Miracle

by Deborah Smith

  Papa frowned harder. “Go back to the chalet, Gwenael.”

  He pivoted in his very formal, soldierly way—Papa had been a resistance hero during World War II—and walked back across the terrace. When he disappeared into the lodge Maman seemed to shrink and sag. Sebastien gazed from Maman’s tragic eyes to Bridgette’s tearful ones and Antoine’s furious glower.

  “What is it?” Sebastien demanded. “You all know. Tell me. What’s wrong with Papa?”

  Antoine grabbed him by one shoulder. “Come. We’ll bring Maman some hot chocolate. Bridgette, you and Maman sit down at a table.”

  Sebastien protested by dragging his feet as his brother pulled him toward the lodge. Looking back he saw Bridgette, her arm around Maman, heading to a chair.

  “What is it?” Sebastien asked again, and wrenched away from Antoine’s grip. “I’m old enough. Don’t treat me like a baby.”

  Muscles flexed in Antoine’s clenched jaw. “So be it. I learned about Papa when I was only a year older than you.” They went inside the lodge through enormous double doors carved with Alpine landscapes. The room was filled with plush chairs and game tables. Waiters moved regally among patrons dressed in beautiful ski clothes. Other skiers stood around a large stone fireplace in the center of the room. The place smelled of wood smoke, fine liquor, and money. Papa and his friends were not in sight.

  “Here. Come here.” Antoine led Sebastien aside. They watched the crowd. “Listen closely and try to understand. Maman loves our Papa more than anyone else in the world, even more than she loves us. You’ll realize that when you get older and see her through a man’s eyes.”

  “Of course she loves Papa! And he loves her!”

  “No. He is ashamed of her because she comes from common people. He thought she could fit in with his friends, but she never learned how. She’s no good to him as a hostess. She can’t help him entertain his important business contacts. All she can do is raise children. But he won’t leave her, because he knows that she would never give him a divorce. Maman is old-fashioned. In fact, sometimes I don’t think Maman even lives in the same century with us.”

  “You’re lying! Lying! Why would he be ashamed of her?”

  Antoine shook him roughly. “She was just a fisherman’s daughter he met on a holiday during the war! She was a good Catholic girl who wouldn’t screw him unless he married her! He thought he was going to die at Normandy, so the marriage wouldn’t matter. But he didn’t die—and so there he was, stuck with an ignorant little Breton girl not fit to be more than a servant. Our maman. And me, a son he didn’t expect. So he made the best of it!”

  Sebastien shoved him away. “How do you know all this?”

  “Grandfather told me before he died. He was a cruel old man. He wanted to divide Maman from us children by making us feel ashamed of her. He said she trapped Papa into marriage. I’ve never told anyone this, but you. We are mistakes, do you understand? Papa loves us in his own way, but he doesn’t love Maman, and under different circumstances he would never have married her. He stayed with her out of duty and gave her more children to keep her mind off her loneliness! So we are all just the result of Papa’s mistake.”

  Sebastien could scarcely comprehend the idea. Maman, unloved? Himself, unloved? A mistake?

  “I don’t like how Papa conducts his affairs,” Antoine declared. “This time he’s been too careless.”

  The comtesse strolled from a back room, and men turned to study her as she went to a table and spoke with the people there. Antoine made a sound of disgust and started forward, gesturing for Sebastien to follow. The comtesse saw them approach and stiffened. She ran a lovely hand, beautifully manicured, over hair the color of wheat and toyed with the ends that curled in a perpetual flip atop her shoulders.

  “Hello again,” she said warily, as Antoine and Sebastien stopped in front of her.

  Antoine gave her a mocking bow. “Madame la comtesse, I would like to present my brother, Sebastien. He is no longer a child.”

  “What nonsense is this?” the comtesse asked impatiently.

  Antoine turned to Sebastien. “Little brother, I present to you madame la comtesse. I went to bed with her when I was fourteen, but now she sleeps with Papa. She is the best-known of Papa’s whores.”

  The comtesse slapped Antoine quickly and efficiently, as if she’d had great practice in slapping people who insulted her. Sebastien stared at her in shock. Papa had put his zob inside someone beside Maman? And his betrayal was another source of her unhappiness?

