Miracle

by Deborah Smith

  “Amy?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “After you arrive, let’s discuss wedding plans.” The silence that settled over the phone bewildered him. “Amy?”

  “Yes. Yeah. It’d be a very good idea. Very good.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Of course not. I was just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “Oh, that I hope you like the way I look. I’ve gained a little weight.”

  He exhaled in relief. Women and their vanity. “Is that all? Miracle, I hold nothing against a woman who likes to eat.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. That you might not want to hold anything against me.”

  Smiling, he shook his head. “Never fear. Whatever you’ve added, I’ll love it.”

  She made a garbled sound and changed the subject. Later, after he hung the phone up and lay in bed frowning into space, Sebastien realized that he was the one who felt afraid.

  One night when he returned from the office he found Marie visiting Annette. They were in the enormous drawing room in the villa’s lower level. Annette lay on a couch bundled in pale yellow blankets; Marie sat on the edge of a Louis XVI chair upholstered in tapestry as colorful as she was dark. She looked crisp and formal in a black sheath dress. Gone was all sign of her earth-mother phase. She even wore her trademark pearls.

  She stiffened as Sebastien walked into the room and scowled when he kissed her hand. “I hear that you plan to marry again. An American actress.”

  “She’s first and foremost a comedienne, then an actress. And yes, I do plan to marry her.”

  “We’ve been divorced less than a year. I never expected that you would miss married life enough to take it up again so soon.”

  “I amaze myself, sometimes. And how are you?”

  “Busy, very busy. I’m starting a chain of bookstores.”

  “I wish you very good luck.”

  She dismissed luck with an elegant wave of one hand. “When has luck meant more than serious work and the ability to put aside sentiment while one achieves a goal?”

  Sebastien laughed softly and went to a marbled fireplace, where he leaned against the mantel and lost his thoughts in the crackling orange flames. Marie had just given a neat summation of her attitude toward life. It was certainly the attitude she had applied to their marriage. He didn’t resent her for it—in fact, he had shared her view of life for many years—but he was damned glad that Amy had saved him from it.

  “… please pardon Sebastien,” Annette was saying. Sebastien lifted his head and saw that both she and Marie were watching him, Annette with amusement, Marie with cool puzzlement. “His mind wanders these days. He’s not suited for business. Too much pressure.”

  He smiled. “Yes. I’ll give it all to you, willingly. A few months and I’m sure you’ll be taking my place.”

  “I’ll hold you to your word.”

  Sebastien was still distracted by pleasant thoughts of the future. It occurred to him that he had no emotional investment in Marie anymore, and he regarded her as if she were a stranger rather than the woman who had shared so much tragedy with him. He went to her quickly, bent down, and kissed her forehead. “I’m glad to see you again,” he said sincerely. “Please excuse me for not visiting longer, but I have some paperwork to do. Good night.”

  She gaped at him. “What has come over you? You’ve changed. I hardly know you.”

  “A blessing, wouldn’t you say?” He kissed her forehead again and left the room, feeling contented and free. Tomorrow he would meet Amy in Rennes. Nothing mattered except spending a few precious days with her. More than ever she was the center of his self-discovery and the reason that he liked what he was learning about himself.

  Rennes was as old and imposing as the granite that composed nearly all of its eighteenth-century buildings. It was a handsome though somewhat pompous neoclassical city, with a few large boulevards and the distinguished Palais de Justice, where once the regional parliament had met. The newer areas bustled with modern industries and crowded suburbs.

  Sebastien drove through the city without noticing it. His mouth was dry with excitement. He pulled a sterling pocket watch from the trousers of his pinstriped black suit and checked the time. He had not wanted to be dressed so formally for her arrival, but business had kept him an hour late. He hadn’t wanted to waste minutes changing clothes. It was a long drive from Paris.

