Miracle

by Deborah Smith

  Amy sat down cross-legged in front of him and, keeping her hands in his, returned his warm, insistent grip. “It’s not arrogance, ol’ boy. It’s self-defense. Just be honest with me, okay?”

  Subdued, he settled quietly beside her. “Okay. Maybe I’ll see you again after tonight, and maybe I won’t. I like you a lot, baby. You’re definitely unique. I’d like to know you better. That’s all I can guarantee.”

  “That’s enough.”

  “Let’s sit here and talk, for right now. In a little while I’ll chase the party vultures off. And then maybe we’ll do some of this.” With comical lechery he poked his forefinger through a circle made by the opposite forefinger and thumb. “Or maybe some of this.” He contorted his fingers in absurd ways and wiggled them. “Or even some of this—”

  “You stole that from Steve Martin.”

  He frowned in exasperation. “Have you memorized every comedy bit in the business?”

  “Not all. I’m still working on the early Milton Berle shows.”

  He put his arm around her and kissed her. There was nothing electrifying about it, no burst of shivers inside her and no desperate greed to have him, as there had been with Sebastien. But it was pleasant. Very pleasant. It was enough.

  The next morning she woke up lying on her side with Elliot draped across her as if he’d tried to crawl the width of the bed and she were the obstacle that had stopped him. Amy maneuvered onto her back, and he began to snore. His face was buried in the sheets. One arm was flung upward so that his forearm lay between her breasts and his hand nestled against her chin.

  “Sleepin’ with you is like mud-wrestling with an octopus,” she told him.

  Amy studied his naked body, and her own. Tears slid from the corners of her eyes, and she wiped them away quickly.

  He was sweet and funny and gentle. She was happy to be here with him, and she hoped this wouldn’t be their only time together. She shut her eyes and covered them with the heels of her hands, forcing back more tears. There was a sense of letting go, of saying good-bye, of putting useless daydreams aside and replacing them with memories that could be cherished instead of regretted. Oh, Doc, she thought sadly. Adieu.

  Just as Sebastien had suspected, Philippe de Savin was not in danger of dying. In the two years following his surgery he remained in good health, according to the various medical tests that were performed on him regularly. He continued his regimented life of running the family businesses, marshalling exclusive social events, and spying on Sebastien.

  Sebastien wasn’t surprised at the surveillance, and it gave him vicious pleasure to ignore it, and his father. That he now found himself waiting in the anteroom of his father’s business offices was due to a remarkable turn of events.

  One of several secretaries in the room answered a softly buzzing telephone. “You may go in, now,” she told him. Sebastien nodded to her as he strode past and through a set of heavily paneled doors. Entering a room where the heavy carpet silenced his footsteps, he stopped in the light of tall windows and watched his father rise from a desk. Looking into Philippe de Savin’s angular, lined face with its thick cap of white hair, Sebastien saw himself in thirty years.

  “So you’ve finally come,” his father said, his mouth hard and amused. “Hoping that your sister’s reports of my good health are inaccurate?” He slipped a finger into the collar of his shirt and pulled the material down to show the lurid pink indentation on one side of his neck. “I appreciate your concern. However late it may be.”

  “I have no need to see you. I need only inquire about you from all the people who watch me at your request.”

  Philippe de Savin settled his tall, long-limbed body into a leather chair. With his fingers resting lightly on the arms, he seemed secure in his superior status. “They say you’ll be appointed head of the new transplant unit. They also say, however, that you’ve made enemies among the other physicians.”

  “I’m not in favor with people who cling to old techniques, no. When tradition harms patients, I say so.”

  “I approve of your aggressiveness. It would serve you well here.” He raised a hand and gestured gracefully at the surroundings.

  “Annette is doing brilliantly.”

  “She is madly in love with Giancarlo Costabile. She’ll marry her Italian airplane designer and bear his common Italian children. She has chosen her life.”