  “If you ever speak to my maman again I’ll kill you,” he told the comtesse.

  She laughed sharply and glared from him to Antoine. “I have no need to speak to your maman. Someday you boys will understand why your father needs me. He honors his mistakes. What more do you want?”

  “She’s not a mistake, you whore! And neither am I!” Sebastien yelled. The room went silent. Heads turned. Philippe de Savin strode out of the back and moved swiftly through the crowd. His patrician face held an expression so fierce that people leapt out of his path. The comtesse stepped aside as he came to Antoine and Sebastien.

  “You disgrace me,” he told them in a soft, deadly voice. “Take your mother and go back to the chalet. I’ll see you both before bedtime in my study.”

  “Let the punishment fit your conscience,” Antoine told him. “But leave Sebastien out of it.”

  “No,” Sebastien said. He was close to crying with fury. “I don’t care what he does or says to me now.” He looked at his father evenly. “I hate you.” Then he turned and walked outdoors with a measured, dignified gate. Once outside, however, he broke into a run and headed straight to Bridgette and Maman. “We’ll go home and have hot chocolate,” he told them, his voice trembling.

  Maman gazed at him in horror. “Oh, no, no.”

  He hugged her. “It’s all right, Maman. I love you. I love you.”

  Antoine reached them a second later. Stiff and silent, he directed everyone to the van. Maman huddled in the front seat and buried her face in her hands. She remained frozen and stonelike, until they were halfway up the mountain. Then she snapped her head up and gazed fixedly out the window. “Stop, Antoine. Stop at that curve. I want to see heaven.”

  Sebastien traded a bewildered look with Bridgette. Antoine parked the van on the side of the road. Everyone got out, watching Maman worriedly. “Heaven, Maman?” Antoine asked.

  “Oh, yes, yes! Come and see!”

  Antoine took her hand. They walked up the road to the curve. On its outer rim was a narrow ledge. The lip of the ledge was guarded by a low wooden barricade; beyond it the mountain plunged several hundred meters to a grove of trees.

  Moving as if entranced, Maman staggered through the snow and stopped close to the barricade. She raised her voice in the old Breton language, which only she understood; it was no more French than a Welshman’s tongue, to which it was related. She appeared to listen, then squared her shoulders. Wearily she lifted her hand to the blue sky, the mountains, and finally to her children, as she turned to face them.

  “I asked Saint Yves-of-the-Truth to put the right where it should be and the wrong where it should be. And he has answered me. Content I shall be. Come here, my loves.”

  Sebastien and Bridgette clambered through the snow to her, and she engulfed them in her slender arms, along with Antoine. All of them cried, even Antoine. Maman laughed too brightly in the midst of it. “Let your maman do something useful, for once. Let me drive the rest of the way to the chalet.”

  “Maman,” Antoine began with gentle reproach.

  “Sssh! Let her drive!” Bridgette said firmly.

  Sebastien nodded. “Yes!”

  Antoine gave in with a tense shrug. Maman went confidently to the driver’s seat of the van. Antoine settled on the left beside her. Bridgette took a place in the backseat again, but Sebastien climbed over the seat and sat on the floor of the storage area, where the skis were stacked. He needed to think about everything he’d heard at the lo
dge, and he wanted privacy to do it. He felt as if he was bleeding inside.

  Maman started the car. But then she twisted in her seat and held out her hands to Antoine. “My firstborn,” she said tenderly. “Your papa and I made you during the war. We made you three days after we met. We made you the night after we were married in my parish church.”

  “Yes, Maman,” he said awkwardly.

  She twisted toward the back and took Bridgette’s hands. “My first daughter. I wanted a girl so much that time, and the saints gave me such a beauty!”

  Bridgette patted Maman’s hands. “I love you, too.”

  Next Maman stretched her hands out to Sebastien. He stood up and reached over the seat, feeling frightened for reasons he didn’t understand. Her dark brown eyes gleamed at him. “And you—you are my magic. I gave you my grandfather’s name. You’re the only one Papa would let me give a Breton name. Sebastien. It was the name of a saint, you know.”

  “Maman, let’s go home,” Sebastien urged.

  She nodded. “Yes. Yes!”

