Bittersweet Promises

by Patricia Watters

  "May I," Tess said, holding out her hands. Frantziska passed the little animal to Tess, then handed her the bottle. The lamb grabbed the nipple and sucked eagerly. "There you go," Tess said. "You're an impatient one."

  "You've handled animals," Frantziska said. "I can tell."

  Tess glanced up from the lamb. "My grandfather always gave me the bummer lambs to take care of." The lamb drained the bottle and when it bumped against the nipple for more, Tess said, "You poor little waif. With no mother you'll have to wait until tomorrow for more." She held the lamb against her, and the little animal rested his head on her shoulder. Tess looked beyond Frantziska and saw an old woman with her back to them, sitting in a chair, knitting.

  Zak walked over and touched the woman's shoulder, and she looked up at him and smiled. Zak bent over so she could wrap her arms around his neck and give him a hug. Afterwards, Zak pulled Tess over to where his grandmother sat, and said to Tess, "This is my grandmother."

  The old woman scanned the length of Tess, then looked at Zak and said something in Basque, to which Zak responded, also in Basque. The old woman grinned, took Tess's hand and held it momentarily, said something more to Zak, nodded like she was pleased, patted Zak's cheek with her palm, and smiled. When Tess turned to ask Zak what his grandmother said, Zak was no longer smiling, and his face looked troubled.

  "What was that all about?" she asked.

  Zak glanced at his grandmother, then at Tess, and replied, "My grandmother asked if you were special. I told her you were, and she said she was happy I'd found a nice Basque girl."

  Tess could imagine the old woman's disappointment when she learned that Zak's special girl was an outsider parading around in Basque garb. Yet another little dose of reality.

  Zak looked at his mother. "Is Father here?" he asked in a tone that gave Tess the distinct impression he hoped his father was gone. Just as she did.

  Frantziska glanced toward the closed door to what appeared to be a den or office, and replied, "He's working on his books. Come on in the kitchen. We'll have cheese and wine. He'll put down his books for good Roquefort." She took the lamb from Tess and handed it to Zak saying, "Put him in his box next to the hot water heater. There's a piece of fleece beside the box. Bundle it up and put it beside him."

  After Zak left with the lamb, Tess looked around the spacious living room, which was what she'd describe as old-world charm, with a big stone fireplace with an arched opening, dark wood trim and overhead beams, and leather-covered furniture, then she followed Frantziska into the kitchen. A large assortment of copper-bottom pots and pans hung from hooks over and around the stove, and chains of sausages, and strings of red peppers, and ropes of garlic filled the kitchen with the mingled aromas of herbs, spices and curing meats. And hanging from a hewn beam above was a ham wrapped in a white cloth, with the gleaming ball of a joint showing. Another stone fireplace stood open on two sides, the face of one opening trimmed in hand-painted tiles.

  Seeing the focus of Tess's attention, Frantziska said, while placing a tray with crackers and a jar of homemade wine jelly on the table, "Alesander's great-grandfather built the house. The stones came from the property, the red tile for the roof came from Portland, but the hearth tiles are from the village where his wife came from. They were his wedding gift to her, along with the promise that he'd one day build a house for her with a fireplace for her tiles." She cut a wedge from the cheese and handed Tess a small, flat knife, and said, "Go ahead."

  Tess helped herself to a cracker and spread it with the soft cheese. "Then Mr. de Neuville's grandfather started the winery?" she asked.

  Frantziska shook her head. "He raised sheep." She sat across from Tess and reached for a cracker. "Alesander's father continued with the sheep, as we have, but Alesander decided to start the winery. All the vines were started from rootstock Alesander had sent over from France."

  From the hallway came voices and Tess turned to find Zak and his father entering the kitchen. Frantziska looked up. "So, you could smell the cheese," she said to her husband. She glanced at Tess. "Alesander has a nose like a rabbit when it comes to sniffing out good Roquefort."

  Alesander's eyes darted quickly down Tess's dress and back up to meet her gaze. "Miss O'Reilly," he said in a reserved voice. "Did you enjoy the festival?"

  "Yes, very much," Tess replied, feeling Alesander's eyes assessing her, and not in a friendly way, although she was certain he didn't realize it.