  “No, you have chosen her life, without consulting her, as usual. Whether she marries Giancarlo or not, she wants to head the family corporation. Let her. Women do such things now, as well as marry and have children. Annette would be an excellent chief executive.”

  “It isn’t a daughter’s place to take charge. It is the eldest son’s place.”

  Sebastien laughed curtly. “Still the same argument. And always pointless. You seem to think that I’ll throw away my career someday and come to you, begging to be a part of your dynasty.”

  “Hardly. But I have other expectations.” His eyes were fathomless, but a knowing smile hinted at private plans.

  Sebastien went to a wall filled with photos of the de Savin businesses and idly studied the display. “Scheme if you want. I don’t worry about it.”

  “You’ve become even more self-assured. So proud. But how is your life, really? I hear that your wife prefers the company of her friends and that the two of you share few interests.”

  “We share enough. We respect each other.”

  “So when will you take a mistress? Or have you already? It’s really a very practical way to run a marriage.”

  “I enjoy your quaint description of disloyalty. I don’t need a mistress. I barely have time for a wife. My work is everything.” He paused, then pivoted toward his father, smiling thinly. “Well, not quite everything. I have a new interest that surprises me with its charm. I didn’t expect to be so taken with it. Marie and I are going to have a child.”

  Philippe de Savin sat forward, his fingers clasping the chair arms, his blue eyes intense. “I’m going to be a grandfather?”

  “Typical, you look at it solely as it affects you. Yes, you’re gong to be a grandfather.”

  Philippe rose from his chair. Sebastien was surprised to see his father tremble. The sheen of emotion in the older man’s eyes shocked him so much that he took a step backward. His father crossed the room and halted so close that he could almost touch Sebastien. He held out both hands. “You came here to tell me this as a gesture of truce.”

  Sebastien reeled. His father’s unexpected vulnerability confused him, repulsed him, then made him angry at the swift tug of sympathy he felt. “I came here to tell you because Marie asked me to do so. She believes a child should know its grandparents. You will be invited to visit after the baby comes.”

  “Son, I am honored—”

  “Were it up to me, you’d never see your grandchild. I don’t intend to take part in your show of dubious sentiment. I’d prefer that the next generation of de Savins never be exposed to you. I won’t have any more of my loved ones destroyed by you.”

  Philippe slapped a fist into the opposite palm. His moment of softness evaporated in fury. “How many more years will you go on making sacrifices at the altar of your mother’s insanity? How much longer will you hate me for no reason?”

  Sebastien walked to the doors, his hands clenched by his sides. “Your blindness crippled this family. But it will not cripple my children. Perhaps you and I are both getting a second chance to prove ourselves. Good afternoon.”

  “To prove what, Sebastien?” His father strode after him and blocked his way. “I did nothing wrong. You did nothing wrong. Terrible accidents happen in the world without blame.”

  “It was no accident. There was blame.”

  “You know what I mean. Your mother was an accident, a mistake, a misguided soul, a simple-minded and confused woman incapable of adjusting—”

  “If you ever let my child suspect that you feel that way about its grandmother, I’ll kill you.” Sebastien’s voice was low and ut
terly serious. “Do you understand? I’ll kill you.”

  He left his father standing in grim silence, both hands out in a supplicating gesture that came more than twenty years too late.

  Annette’s wedding was planned abruptly, owing to the fact that Annette was pregnant, a circumstance that delighted Giancarlo and depressed her, she confessed to Marie.

  “She will be happy once the baby arrives,” Marie told Sebastien as they dressed for the ceremony. “It’s just that she fears that your father will pressure her to curtail her work.” Marie patted her swollen stomach, at five months showing generously under the pleated black dress she wore. “She’ll be happy.”

  Sebastien finished knotting the silk tie that matched his double-breasted suit. He frowned at himself in the long, gilt-framed mirror of their bedroom, privately hurt. “I shouldn’t go to the ceremony. She doesn’t want me there.”

