by Pamela Morsi
His voice wavered and he could say no more.
Silence settled upon them. In the western sky the sun was sinking into the water like a bright red ball. There was much to say, but much to do also.
"We'd best make camp while we can still see," Armand said, breaking through the spell of quiet thoughtfulness.
"And I'm starving," Aida said.
Her tone was so much the spoiled Aida that Armand thought he once knew that he couldn't help smiling at her.
"When Madame Sonnier gets hungry," he declared with feigned gravity, "then food must be prepared."
He was rewarded for his humor with a swift elbow in his ribs, but he only laughed and the others joined in.
"I've got some crabs I was about to cook," Laron told them, his tone considerably lightened by their humor. "They aren't enough for four people, but I'm willing to share."
"Madame Landry packed us dinner," Helga said. "With that and the crabs, we will surely eat well enough."
"That's assuming the old woman provides a better meal than she does a boat," Armand said.
For the next half-hour the four of them set to work, making camp, preparing food, joking and talking as if they were on a carefree picnic. Just below the surface of this happy laughter was the concern and anxiety that was as yet still unspoken.
The wind off the water was blustery and cool. Laron and Armand built a wind break, half-burying the two poling sticks from their boats at an angle and crisscrossing the space between them with piles of driftwood and brush. It was not much of a shelter, but it kept the worst of the wind from them. And the area between it and the fire was most comfortably warm and toasty.
Laron took the chance to privately thank him for helping Helga.
"She is everything," he told Armand. "More precious to me than you can understand." He looked over at Armand and his gaze was questioning. "Or perhaps you do understand. Are you in love with Aida?"
Armand shrugged. "Who would not love Aida?"
Laron gave him an even look. "I did not," he answered simply.
The two men stood together for a long moment. Armand finally gave him the response he sought.
"I love her," he said. "I love her and I am very pleased to be married to her."
Slowly Laron's stern expression warmed to a grin and he slapped his friend on the back.
"Felicitations, mon ami," he said. "Congratulations on your marriage, my friend."
Although Helga took charge of boiling the crabs, Aida used some oil and flour to mix up a hot roux. Once the crustaceans were cooked and cracked, Aida dribbled the tasty sauce over the meat.
Armand had never thought of Aida as being much of a cook. But it made sense that a woman who knew and understood herbs might have talents that lay in that direction. He glanced at her from time to time, surprised by how at home she seemed in front of the primitive campfire.
The food was either exceptionally good or the four of them were very hungry. They ate in complete silence except for the occasional wordless expression of appreciation. The spicy flavored crab had them licking their fingers. And the last of the tangy roux sauce was mopped up with Madame Landry's only slightly stale bread.
"This is the best food I've eaten in a week," Laron declared.
"Don't tell me that they did not feed you on the German coast," Helga said.
He smiled warmly at her. "An old farmer's wife did make me some goose liver and dumplings, but it was not nearly so fine as your own."
There was no tart in their basket, but Aida did find a handful of fresh blueberries and divvied them out.
The taste was a sweet, pleasant reminder to Armand of the wonder of the morning. He had held Aida Gaudet in his arms, kissed and caressed her, and he could have possessed her. He had married her. He caught her eye momentarily and watched her blush. Aida Gaudet was blushing for him. The very idea of it had his heart pounding.
Deliberately he pushed the delightful thought to the back of his mind. There was no time now for a flight of fancy. It was time to speak with Laron, to find out if what they suspected was true. And if it was, to dissuade him from his course of action.
The night around them had turned dark and chill. The fire crackled brightly, the orange glow warming them and displaying their faces as they slowly sobered their thoughts and gazed at it introspectively.
"You do know what Helga has been thinking," Armand began at last.
Laron raised his eyes to his friend and then turned to regard the woman he loved.
"He has gone to Texas," Laron said, answering the unasked question. "Years ago now. There is a price on his head. He won't be back. I know of settlements there, but I cannot know where he might be."
"You mustn't go after him," Helga declared. "You must come home with me, Laron." The German woman's tone was firm. "I was wrong. I was very wrong, I see that now. The children love you and will come to understand. They will understand everything. I want you back."
Laron looked down at her, his heart in his eyes, but he made no promises.
"It is foolishness to kill him," she continued. "As I told you, I was wrong. I want you to come home with me."
Laron looked at her a long time and then shook his head.
"I cannot, Helga," he said. "I cannot live with you again as we have. You were not wrong. It was wrong. It was the wrong example for the children."
"The children will learn to understand," she insisted.
"To understand? To understand that the world is a cruel and evil place? To understand that for all their lives they must be outcasts to pay the price for their parents' happiness?" He shook his head determinedly. "We can live with our sin, Helga, because our love is stronger than it," he said. "But we cannot force them to live with it, too."
Her eyes welled with unshed tears.
"You saw it before I did," Laron told her. "We selfishly loved and thereby hurt the innocents who love us. We cannot change the past, but there is no future for us together."
She paled as if he had struck her, but she nodded.