  Catching the focus of her husband's attention, Frantziska said to Tess, "I noticed your costume when you arrived. It's very authentic. Did you buy it just for the festival?"

  "Not exactly," Tess replied. "That is—" she glanced at Zak and her lips quirked in a nervous smile "—Zak bought it for me."

  To Tess's shock, Zak reached over and squeezed her hand, and said, "Honey, why don't you change out of it so I can take you on a tour of the place. The bag with our clothes is in the bathroom, just down the hallway."

  Tess caught the look passing between Zak's parents. Although it was subtle, there was no mistaking their displeasure. Saying nothing, she left with Zak. But as she walked with him down the hallway, she said, "Stating your position about me to your parents was premature."

  "Maybe, but I want them to know where we stand."

  "They do. They also disapprove."

  "Not my mother."

  "I didn't see it that way, but there's no question about your father."

  "Give him time. He sees his world changing and knows he must eventually change too, but that has no bearing on us. It's our life, not theirs." Zak kissed her lightly and left.

  In the bathroom, Tess changed into her jeans and flannel shirt and packed her costume in the bag, but when she stepped out of the bathroom, Alesander de Neuville's muffled voice drifted from behind the closed door to the kitchen. She moved close enough to hear the words…

  "Exactly what are your intentions with this woman?" Alesander asked.

  "Shush," Frantziska warned. The voices became subdued.

  Tess moved closer, but all she could catch were sentence fragments...

  "... turning your back on traditions that have served us well," Alesander was saying.

  "...could never understand Peio as a Basque woman would," Frantziska's voice broke in.

  Although Tess stood inside Frantziska and Alesander de Neuville's home, she felt as if she were on the outside with the wall of stone separating them, and that same wall would always come between her and Zak as well.

  Not wanting to be caught listening, she returned to the bathroom and shut the door and waited for Zak to come for her. She wasn't anxious to face his parents again, or even remain in a house where she was an outsider.

  After a few minutes, a knock sounded. "It's me," Zak said. "Are you okay?"

  Tess drew in a long breath and opened the door. "No, I'm not okay. I want to leave."

  "Then you heard my folks."

  Tess nodded and handed him the bag. "It won't work. I'm just not a part of your culture and never will be. I don't understand it, and I don't belong here. And your mother's right. I could never understand Peio the way a Basque woman would, and we both know what Peio's feelings are about me. Then there's your father. Really, Zak, I want to leave. I feel very uncomfortable."

  "Okay, we'll leave, but this isn't over."

  They said their goodbyes, but when they stepped outside they were surprised to find it raining steadily. Turning to Tess, Zak handed her the bag of clothes, and said, "Go wait in the truck while I tell Peio goodbye. He's just inside the shop with Vince."

  While Tess ran for the truck, Vince came rushing out of the shop and said to Zak, in a frantic voice, "Peio's gone!"

  Zak looked at his brother in alarm. "What do you mean, gone?"

  "He's nowhere around. He was watching me work on my car and playing with a coil of rope, so I gave him some nuts and bolts to screw together and he started arranging them in patterns on the floor, then he just disappeared."

  "How long ago?"
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  "I don't know. Maybe twenty minutes. I was working under the car and he'd been playing quietly so I don't know exactly when he left, but the rope was gone so he must have taken it with him. I looked around outside and found his jacket near the woods."

  "Damn, Peio wouldn't!" Zak said. "We need to check our old treehouse. The thing's half rotted and I should have taken the tree ladder down when Peio first got here."

  Grabbing his jacket from the truck, Zak started to explain to Tess, when she said, "I heard and I'm coming too." She slipped into a jacket she'd brought along and followed Zak and Vince into the woods.

  When they were a considerable distance from the house, Zak pointed to where the trail forked and said to Vince, "You check along the river, and Tess and I will head for the tree house. Peio knows where it is and he has a rope."

  They split off, and as Zak and Tess followed the uneven trail, the wind whipped the trees, sending treetops swaying, and the rain began falling steadily. "Let's hurry," Zak said in an anxious voice. "With this wind, the limbs holding the treehouse could break off."