  Marie settled in a chair near the bed and laughed lightly. “She didn’t include you in the attendants. So? She feels threatened by the birth of our child. But she didn’t include your brother, either. Surely such things are insignificant. Don’t tell me you’re hurt. I don’t believe it.”

  Marie’s pragmatism was her charm, but there were often times when he felt that he was conversing with a stranger. The baby was their most intimate connection, and they were both excited about it.

  She rose and went through an open doorway to the stone balcony that overlooked a small courtyard and garden. The house they kept in this exclusive Paris suburb was solemn and stately. Marie had chosen it, and Sebastien was indifferent to it.

  “What is this?” she called a moment later. “Are you decorating the shrubbery for some special holiday?”

  Sebastien walked outside. She stood beside a flowering shrub set in a container of thick stone. Bright sunlight glinted on the silver necklace she pulled from a leafy branch.

  “I must have left it there when I was going through a box of photographs yesterday. It’s something I carried when I was working in Africa.”

  She lifted the worn video token and studied it. “Was this the magic charm you mentioned? The one the villagers expected you to wear?”

  “Yes.” Feeling that something very private was being violated, Sebastien took the necklace from her rather abruptly.

  “You needn’t snatch it away.” She gave him a bewildered look. “It isn’t like you to keep memorabilia. Why this?”

  He smiled sardonically. “Perhaps I don’t want to lose my magic.”

  Marie dismissed the notion with a delicate sniff. “Throw it away.”

  “No.”

  Her fair complexion reddened a little. “You’re being silly.”

  “Allow me. It’s a first.”

  “Such nonsense.”

  Doc, don’t you ever want to just sit on a hill somewhere and howl at the moon? “Marie? Have you ever howled at the moon?”

  Her eyes widened in astonishment. “No.”

  “I thought not.”

  Marie gave him a rebuking look and swept past him. attend. Do what you wish with your magic charm. But please don’t become maudlin.”

  “I hardly think I’m in danger of that. A patient called me ‘pitiless and acerbic,’ only yesterday. See? You can relax.”

  “I dislike your sarcasm.”

  “I dislike it, myself.” Sebastien went to an enormous armoire and opened a drawer at its base. He dropped the necklace atop precisely folded handkerchiefs bearing the de Savin crest. His fingers lingered on the medal for a moment. He murmured under his breath, “Someday, Marie, we really should howl at the moon.”

  Sebastien didn’t see his brother at church. He looked for him during the reception, a huge affair in the garden of a fine restaurant near the Champs-Elysées. Jacques had been attending art school in Amsterdam for the last two years, and rarely returned to Paris.

  Sebastien finally glimpsed him in the crowd dressed in pastel hues. He stood out like a raven among canaries in his black leather pants and a black sports jacket. He turned, a thin cigar clamped in his mouth. His gaze met Sebastien’s, he smiled, and with the awful flash of teeth still showing in his gaunt face, he made his way across the garden.

  By the time he stopped a pace away, Sebastien had recovered enough to speak calmly. “Come with me.”

  “And greetings to you, too, dear brother. I was planning to find you if you didn’t find me first.”

  Jacques followed him to a corner where a trellis draped in vines sheltered them from scrutiny. Sebastien stared at his brother’s ashen, emaciated face. “What’s happened to you?”

  “A bout with a stomach ulcer, that’s all.”

  “Who are your doctors in Amsterdam? What have they said?”

  “They’ve said they’d like their bills paid. Could you loan me some money?”

  Sebastien was silent, disbelieving. He knew the size of the trust fund that Jacques had received at eighteen. Each of them had been given such a fund. It was an enormous amount of money. “You couldn’t have—”

  “Ah, but I did.” Jacques threw the cigar on the perfect carpet of grass and ground it viciously with the heel of his black boot. “And I don’t need a lecture on my irresponsibility. All I need is a loan. To pay my medical bills and my tuition. Consider it a grant to support the arts.” He blithely named an amount.

  “That’s not a grant, that’s an endowment. It’s ridiculous for you to remain in school, wasting time.”