"Then if we cannot, we cannot," she said. "But you must not do this thing. I cannot allow it. You must not search him down and kill him."
"She's right," Armand told him. "No matter what we think of him, the law never sees killing as justified except in self-defense. And he would be the one with that right."
"I do wish he were dead," Helga declared forcefully. "If he were dead, I would marry you in a moment. But you cannot kill him, Laron. If you did, you would not be the man that I love."
Laron sighed heavily. "It wouldn't solve anything, would it?"
It was a statement rather than a question.
Helga's answer was a nod.
"Maybe there is some other way?" Aida piped in. "Surely there is some other way for you two to be together."
She looked at Armand hopefully. He stared back at her mutely. There were no words to be spoken. There was no way for them to be together, except illicitly. Still he searched his mind, his thoughts, his memory for some answer. Aida believed that he could find one.
"You could divorce," Armand said finally. "The German church permits divorce and the law provides for it."
"But our ways do not," Laron said. "If she were to divorce him, the people in Prairie l'Acadie would see her still as ineligible. Father Denis would never marry us."
He reached out and took her hand, expressing the thoughts in his heart wordlessly.
"Prairie l'Acadie is not the only place in the world," Armand said. "You could live elsewhere."
"Perhaps . . ." Laron looked toward Helga hopefully.
"But you could not leave your home," she said. "All of your family, all the people you love are there."
"You and your children are the people that I love," he replied.
Helga shook her head. "No," she declared. "I could never let you leave. It is beyond imagining. Your home is there. I have heard you tell the stories, the stories about your people. How they were torn from their homes and scattered to the four w
inds. They have made such sacrifices, paid such prices in blood and pain so that they could be together. You cannot throw that away. That is who you are."
"She is right," Armand agreed. "If you went away it would be like . . . like death for all of us."
The faint glimmer of hope that had been fire in Laron's eyes sputtered and died out.
"We must simply part," Helga said. "We must simply promise to keep away from each other. Try to go on with our lives as if we had never met."
"I don't know how I will bear it," Laron said. "It is one thing to make a vow to keep my distance from you when I am sitting so near. It is another to keep that vow when you are out of my sight, less than an hour away."
Helga nodded understanding. "It is misery to be so near and forever separated. It is I who should go away."
Laron was stunned by her words. "But where could you go?" he asked.
"To . . . to . . ." She hesitated thoughtfully. "I could go to this German coast. You did say that it was a nice place. If my husband is no longer there, I could go there and start a new life. The children would be welcomed and we could begin again."
Laron considered her words.
"I don't know if I could bear that any better," he admitted.
Helga's expression showed agreement, but her voice was decisively firm. "It will be easier if I am not so near," she said. "And I do not mind going. The children will grow up among their own kind."
Laron shrugged. "Truthfully they speak their French as well as their German."
She smiled proudly.
"What about your place?" Laron asked. "You've put so much work into it. Would you sell it?"
"We've put so much work into it," she said with emphasis. "And I suppose I must just leave it. It belongs to my husband. I cannot sell it, or trade it, or truly even own it."
Laron glanced toward Armand for verification; he nodded slightly. Only a real widow had rights over her husband's property.
"If I go away," she said. "You will be able to forget me."
"No Helga," he told her honestly. "I do not believe I could ever forget you."
The lovers gazed into each other's eyes with sorrow and intensity that was almost palpable. Armand was nearly cut to the quick by the sight. He hastily rose to his feet, offering his hand to the woman beside him.
"Aida and I will walk," he announced. "She is very fond of long leisurely walks. It will be some time before we return."
If the two took note of his words, they made no sign.
Aida grabbed up a blanket and wrapped it about her shoulders like a shawl.
"It's cold tonight," Armand agreed.
She nodded and allowed him to wrap his arm around her as he led her away from the fire and into the darkness.
As soon as they were out of earshot, Aida spoke up.
"We can't let this happen," she said. "There is something that we can do. I know that there must be."
"There is nothing," Armand assured her sadly. "This is best, undoubtedly. She will go to the German coast and he will go on with his life."
Aida shook her head. "Something," she said. "There must be something. Think of the vision."
"The vision meant nothing, I'm afraid," he answered. "I know it was your vision, Aida, and your very first one. But I think it meant nothing."
She shook her head. "It's not possible that it serves no purpose at all. It was too real, too vivid. It was too important."
"Perhaps it was, but how can we decipher its meaning?"
"We simply must," she insisted. "We need to think about it and think about it until we understand what it meant."
"Aida, I—"
"You are the answer, Armand," she said. "Of that I am certain. In some way, somehow, you are the answer."
Her words harkened back to those spoken by Madame Landry and gave him pause. He repeated the words softly aloud.
"A careless word spoken is like a tree falling into a mighty river. When the water is low and the yonder bank delicate, sometimes the river will swirl around the tree with some force, wear away the weak side and cause the flow to meander in a new direction."
Aida's brow furrowed.
"It was something Madame Landry said to me," he explained.
"What does it mean?"
Armand shrugged, shaking his head.