  Sebastien sat down on the floor again and wedged himself into a corner behind the seat. He didn’t feel as old as he had at the lodge. Right now he wanted to hide like a child. Maman put the van in gear and stepped on the accelerator.

  The unexpected jolt threw Sebastien into the skis. He fought for a handhold as they poked him sharply. The tires squealed on the road. Bridgette made a horrified sound as the van skidded. Sebastien crashed into the wheel well with a force that knocked the breath from him. Dazed, he heard Antoine shouting, “No, no, no, please!”

  Sebastien slammed into the back of the seat as the van hit the barricade. Bridgette’s keening screams filled his ears, but for one second the momentum slowed. Then wood shrieked as the barricade split open. The ragged pieces clawed at the sides of the hurtling van like fingernails on a chalkboard.

  Sebastien fell in strange directions. The world had turned upside down. Something sliced across his chin. He threw his hands out mindlessly and hit the handle of the van’s back doors. Suddenly he looked up into blue sky. He was flying, but when a cloud surrounded him he came to a stop.

  Half conscious, he lay still for a minute. His own violent shivering made him aware finally that he lay on his back in a snowbank. He lurched into a sitting position as his senses returned. The front of his white ski jacket was covered in blood, and when he touched a hand to his chin he felt a deep gash.

  Far down the hillside the van was crushed between two trees. It lay on its side, a mangled hulk. Sebastien started toward it—falling, crawling, feeling nothing but terror.

  “Maman! Antoine! Bridgette! Where are you?”

  He circled the van, staring at its slowly revolving wheels. And then he screamed. Where the windshield had been, Antoine hung half out of the van, face-up, his body bent as if giant hands had snapped his backbone like a twig. His arms dangled beside his head, and he was covered in broken glass and blood. “Get up! Get up!” Sebastien begged. Antoine’s eyes remained unblinking, blank.

  Sebastien staggered to where the van’s underside lay exposed, dripping oil and fuel into the snow. He climbed atop the vehicle and looked through the hole where the side door had been. The seats were crushed together, and the van’s roof was flattened against them. Bridgette was twisted inside the wreckage, but one of her arms hung free. The hand fluttered as if an unseen puppeteer were jerking it crazily.

  Bridgette was alive! Sebastien climbed inside as best he could. He yanked at the seats and searched with frantic eyes for his sister’s face. But when he pulled a torn piece of upholstery aside he saw what had happened to her head, and he knew that she couldn’t be alive. The hope inside his chest died, along with all other emotion. Numbly he climbed from the van and looked around. A dozen meters away Maman lay sprawled in the snow. With her fur coat twisted around her she looked like a small, broken animal.

  When he reached her he slumped to his knees and touched her ashen face. Her eyes were shut. A bright red trickle of blood snaked from under the hair at her temple, making a puddle in her ear. Another streamed from one corner of her mouth. He wiped at it with the sleeve of his ski jacket. “Maman,” Sebastien whispered. “I’ll take care of you.”

  She opened her eyes wide, as if startled. Her lips moved soundlessly. He bent over and put his ear against them. “Forgive, forgive, forgive,” she murmured.

  “An accident, Maman! It was an accident.”

  “No. I had to do it. Forgive me, Philippe, forgive me.”

  “Maman, it’s Sebastien. Papa isn’t here.”

  “No, Sebastien is dead, too. All of them I killed, Philippe. I had to take them with me. I saw the Ankou with his scythe and his coach. He came for me and them, too. He demanded them. I gave them to him.”

  Terrified, he shook her. “I’m Sebastien! The Ankou didn’t get me! I’m alive!”

  “Sssh, sssh. He will return if you protest.” A froth of blood rose in her mouth and puffed gently with each word she whispered. “Saint Yves-of-the-Truth has placed the blame for everything on me. I take my punishment. Forgive.”

  “Maman, don’t die. Don’t. I forgive you.” Sebastien put his arms around her and cradled her head. “I’m Sebastien. I’m alive. I’ll take care of you. I won’t let you die.” He huddled over her in the snow, patting her face, sobbing, fiercely repeating his pledge. She stared at him. Her eyes were still on him an hour later, when the first people came to help.

  “Your maman has gone to sleep. Let her rest,” someone said, as a stranger closed her eyes.

