“Who knows?” he said and shrugged. “But I recommend you give it a shot.”
In the morning I stood with my bag on the pavement outside the hotel waiting for my ride to the station. From there I would take the train to Le Havre and then the ship home.
I stood there, a husk of my former self.
A messenger on a bicycle pulled up to me and asked, “Miss Arlene Favier?”
“Oui,” I answered.
He handed me an envelope and then turned and rode away.
On the outside, my name, and inside, an American bank check in the amount of one thousand dollars, signed by Beryl Rayne. I unfolded the note that came with it.
No hard feelings was all it said.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
PARIS, KENTUCKY
FEBRUARY 1920
In the morning I always took my coffee cup out onto the front porch while Maman made breakfast inside, and Luc, already in the stables, checked on our horses before he went to school. In only a few months, he would have his diploma.
The Sears & Roebuck catalog house had worked well for us. After my return to Paris, Kentucky, I’d purchased the home kit and hired workers to help Luc and me build it. It still required some finishing touches, and we needed more furnishings, but Maman, Luc, and I each had our own room and a comfortable bed on which to sleep inside it. Petit à petit, l’oiseau fait son nid. Little by little, the bird builds its nest.
A few weeks after my return, I’d received a very short letter from Jimmy, sent from France. I read it so many times, I knew every word.
Dear Arlene,
I hope you’re home safely and your family is well. I’m staying on in Paris, where I hope to decide what to do next. I have racked my brain trying to figure out why you said we’d met many times and not just those two nights while I was on leave. I kept hoping you’d get word to me, but when you didn’t send a message and I heard you’d gone home without letting me know, it seemed a clear signal that you meant for it to be over between us.
Despite it all, you have my best wishes. Take care of yourself.
Jimmy
There was no return address.
For a while I’d thought I couldn’t endure the pain. Of course he felt betrayed, and I couldn’t blame him. I’d never had a chance to set the record straight. For a long time the reins he had on me wouldn’t relent, even after no other letters came and it became apparent that Jimmy’s time in Paris, Kentucky, had run its course and he had washed his hands of all of it, including me. Once, he’d mentioned wanting to live overseas, and I’d seen in his eyes something of a free thing that didn’t want to remain anywhere, not even on a horse farm in Kentucky with a woman he might have truly loved at one time. In the end, I realized that my longing for Jimmy wouldn’t change the fact that he didn’t wish to be found. Jimmy knew where I was. He could’ve contacted me again at any time.
In France, I’d loved, and I had lost. It seemed to me that love during wartime had required Jimmy and me to run a true course in the present, hauntings from the past and differences about the future be damned. Perhaps that was what made war love such powerful love. Perhaps love born during a time of such pain and suffering, no matter how heartfelt and real it seemed during those moments, was destined to fail. People dearly wanted life to be uplifting and love to be sweet and hopeful. Once love has been tainted by war, maybe it cannot overcome its origins.
Cass and Eve hadn’t lasted, either, but Cass now worked back in Cincinnati and had already met someone else, reminding me that time keeps turning and we go on, despite it all. In France, I’d discovered something precious in another person, and also a new side of myself—feelings previously folded up within the layers of my life. My determination, the horses, the farm, and my family—those things had buried it for a long time, but alas, it had lived inside me all along, waiting for me to find it. And when I did, a great load slipped off my back. After all . . . I could love.
Every day the weather allowed, I took a ride on Mary Blue, my dependable mare that my father had purchased and which always reminded me of him. With each ride, with each walk on Favier land, and with each nail hammered into the new Favier house, more of the death-air that had surrounded me in France fell away, until one day, I realized that it had finally departed. I’d never forget France, but I had emerged from the darkness of that war-ravaged land and blinked myself back to life in the place where I belonged.
Our time on earth continued to flow onward, like the streams and rivers I loved. And I began to see that maybe our lives move in just a trickle sometimes or even dry up for a while, but eventually the snows melt, the blocking debris breaks up, and the sweet waters of life surge forward again.