  When he reached the hotel he pressed his suitcase and several francs into a porter’s hands and called the suite number to him as he strode through a plush lobby. He had no patience for the ancient elevator with its heavily ornamented cage; instead he went to the wide staircase at the lobby’s back and ran the four flights to the top. The porter, panting for breath, scrambled after him. By the time he caught up, Sebastien was halfway down the hall on the fourth floor, searching for the suite’s door.

  “Four-fifteen. There, sir.” the porter said, pointing. “The lady arrived an hour ago.” To Sebastien’s dismay, the overzealous man leapt ahead of him and knocked on the heavy door. “Porter, madame!”

  Exasperated, Sebastien put a restraining hand on the man’s arm. “No need to carry on, thank you. You may go.”

  “Come in!” Amy called from somewhere inside the suite. The porter pushed the door open and Sebastien forgot everything except the desire to see her. He stepped inside and halted, his gaze going immediately to where she sat, smiling at him over the back of a brocaded couch, one arm artfully draped along the top. Her auburn hair was a mass of soft waves pulled back on one side with a gold comb. What little he could see of her was covered in a silky black jacket over a matching blouse that scooped low on her breasts. Her green eyes crinkled with amusement.

  Her pose and her appearance were so purposefully dramatic—and so effective—that he felt frantic with a mixture of pride, arousal, and love. She had gone to some trouble to please him.

  “This is the one you told me to look out for, isn’t he, madame?” the porter asked.

  She nodded. “He is, indeed. Thank you.” Her French was charming with its eccentric American drawl. Sebastien craved the sound of her voice.

  He pushed more money into the porter’s hand, then led him to the door. The porter grinned and waved as he shut it behind him. Sebastien pivoted and walked toward her, his hands held out, but she didn’t leap up and run to him, as he’d expected. Instead she stood with elegant slowness, swirling the long silk jacket around her and holding it closed in front of her stomach. He saw that she wore a slender black skirt and delicate black pumps. Around her neck was the Celtic cross, and on her left hand was the ring he had given her.

  The girl he had fallen in love with more than ten years before had become a woman of style and beauty, and he had never been more aware of the fact than now. But there was something new about her, too—a reserve, a mystery. Sebastien frowned a little as he circled the couch and reached for her. “No,” she said, stepping back and grasping both of his hands. “Just let me look at you for a minute.”

  Bewildered, he stood still and gazed down at her, noting now that he was close that her face had a pallor but her cheeks were flushed, and the makeup on her eyes failed to disguise their fatigue or anxiety.

  “I love you,” she said, staring at him with an anguish he couldn’t fathom.

  Sebastien squeezed her hands. “What is it? What’s wrong?” He glanced down and saw the slight thickening around her abdomen, revealed now that she’d let the jacket fall open. He stared at it, not wanting to believe what it might mean.

  “I didn’t want to tell you before now,” she said, her voice troubled. “You were overcome with your family’s problems. I wanted you to have time to get them under control a little.”

  The sharp kick of truth made his breath short. She was pregnant. He stepped back from her and dropped her hands. “When did this happen?”

  “In Paris. When I was staying with you at your sister’s home.” He listened through the roar in his ears as she r
eminded him of her flu and explained how it might have affected her birth control pills. “You know I wouldn’t have done this deliberately,” she told him. “I wasn’t careless. Please believe that.”

  He knew before he raised his eyes to her wretched expression that he believed her. “How it happened is not the problem. Why didn’t you tell me as soon as you suspected?”

  Tears glistened on her lashes. “I wanted the baby, and I was certain that you didn’t.” She hesitated, her eyes searching his. “That you don’t.” Her shoulders slumped.

  He struggled not to shout at her. “Of course I don’t! I have every reason to believe that you and I have no better chance of producing a healthy baby than Marie and I had!” He swallowed convulsively and forced a calmer voice. “I told you I couldn’t go through that again. You betrayed my trust by not telling me about this pregnancy immediately.”

  “I was trying to make it easier for us both. So many first pregnancies miscarry during the first three months … I was afraid I’d lose the baby. If I had, you never would have known.”

