted the curé, and it is to be done this Sunday. Bebe will never believe I would take her ch
ild. If someday she comes looking for him, she will come to you first. You will alert me and I will go to Bordeaux…anyplace, so she doesn’t find him. You must swear to me, both of you, that you will never tell her where the child is.” Henri and Yvette nodded solemnly, crossing themselves to seal the promise.
Henri went to bed, and the two old friends talked far into the night.
“You have not given Reuben enough time…. Time, Mickey, makes things better. Do not do anything foolish.”
“It’s not me, Yvette. Reuben is the one who has decided to leave. I can read it on his face. He’s different. Since his accident he cannot…No, it is me,” Mickey cried brokenly.
“No, chérie, it is not you. He is young, he thinks he failed you. Now he has to go out and prove himself. He must leave. I see the way he is thinking. He does not want to be a burden to you. Did he not do his best to learn the wine business before the accident? That was for you, Michelene, no one else. He loved you and wanted to earn his keep. He still loves you. This one will always love you. I see it written all over him. Why can’t you forgive him his indiscretion?”
“I’m so frightened. What will I do when he’s gone? I love him so much, my heart is sore. I feel like I want to die, and I haven’t even heard him say the words yet. He is so proud. God is punishing me for my past. I can forgive him his indiscretion, but he cannot forgive himself. I see it in his eyes.”
“That is not true. Do you see me being punished? No! And we were cut from the same bolt! No, chérie. God does not punish. He forgives. I do not say it will be easy. You are strong, my friend. We are French through and through. Remember that.”
Sins of Omission Page 26