Very soon I purchased a stud horse, a Thoroughbred whose black coat gave off a velvety, almost violet sheen perfectly matched to his name, Twilight. I’d had many good stallions to choose from, and although some stood taller, some had better race records, and some seemed better muscled, I had followed my father’s advice. I closed my eyes and listened to my heart and gut and chose the stallion that spoke to me, that moved me, the one whose heart I could feel as true and brave when I laid my head against his neck and breathed in his scent. Only time would tell if I’d chosen wisely.
I offered Twilight for stud service in February 1919, and most of the mares he’d stood at stud for were in foal. Only now had the almost year-long gestational period passed, and the first mare was due to give birth any day. She belonged to a local racehorse breeder, who’d promised to let me know as soon as anything happened.
I looked toward the road, hoping to see signs of a vehicle approaching.
As if I’d beckoned it with my will, a truck pulled into our drive, and I soon saw the breeder I’d hoped to see today. I began to walk toward him and glanced about for Luc. He would want to hear this, too, and he deserved to hear it. We were partners.
Mr. Tomkins, a big man who sported a full beard and was a former friend of my father’s, stopped me in my tracks. Wearing smudged overalls, he jumped from the driver’s seat holding up a bouquet of blue ribbons. “It’s a colt!”
I walked swiftly closer, holding my breath. “How is he?”
“A beauty. Big and strong and stood right away. Nursed right away.”
Elated, I looked around for Luc.
“He’s the best colt that mare has ever foaled. You may have done it, Arlene,” Tomkins said, pulling me back into his gaze. “You just might have your father’s gift.”
Luc and I spent the rest of the morning with the horses, smiling gratefully and almost shyly at each other, congratulating Twilight, loving him, feeding him special treats, and telling him he was a papa now.
When a cloud of dust stirred on the road between the trees, I feared that Tomkins had come back to give me some bad news about the foal or its mother. I left Luc in the stables when a motorcar headed up the drive.
I didn’t recognize the car, and so I remained still and watched it approach and come to a halt. Jimmy stepped out and stilled my heart.
My first thought, my fervent hope: Jimmy had come back to me.
His hair had grown longer, and he looked older wearing civilian clothes—gray slacks and a white shirt—but the face I knew so well hadn’t changed. His expression, however, was unreadable.
“Arlene,” he said and slowly walked my way.
I didn’t know what to do with myself.
Coming closer, he said, “I hope it’s alright I came to see you.”
I nodded but had to gaze down for a minute. Bewildered by seeing Jimmy’s sweet face and not knowing why he’d come, hoping he’d come here for me, I said, “Of course it is.”
After reaching into his pocket, he retrieved a small packet and opened it. Inside, my baby locket and chain. “I had to return this.”
I said nothing for a while and then, “Oh.”
He handed the locket to me and then ran a hand through his hair. “It helped me . . .” He glanced away. “During some dark days at the end of the
war.”
Still trying to get through the shock of seeing Jimmy again, I wrapped my hand around the locket. “Jimmy,” I said, making him look at me. “I have to explain—”
“And I wanted to tell you something. I figured you’d have no means to know . . .” He continued in response to my blank face. “Remember how we feared that scoundrel Brohammer would go unpunished? Well, a couple of weeks after the armistice, while he crossed a street in Château-Thierry, a hit-and-run driver mowed him down. He died an hour later.”
At first puzzled, I wondered why he was telling me this. Seeing Jimmy here, standing before me, was already too much to absorb, and now this. Brohammer dead? I hated that man, but . . . did I really want to know about this? “Mowed him down? As in an accident?”
Jimmy answered, “I don’t know. No witnesses ever came forward, and the driver was never found. Maybe it was an accident and the driver panicked and ran, or maybe it was murder. We don’t know what else he did over there. He probably had a slew of enemies, so my bet is on murder.”