  “Goddamn your secrets! I don’t want you to be a martyr. I want you to include me in every decision that might hurt you, that might hurt us both.”

  “I’ve been walking a fine line between what’s best for us and what’s best for our baby. It hurt not to tell you.”

  What’s best for our baby. He felt a strangling combination of love for her and fury at what she wanted. The baby will miscarry. Or be born deformed. Or cause Amy to die from complications. He was certain of it, more than just from a rational judgment based on his past attempts at fatherhood, but from a deep, mocking fear that hollowed his insides. “My wishes don’t matter,” he said curtly. “That’s obvious.”

  There was only silence between them, a frozen silence as she stared straight into his eyes. He saw the anger and disappointment in hers. But she gave him one chance to save himself. “Tell me what you’d prefer that I do,” she whispered.

  He sank back into the old darkness. “Have an abortion.”

  Slowly she lowered herself to the couch and, folding her hands in her lap, stared straight ahead. “No. I have enough faith for both of us—for all three of us. I even have enough faith to think that you don’t really mean what you just said, and all it would take to change your mind is for me to have a healthy baby.”

  “You won’t have a healthy baby.” He clapped his hands in brusque dismissal. “So be it! If you have no respect for my wishes, at least don’t make this more difficult.” Out of fear grew a need to bully her, to take charge of the remnants of his shaky control. He would fight his superstitions any way he could. He snapped his fingers at her. “We’ll be married as soon as I can arrange the ceremony. You will not return to America. We’ll take an apartment in Paris. I’ll select several doctors for you to see on a regular basis, and you will—”

  “Go back to Paris tonight and take the first flight home.”

  He looked down at her livid face. She sat on the edge of the sofa, chin up, hands clenched so hard the bones of her knuckles looked as if they might break through the skin. “I won’t have your confusion and your anger around this baby for the next five or six months. And I won’t marry you like some embarrassed teenager who’s afraid of what people will think. Our child is not going to see our marriage license some day and wonder if we really wanted to get married. I’ll marry you after this baby is born, if I’m sure you love it as much as you love me.”

  “You’re not going back to America and live alone, much less travel and work. I forbid it. Don’t you understand? No matter how I feel about this pregnancy, I want to take care of you.”

  Her stiffness faded. Tears crept down her face and she looked up at him with yearning. “You wouldn’t be taking care of me if I knew that you hated our child.”

  “I don’t hate what I can’t believe in!” He slashed the air with his hands. “Don’t you understand? There’s too much pain involved in waiting and hoping. I don’t want to drive you away, but don’t ask me to play the happy, expectant father!”

  She wiped roughly at her face. “All right. But you’ll love the baby when it gets here. So why not pretend it’s going to be fine?”

  “Listen to me.” He bent over her, his hands out in fierce supplication. “I don’t even know anymore what kind of father I’d make. I wonder if I’m even capable of showing the kind of warmth and patience that children need.”

  “You are.”

  “Damm it! You live inside some kind of hopeful little cocoon that’s no more protection than a coat of thin air! You think if you want something badly enough, you’ll have it.”

  “I wanted you. I have you. I wanted to be in show business. I am. So don’t make fun of my cocoon.”

  “You can’t always win.” He sent a scathing look at her abdomen, and she pulled the jacket over it. “This time I think you’re being a fool.”

  She stood, wobbling a little. “Maybe. At least your reaction is no worse than I expected. Excuse me.” She kicked her high-heel shoes off and disappeared quickly through a doorway to the suite’s bedroom. He followed her to the pink-marble bath and found her in the confines of the toilet closet, retching into the commode. When he knelt beside her and pressed a wet washcloth to her forehead she began to sob.

  He cleaned her face, ignoring her when she tried to push his hands away. Finally, looking exhausted, she leaned against him. He helped her up and poured a glass of water so that she could rinse her mouth. They were both silent and avoided looking at each other. He led her to the suite’s damask-draped bed and they lay down. She turned away from him but didn’t protest when he curved himself to her back and hips. He put his arm over her but avoided touching her abdomen. If she noticed, she didn’t comment, but clasped his hand tightly inside both of hers.