  They scrambled up a rise and made their way down the opposite side, ducking under limbs and shoving back branches that blocked the trail. Then at the base of a giant oak, Zak spotted the rope and looked up and cried, "He's there!"

  Tess peered up at a platform high above the forest floor and saw Peio's hand.

  "Peio!" Zak yelled. When he got no response, he started up the crude plank ladder, but when he put his weight on the third board, the weathered cross-board splintered and ripped off.

  "You're too heavy," Tess said. "I'll go."

  "No, those boards are rotten. I'll run back to the house and get a ladder and you wait here, and if Peio starts down, tell him to stay put until I get back." Without waiting for a response, Zak turned and raced toward the house.

  Tess saw Peio roll close to the edge of the platform. "Peio!" she cried, but he didn't seem to hear her. Impulsively, she started up the ladder, one cross-board at a time, feeling the weathered slats twist and creak under her weight.

  By the time she reached the crude structure and pulled herself onto the platform, her face stung from the cold rain, and her hands felt numb. She looked at Peio's small form curled up and drenched to the skin, his face drained of color, his lips purple. Grabbing his shoulders, she shook him but got no response. "Peio!" she cried, alarmed. His eyelids fluttered and opened, but he gave no sign of recognition. Then his lips moved, and he said in a weak voice, "Mama?"

  "No, honey. It's Tess."

  He wrapped his arms around her neck. "Mama," he repeated, then begin to whimper.

  Tess closed her arms around him, feeling his cold face against her neck. "You poor little thing, you're freezing," she said, while rubbing him briskly. Laying him against the platform, she removed her jacket and wrapped it around him and lifted him onto her lap. Feeling his shivers, she rubbed him briskly and held him against herself, but soon he drifted off again.

  A few minutes later, Zak arrived with a ladder, and called up to Tess, "Stay where you are until I get the rope up to you."

  "Hurry," Tess called down. "He's sleeping and he's freezing. He probably has hypothermia."

  "Then wake him up and keep his circulation going or he'll go into shock."

  Tess shook Peio. "Come on, wake up!" He opened his eyes momentarily then closed them again and his head slumped against her. "I can't get him to stay awake," she cried. "Get the rope up here so I can make a harness and lower him." When she scooted to the edge of the platform and looked over the side, she realized how far down it was.

  Zak propped the ladder against the tree and climbed as high as he could go, which was at least eight feet short of the platform, and hurled the rope to Tess. As it sailed upward, she leaned over while holding onto Peio with one hand and reaching out with the other. When she felt the platform give, she moved back quickly. The rope dropped away, but on peering over the edge, she saw that it had caught on the top cross board of the tree ladder. After placing Peio on the platform, she stretched toward the rope, grabbed it, and pulled it up.

  Peio lay limp as she threaded the rope under his arms, and looped it around his waist, and fed it between his legs and back under his arms to make a crude harness, and tied a secure knot. Holding the rope with both hands, she called down to Zak, "He's ready. I'm going to lower him."

  As she handed Peio over the edge, she was aware of the rope cutting into her hands, but they were numb from the cold so she felt no pain. But when she shifted her weight to feed out more rope, the rope tightened around her hand, almost pulling her off the platform before she could reach out with her foot and brace it on a limb.

  Leaning close to the edge, she felt her forearms scraping against the ragged boards of the old wood platform as Peio hung from the harness out of reach of Zak, who stood near the top of the ladder, his arms extended. But as Tess continued to lower Peio, she felt strength leaving her hands, and her grasp on the rope was beginning to give way.

  Then suddenly the rope slackened, and she heard Zak yell, "I've got him."

  Zak made his way down the ladder with Peio clasped in one arm, and while Zak worked the harness from around Peio, Tess slowly made her way off the platform and down the cross boards near the top until she found her foot on the second rung of the ladder. As soon as she was safely down, Zak closed his arms around Peio's cold limp body, which was still wrapped in Tess's coat, and said, "Come on, let's get him home."

  They arrived at the house to find Alesander in a rain slicker, waiting outside.