“Who would’ve done it?”
“I can’t say. Apparently someone who believes in doling out vigilante justice.”
“I’m stunned. I-I’ve heard nothing.” I rubbed my arms.
“At least he didn’t get away with it.”
“Yes, but I don’t know how to feel about him dying.”
Taking a step closer to me, he said, “That man got his just due. That’s how to feel about it.”
I nodded and pressed my feet down hard on the earth. It felt like the ground trembled beneath me, and I had nothing to keep me solid and still. Jimmy here. Brohammer dead.
I managed to speak in a normal voice as I lifted my gaze. “Jimmy, please hear me out. When I took the blame for all those nighttime rendezvous, I was protecting someone else. Two people who had truly met at night. For a long time. Good people. And their situation was even more complicated than ours, and their punishment would have been much worse than ours.”
He frowned and seemed as if forcing himself to move beyond Brohammer to the two of us, reliving a moment. Something twitched next to his lip, and he appeared to think hard. “People married to other people?” he slowly asked.
“Something like that.”
His voice landed on me softly, despite words I didn’t want to hear. “And you put them before us.”
“I know it must look that way, but I had to let them believe it was us, for the sake of others. I never thought it would make its way back to you and your CO. I never imagined the consequences. The leader of the AWH immediately discharged me the morning after I last saw you. Brohammer had come there. He had been watching me or having someone else watch me. He knew everything—”
Jimmy’s face tightened, his eyes dark. “I hate that man. I hate him even more, even as he burns in hell.”
“The next day I woke up, and everything in France came crashing down around me. The AWH leader forbade any contact with you before I left. If I’d sent something and they found out, they wouldn’t have paid my way back.”
I watched him go through a slow realization. “Of course I figured out that something had gone wrong for you because of seeing me. I’d always feared that very thing, but I never imagined they’d force you out like that. And someone told me he saw you in Paris—”
“Waiting for the ship and fighting the urge to contact you anyway. My stay ended because I broke the rules. I did. Not you.”
“And you took the blame for someone else who broke the rules, too.”
I nodded.
A few long moments that swelled and swelled. Then he shook his head in what looked like resignation and actually smiled, one of those sweet and sad and hopeful but also wistful smiles that only Jimmy could give. “Finally it makes sense. I would never have guessed . . . at least now I can stop tormenting myself.”
“You could’ve written me again and given me your address. I did everything I could to find you so I could explain. I went to see some of our old friends from high school and asked if they’d received a letter or anything. It seems you sent a couple of postcards, but without any return address.”
His face slowly fell. “I know, and I’m sorry. I was stumped and then the longer I stayed in Paris, the more baffled I became. Things happened that I didn’t want to believe. I got you in trouble, you disappeared, and the army gave me a general discharge, not an honorable one.”
Back in Paris, Emile had said something like that might happen, and alas, he had been correct. I laid my hand on my chest, stunned by the unfairness of it. All because of me. “That’s just terrible. Oh, Jimmy, I’m so very sorry.”
He remained open, still so kind. “I guess I got kind of lost for a while.”
“I ruined your military career.”
He shook his head gently and spoke to me gently, too. “It could’ve been worse. I got a blue ticket, a general discharge. I could’ve received a dishonorable discharge.”
“Oh, Jimmy . . .”
He gazed away, squinting into the sun. “I took it hard for a while, but I wasn’t formally charged with anything, and it allowed me to get out early and start living again.” His face brightened then as he looked back at me. “A couple of my driver buddies and I have opened up a mechanics shop in Paris. We’re repairing all the American cars, learning how to fix the European ones, and speaking French . . . well, attempting to speak French. Paris has been good to me.” He glanced around the farm, and I could see the admiration hadn’t left him; he still loved this land. Twilight pranced around in his paddock, and a smile rose a notch on Jimmy’s face, then his eyes swept around full circle. “I see you’ve gotten all settled here. You have a new house.”