Aida shivered.
"You're cold," he said.
"It was better by the fire," she admitted. "But I think we are right to leave them alone for now."
Armand nodded in agreement and then drew her into his arms.
"Let me try to keep you warm," he said, holding her close against him.
"Oh yes," she whispered to him. "That is much better."
"I don't know how he will say goodbye to her. I think that I ... I think that I didn't know entirely how much she must mean to him. Not until . . . until this morning."
"Armand," she whispered against his cheek. "Do you regret marrying me?"
He was still for a long moment, considering her words.
"What a question to ask a man on his wedding night," he answered finally. "No, Aida. Not unless you do."
"I don't. I was just afraid that perhaps you thought that . . . that I pushed you into it."
"I didn't think that."
"But I did push you into it," she admitted.
"You felt compromised," he countered.
"But I was not truly compromised," she said.
"Aida." He turned and drew her close, kissing her in the way that he had wanted to that morning in front of the church. A long, lingering, loving kiss. "It's done now," he told her at last. "I am your husband. And my only regret is that we must spend our night standing on a cold beach instead of a flower-filled bower."
"A flower-filled bower?" She laughed. "Monsieur Sonnier, where would we get flowers this time of year?"
He laughed with her and they began to walk once more, arms wrapped around each other as much for the pleasure of it as for the warmth it afforded.
"It is not much of a wedding night," he said.
She shrugged, unconcerned.
"Unlike most young women I have spent more time being fearful of my wedding night than anxious for it," she said.
"Fearful?" His brow furrowed in concern. "You have been afraid your husband would hurt you?"
"No, not that. I . . . I've been afraid of his being disappointed."
"Disappointed?" Armand's look was incredulous. "How could any man be disappointed with you?"
She dissembled prettily and at first he thought that she would not answer, but she did.
"I ... I am like a fancy store-bought gift," she said. "All bright and shiny-looking tied up with a bow."
"That you are," Armand agreed quietly.
"But I have always been afraid that when . . . when I am divested of my wrappings and ribbon," she said, "I will be nothing but an empty box."
"An empty box?" Armand stopped, stunned, shook his head, and looked straight into her eyes. "Aida, my sweet and lovely Aida," he said. "You are in no way empty. You are full of joy and brightness and care. I have seen it in the way you laugh at yourself, the way you charm the old men as easily as the young, the way you defer to Madame Landry. And the way that you look at me and make me believe that I am strong and wise. You are not at all empty. You are filled, filled nearly to bursting with everything that a man could want. At least with everything that this man wants."
Jean Baptiste finished up the last bite of the blueberry tart and wiped his mouth. It hadn't been the best dessert that he'd ever eaten. In fact it had a rather unpleasant undertaste, but he'd ignored that, assuming it to be the ingredients of the love charm. And a love charm, he'd decided, was a welcome idea.
Felicite was on her hands and knees with a cleaning rag finishing up the floor. Jean Baptiste shook his head and marveled to himself as he watched her. The first evening she'd been alone with him in years and she'd taken it into her head to scrub the house from back porch to the rafters.
He wasn't sure w
hen it had happened or how it had happened, but things had changed between them. They had grown up together, friends long before they were sweethearts. He had planned for her to be his wife when he was little more than a boy. At age seven they'd taken first Communion together and he had informed her, accurately as it turned out, that the next time they were both dressed so finely and headed for church would be their wedding day.
He'd tried to call upon her two years before her father allowed her to sit Sundays with suitors. They had a secret agreement to wed of which neither family was aware. And they could hardly wait until her parents deemed her old enough to be a bride.
Jean Baptiste recalled their wedding as an afternoon of absolute perfection. They danced and laughed and looked deeply into each other's eyes. Happily ever after was not merely a well-used phrase, but their reality.
The night that followed was equally blissful. Both were total innocents, but they were much in love and flawlessly in tune. There had been plenty of fumbling and a few surprises, but there was no fear and a lot of giggling.
They discovered sex as if they had made it all up from scratch. They learned by curiosity and practice how to please themselves and pleasure their partner. And they discovered how to make babies.
True love's road, however, strewn with pregnancies, babies, and hard work, had turned out to be surprisingly disappointing. Jean Baptiste still felt young, vital, energetic. He wanted to laugh and be free and have fun. And Felicite . . . well, his wife was somebody's mama.
Perhaps a love charm was exactly what they needed to get them back to the place where they were still young and sex was still fun. Jean Baptiste felt the longing for those times well up in him both physically and emotionally.
He walked over to the corner of room near the doorway and stood directly in front of her. She continued washing the floor. Just before the damp rag was to wipe across his feet, she stopped and looked up at him.
"Jean Baptiste, you'd best get out of the way if I'm to finish cleaning this house tonight."
"‘T amie," he coaxed, using his pet name for her, little friend. "‘T amie, I think that you are getting very tired working here on the floor." He leaned down and took the rag from her hand and gave her a long meaningful look. "Wouldn't you like to go lie down in that nice warm bed with your cher epoux."