  "Call the medics," Zak said to him, then rushed into the house and up the stairs to Peio's room, where he lay him on the bed and removed Tess's jacket from around him. But when he started unbuttoning Peio's shirt, Tess pushed Zak's hands away, and said, "I'll do this while you throw some towels in the dryer to warm him."

  While Tess stripped off Peio's clothes with fingers so numb from the cold she was having trouble completing the task, Frantziska entered the room, and said, "You need to get out of those wet clothes and soak in a warm bath. I'll put a robe in the bathroom for you, and you can leave your clothes there and I'll throw them in the washer."

  "Thank you, but I'm okay for now," Tess said, continuing to peel off Peio's wet clothes.

  A few minutes later, Zak returned with an armload of warm towels and sat on the bed while Tess wrapped them around Peio, who began to stir.

  "Mama?" Peio asked.

  "No, honey, it's Tess. You're okay now," she said while tucking warm towels around him. "You're in your bed and you're going to be fine."

  Alesander appeared in the doorway. "An emergency rig's on the way," he announced. "I'll wait outside for them."

  Alesander had just left the room when Frantziska returned with a comforter, which she placed over Peio, then she said to Tess, "You really do need to get out of those wet clothes and take a warm bath."

  It wasn't until then that Tess became aware of just how cold she was, clear through her bones, it seemed. "Thanks for the robe, and for offering to wash my clothes. It'll be good to get out of them," she said.

  Twenty minutes later, wearing a fuzzy blue robe with a long zipper up the front, Tess returned to the bedroom and joined Zak and his parents, who were listening while one of the medics was saying, "His color's back and his heart rate's strong, but he lost a lot of body heat so it may be a while before he fully regains consciousness. Until then, keep him warm, and when he comes around give him lots of liquids, not too hot though."

  Zak and his father walked with the medics to the emergency rig, leaving Tess and Frantziska with Peio, but when Tess went to pull the cover around Peio's chin, Frantziska grabbed her wrist, turned her hand palm up, and said, "What have you done to your hands?"

  Tess looked at her raw red hands. "Rope burns."

  "I'll get something to put on them." Frantziska released her hand and left the room.

  While Tess sat with Peio she noticed a framed picture of a woman and child on the bedstand. S
he picked it up and studied the photo. The woman wore her hair in a long braid that fell over her shoulder, and she crouched behind Peio, with her arms around him. There was nothing striking about the woman, but it was evident from her warm smile that she loved her son.

  Zak, who'd been standing in the doorway, said as he walked toward her, "That's the last picture of them together."

  "She looks very nice," Tess said.

  Zak took the frame from her and looked at the photo. "She was a good woman and a good mother. She and Peio were very close."

  Hearing Zak's words, Tess couldn't help feeling envious that not only had the woman been married to Zak, but they'd created a child together. "It'll be a long time before Peio will want a mother substitute," was all she could think to say.

  Zak returned the frame to the bedstand. "Peio will adjust."

  A few moments later, Frantziska returned with a roll of gauze, some adhesive, and a tube of ointment, and said to Zak, "Put the ointment on Tess's hands and wrap them in gauze for the night, and by morning the gauze can come off."

  When she turned to go, Tess said, "Thank you, Mrs. de Neuville."

  "Please, it's Frantziska."

  On the woman's face Tess saw acceptance. It was an odd, but gratifying feeling, one she would never have expected when she first arrived.

  After Zak finished wrapping her hands, he pulled Tess into his arms and kissed her, not a passionate kiss, but the kind of kiss that told her he cared deeply.

  The moment was broken when Zak's father appeared in the doorway.

  Mortified, Tess moved out of Zak's arms, but before she could dart around Alesander and leave the room, Zak took her by the elbow to stop her, and said, "Honey, we could head back to Baker's Creek tonight, but I want to be here when Peio comes around. Are you okay with that?"

  Tess eyed Alesander, who was clearly disturbed, and even though she knew it would be awkward at best remaining under the man's watchful eyes, she said to Zak, "I'm fine staying."

  Alesander's gaze moved between the two of them, and saying nothing, he turned and left the room. Eyes on the empty doorway, Tess commented, "It's amazing what a powerful message silence can send."