  “Look, will you give me the money, or not?” Jacques’s cheek twitched.

  The movement produced a tightening that made the skin look frail and translucent. Sebastien’s heart twisted. Suddenly he remembered a whimsical, daydreaming little brother scorned by their father for interests he didn’t perceive as masculine. Sebastien remembered a cheerful shadow who had idolized an impatient older brother.

  “I’ll give you a loan as soon as you have your doctors send me your records.”

  “Shit. You’ve got Father’s skill at coercion.” Jacques lifted trembling hands to scrape at hair that looked thin and dull.

  “You’ve asked Father for money, too?”

  “Of course not. I’m asking you. Shit. I thought you’d be easier. I should have known better. And I can’t ask Annette. Her husband dislikes me, so at the moment she wouldn’t give me a centime.”

  “I only want your medical records. That’s not a terrible trade.”

  “Such unselfish, unquestioning love. To hell with you.”

  He started to leave, but Sebastien grabbed him by the arm. “If you want to waste your life, I won’t pay the way. What have you done—sniffed a small fortune up your nose? I won’t help you fund a drug habit.”

  “You won’t help me at all. But relax, brother. I don’t need it. I was just seeing how much I could take you for. Testing to find out if your balls are still made of steel.”

  Sebastien shoved him away. “I have no pity for whining and weakness. But come to me like a man and I’ll listen to you.”

  “I am a man. I am. Goddamn you.” Tears brimmed in his eyes. Jacques jerked his arm from Sebastien’s grip and stumbled off. Sebastien watched him leave. Marie came over, frowning.

  “Jacques looks terrible. Is he in trouble again?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Nothing. His lack of control is not my concern.”

  For a moment, before he realized that Marie was looking at him closely, he grimaced at the coldness of his words and wondered if he were being strong, or merely cruel. And when had he begun to sound so much like his father?

  The nursery was becoming the focal point of their home. Every evening when Sebastien returned from the office or the hospital he found the signs that workmen had once again been altering the room to suit Marie’s excited plans. It was as if carpenter ants were making daily pilgrimages and leaving their trailings for him to find.

  The room was now done in soft gray and ivory, hardly traditional nursery colors, but not surprising in v
iew of Marie’s nature. They gave the place dignity. Surrounded by such colors and furnishings of Victorian wicker, their child would develop eclectic tastes, she vowed.

  Sebastien and she were happier and closer than they had ever been. During her sixth month they went to Sainte Crillion’s outpatient clinic together. Marie had scheduled a sonogram.

  Sebastien sat down beside the cushioned table where she lay propped on pillows, her tailored maternity blouse pulled up to expose her rounded stomach above a dark skirt. Filled with anticipation, Sebastien playfully thumped her belly with a forefinger. “This melon is ripe, I believe.”

  She looked embarrassed. “I beg your pardon.”

  “When I worked in America, in the South, people were always in the markets during the summer, thumping enormous green watermelons. Thumping watermelons is really quite a regional custom, it seems.”

  “It is not summer, and I am not a watermelon.”

  “You are not smiling, and you should be. Even a watermelon should have a sense of humor.”

  “Sometimes, Sebastien, I think you consider yourself funny. You really aren’t, my darling, and you shouldn’t try to be amusing.”

  Frowning mildly, he sat back while the technician, a pleasant little woman, prepared to begin. He had a sense of humor, he told himself. He could remember times with Amy when he had laughed with a deep, belly-tugging joy that had made him feel clean inside. More than that, he recalled making Amy laugh in return.… But why was he thinking about her when his wife waited to share a child with him?

  “Oh, look, Sebastien!”

  Marie’s exclamation drew him out of his pensive reverie. Sebastien leaned forward, watching as the technician moved a sensor over Marie’s abdomen and an X-ray-like picture flickered on a video monitor. With all his years in medicine, with all his knowledge of sonograms and what to expect, still the sight of his own baby awed him. This little one he could love. This little one he could protect.