I pulled in a long breath, letting it soak in; Jimmy hadn’t come back to me after all. He had come because of all those other things—the locket, Brohammer’s demise, maybe an explanation—but not for me. I slowly said, “You could’ve sent the locket in the mail.”
“All the way from Paris?” He shook his head. “I couldn’t take the chance with something so valuable.” The firm line of his eyebrows softened. A pulse throbbed in his neck. “Besides, I needed to come back here and tie up a few loose ends.” His tone weakened, and he blinked twice. “And see you one more time.”
I managed to ask, “To say goodbye?”
He looked at his feet and then glanced about again. “Yes.”
So the love brought to life in a forest in France under moonlight would slowly slip away into nothing more than memory. “Will you write?”
“Sure. I’ll splurge on the best postcards in Paris.” That gleam, that mischievous way of his that I loved—it was still there. He might have been lost for a while, but he had come back now. “For you.”
The same loveable Jimmy. My Jimmy.
“Thank you,” I said. But my breath snagged, and my conscience ached. “Please forgive me for implicating you. When our leader accused me of many more nighttime meetings than we’d had, I let it stand. I never thought the tale would spread. I had but one moment to decide—that I could protect the others, and in that moment, it seemed . . . right. I never imagined it would hurt you. Never. Not until later, and by then, the damage had been done.”
He said nothing, and then a silence so mournful I forgot to breathe.
“Maybe it was for the best,” he said quietly.
My voice cracked, and I shook my head involuntarily. “I don’t believe that for a minute.”
Then he grasped my hand and held it tightly in his, and his face looked tortured as I’m sure mine did in response to his touch. He lifted my hand and placed it on his cheek, just as he’d done back in France, and my knees nearly unpinned. Agony had tightened his face, his jaw trembled now, and the longing still lived in his gaze. He had not moved past it; he had not gotten over us.
I couldn’t pull my hand away, remembering so many things I’d tried to forget. Jimmy wasn’t ready to let go, either, despite what he’d come here to say, and perhaps the relief from finally unders
tanding, the knowing now, could open the door to our love again.
He slowly dropped my hand and whispered, “I tried to forget . . .” A regretful smile on his face, and in those words was an understanding of what we’d lost, and it needed no explanation or reply.
But I couldn’t lose Jimmy this way. I couldn’t let him go without revealing my heart. He deserved no less. “Then give us another chance. Please, Jimmy. I couldn’t forget you, either.”
Arms at his sides, he turned his palms toward me and started to open up, and there I flew, finding the place where I belonged. Holding me tightly and both of us living through it again. The love and then the loss. He slowly released me, but it took me a long time to move. I made myself take a step back and study his face, where I could still see the dream in his eyes, muddled but still there.
“Please come back. I need you here,” I said.
His face revealed hope, but doubt, too. He pulled me close again, sighed heavily, and whispered through my hair. “Don’t you see? One thing I did realize was that here with you, I’d always be the stable boy who made good.”
He released me again. “You’re a war veteran and a hero.”
He glanced around for a moment, taking it all in. “This is your place. I’m not sure we could both be happy here.”
I swallowed against my dry throat. “There’s only one way to find out. You always loved this farm, and you still have friends here. You can work with me, or you can find something else to do—Luc may take over more someday anyway. We can do this; I’m sure of it.”
I’d surprised him, and he smiled. “Are you proposing to me?”
“Yes, I suppose I am.”
A little laugh slipped out of him. Did I see a hint of joy? “Well, that’s a first, and about the last thing I expected to happen today.”
“Me too. But we can be happy; I know it.”
Turning solemn again, he said, “I want you to be right. Of course I do. I never stopped . . .” Then in an abrupt change, he choked on the words and broke as I’d never seen him do before and bit back tears. Jimmy wasn’t one to crumble, but he couldn’t hide himself from me.
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