  Sebastien had stopped crying long before. His mind was filled with a confusion so terrible that it froze his grief. He sat back and looked at the rescuers in bitter, black rage. Fools. She wasn’t sleeping, she was dead. She had killed Antoine and Bridgette, and then she’d let herself die. He hated her for it, but he loved her, too. Only one thing was clear—Papa was to blame, and Papa would pay for his mistakes.

  In the weeks and months afterward everyone commented on his courage. They marveled at his control, at the way he continued to be strong, never crying, never asking for the least bit of sympathy. He became intensely protective of little Annette and Jacques, but where before he had been very loving with the servants and with Pio Beaucaire, he became reserved.

  Papa’s grieving attempts at friendship filled Sebastien with contempt, and he eventually told Papa with ruthless pleasure that Maman had driven over the ledge on purpose. Papa said he didn’t believe that, but the truth shone in his eyes.

  Despair and anger consumed Sebastien. It was not safe to love people; they could kill you because of it; even your Maman could kill you. Guilt tortured him for years. Why hadn’t he died, too? Maman had insisted that he couldn’t escape, and yet he had, at least for a while. He would have to be very, very worthy of their sacrifice, to atone. He would punish Papa at every opportunity, but more than that, he would punish himself.

  Finally, out of the torment and the shriveled emotions that nearly crippled him, came one bright, obsessive goal—he would mend people. He would save so many lives that he could make up for not saving the ones that had counted most to him.

  Sebastien de Savin was going so far away that he might as well have never existed. Amy’s thoughts were dark and desperate as she sat on the white satin bedspread and traced the quilted imprint of a flower, flowing and abstract, a designer’s fantasy. Dressed for work, she frowned at her denim shorts. One hand rose to tug angrily at the cheap white blouse she wore.

  She pictured herself older, beautiful, wearing wonderful clothes. She stepped from a long black limousine into an alley of screaming, waving people. Sebastien, looking handsome and worldly in a black tuxedo, took her hand and walked beside her.

  Real kind of you folks to come to the premiere of my movie, she called, waving one hand regally, with all her fingers clamped together like Queen Elizabeth. My escort? Why, he’s a doctor. A French doctor. And let me tell you, folks, he worships the ground I walk on.

  Her daydream e
nded with the sound of Sebastien’s brisk, formal knock at her bedroom door. Amy jumped up and ran to it, her heart hammering. See, folks? He can barely stand to be away from me.

  He stood in the doorway adjusting a silver cufflink on one sleeve of a crisp dress shirt. His gray trousers were sharply creased. The leather of his soft gray dress shoes gleamed. His hair had been brushed until the heavy, coffee-colored locks gave off a burnished sheen. Only the faintest of beard shadow shown on the carefully shaved planes of his cheeks.

  She caught her breath at so much understated perfection. He didn’t need somebody like her. Remembering how she’d tried to kiss him last night was humiliating.

  “Hi. What’sa matter? Morning,” she mumbled, overwhelmed by this towering, elegant presence. Then she blurted, “You look like you ought to be posing on a little platform in the men’s wear department. Nice suit. Who died?”

  He frowned, seeming surprised and at a loss for words. It amazed her that she was able to startle him at times. She supposed he considered her weird.

  “Good morning,” he replied finally. “I’m dressed this way because I have a meeting with the surgeon who supervised my training. I suppose you’d call it a farewell interview. Finis.”

  Despair knotted her stomach. He’s leaving. Forever. “Hmmm, did you want to talk to me about something? Is anything wrong?”

  “Yes, we need to talk. Nothing’s wrong. You always assume that something is wrong.”

  “Life is safer if you spot trouble ahead of time.”

  “Ah. Perhaps I agree. But don’t always assume that the trouble is your fault.” He ran a hand over an obstinate wisp at the crown of his dark hair. It was a habit of his. Every morning at breakfast she watched him try to tame the sprig. She loved that little cowlick. It almost made him a regular person. “May we talk, for a moment?” he asked.

  Amy shivered. “Talk? Where? You want to come in?” She gestured clumsily behind her, then realized she was pointing toward the bed. Confusion and sorrow made her grimace; despite everything, she felt a smooth, deep need flowing through her body because of him.