  His throat was raw, so he didn’t say anything, either. Nothing was needed. He felt bitter and frightened, and he didn’t want this baby. She knew. He loved her. She knew that, too. As for the rest, she’d have to accept that they were going to deal with this situation his way, which meant she would come back to Paris and live under his strict supervision.

  Eventually she fell asleep. He considered it a sign of surrender, and kissed her tangled hair before allowing his own emotional exhaustion to take him under. His dreams were vivid and troubling; in them she died or disappeared, and he saw faceless babies.

  When he woke up the room was dark and he was alone in bed. He ran through the suite, looking for her, but she and her luggage were gone. He found a note tucked under the handle of his own suitcase. You work on loving our baby, and I’ll take care of myself.

  A week later, when she finished her set and walked off stage at a club in Minneapolis, Sebastien was waiting for her. She wavered between welcome and dread when she saw him, his thin black windbreaker pushed back along the side of his powerful torso, his expression above a pale golf shirt as cool as the Minnesota summer, his hands shoved aggressively into the front pockets of tailored slacks. He was an elegant anomaly posed against a background of neon liquor signs and autographed publicity photos from road comics no one knew.

  Leaving him in the Rennes hotel suite had been one of the hardest decisions of her life, but she didn’t regret it. She had to force him to choose between his past and their future.

  She walked to him slowly, her knees weak. She wanted so badly to hold out her arms and beg him to say that everything was all right, that he had come here to say that he wanted the baby. Then she noticed the stoic little woman in a stern brown raincoat standing beside him with an enormous leather suitcase by her feet.

  Amy glanced from his matronly, graying companion to his frown. Nothing she could say would sum up her dilemma better than the truth. “I haven’t changed my mind, but I’m glad that you found me,” she said, halting close to him and looking directly into his eyes.

  They betrayed his turmoil for a moment before he cleared his throat and gestured brusquely toward the woman. “Meet Magda Diebler. Frau Diebler, th
is is Amy Miracle.”

  “Hello, Frau Miracle,” Frau Diebler said with an accent as heavy as bratwurst.

  “Hello.” Amy shot Sebastien an astonished look. He jerked his head toward the open area behind him, which included the lobby, bar, and club offices. “Is there someplace where you and I can talk in private?”

  “I’m the headliner. I’ve got my own dressing closet. I think we can both squeeze in there.”

  “Good. Frau Diebler, excuse us a moment.”

  Frau Diebler straightened and gave a little snap with her head. Her braided coil and salt-and-pepper hair shifted forward with the subtle salute. “Ja, Herr Doctor.”

  Amy led him down a side hall to a narrow door that bore a sign hand-lettered with her name. Occupying the tiny space inside was a vanity, a bathroom, a clothes rack, and one folding chair for guests. She lowered herself onto the vanity bench as he took the chair. She could feel the pulse ticking swiftly in her throat.

  “You mock our love and respect for each other,” he said stiffly.

  “I refuse to live with you unless you try to love our baby.” She leaned forward and grasped his hands. “No baby of mine is gonna be born unwanted … or at least, it’s never gonna know that its father didn’t want it. You saw what I went through because of my father. Dear Lord, Sebastien, look what you went through because of yours. Don’t do that to your own child.”

  He imprisoned her hands inside his and gripped them harshly. A muscle worked in his cheek, “That’s exactly what I’m trying to avoid. Another mistake.”

  “Or a chance to make things right!”

  “You and I have our lives in order now. Every happiness we want is within our grasp, because we’re together. I’ve waited so long for this. I don’t want to feel cursed anymore. I don’t want anything to jeopardize our relationship.”

  “I know, Doc. Don’t you think I want to protect what we have between us? But now that includes a baby. I didn’t plan it, and I certainly wouldn’t have deliberately gone against your wishes. It happened. If you believe in signs and omens, take this as a good one.”