I kept a firm grasp on his hand as we started down the path to the main house. There was no moon out and the darkness pervaded every crack in the landscape.
“I can’t see a thing,” I murmured.
Jean Marc hand tightened around mine. “Helpless at last.”
“I’ve taken self defense classes buster, so watch it.”
His warm breath stirred against my face as his fingers fondled my engagement ring. “Why don’t you just beat me over the head with that rock on your hand, or sick that overprotective fiancé of yours on me?”
“John is far from overprotective,” I asserted, feeling his body close to mine.
He sighed next to me. “Then he doesn’t deserve you.”
“Maybe it’s the other way around. I don’t deserve him.”
“Nora, you don’t have to…never mind.” He moved away from me. “Let’s just get you back to the house.”
When the lights of the main house finally broke through the darkness, Jean Marc stopped.
“You can make it the rest of the way by yourself.” He let go of my hand and a sudden coolness came between us.
“What time do you want me to come over tomorrow night?”
“After Henri goes to sleep.” He stepped away. “And Nora?”
“Yes, Jean Marc.”
“Leave that damn ring on the dresser when you come over.”
“Why?” I laughed, thinking he was joking with me.
“Just do it,” he harshly ordered. Then I heard the sound of his feet crushing the grass beneath him as he walked away.
Chapter 19
The next morning I was up with the sun, seeing to Henri and helping Ms. Marie set up a schedule for her son. We went over therapy sessions and medication times. I wrote the whole week out on a chart for Ms. Marie and Henri to see and posted it on the wall by his bed.
“What did he…pay you…to come here?” Henri asked me later that day after his therapy session. He was lying tucked into his hospital bed, watching me.
“Who?” I inquired while I folded some sheets for his bed.
“My brother.”
“He didn’t pay me.” I put the sheet down and faced Henri. “I told you, I wanted to come.”
“For…me?”
I nodded my head. “Yes.”
“Liar.” He tried to smirk at me, but it appeared more like a grimace.
“No, I’m not lying. I came to help you and your mother.”
“And Jean Marc.” He looked out the window next to his bed. “He has…always wanted…you.”
“Jean Marc loves me like a sister, Henri. You once said I’ve always been like a sister to the two of you.”
“Not…to Jean Marc. I could always…tell. So could…your uncle.”
I pulled back the tight blankets Ms. Marie had buried Henri under. “Now I know you’re feeling better. You’re starting to egg me on like you used to when we were kids. You were always so damned cocky.”
“You…loved it.”
I shook my head. “Lord, this is going to be a long two weeks.”
* * *
After I had put Henri to bed for the night, I went to my bedroom to prepare for my evening with Jean Marc. I tried to convince myself that our time together was merely for discussing business, but I could not quell my nervous energy. I dressed in my casual black slacks and a long-sleeved shirt before heading to the bathroom to apply my make up. I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror and putting on my lipstick, when I saw a shadow cross my open bedroom door.
“You look nice. You goin’ out?” Uncle Jack inquired as he came in and sat down on my bed.
I shrugged, trying to appear casual. “No, I’m just going over to help Jean Marc with the company books.”
“You need lipstick for that?”
I turned from the bathroom mirror and scowled at my uncle. I put the lipstick back in my make up bag and exited the bathroom.
“You leadin’ that boy on?” he asked.
“Who?”
“Jean Marc.” He nodded to my left hand. “You’re engaged to that doctor. If you’re goin’ to sport with Jean Marc and marry that doctor, you’ll break poor Jean Marc’s heart, and I couldn’t stand to let you do that. I love that boy. You do too. Just don’t know it yet.” He stood from the bed.
“Is that why you came up here, Uncle Jack? To tell me that?”
He shook his head. “Your mama called my cell phone. She wants a word with you.”
I waited until Uncle Jack had left my bedroom before I retrieved my cell phone from my purse. Mother answered after the first ring.
“You went to Manchac to care for that good for nothing Henri? Are you insane, Nora?” Mother began, shouting at me. “You leave your fiancé and run off to those godforsaken swamps to care for a suspected murderer. You have a wedding to plan. I’ve got over three hundred people on the guest list already, your dress is not fitted yet, your china has not been picked out, you haven’t even decided on a band for the reception, and you’re playing nurse to that white trash snake.”
“Did John tell you I was here?”
“Of course he did!” she hollered. “He’s worried sick about you. He told me he has tried your cell phone repeatedly and only gets your voice mail. He has called the house three times, and Marie always tells him you’re busy.”
I swore silently to myself. “It was not his place to say anything to you, Mother.”
“What’s wrong with him telling me? He’s going to be my son-in-law, Nora, and he thought I should know the whereabouts of my daughter.”
“I was going to call you when I was ready, Mother.”
“Ready!” Her voice broke under the tension. “Nora Theresa Kehoe, do you not give a damn about your fiancé, about me, about your future? I’m at the end of my rope. Since the beginning, planning this wedding has been like pulling teeth with you. I don’t understand you anymore.”
“Did you ever understand me, Mother?” I sighed as I looked down at the engagement ring on my finger.
There was an uncharacteristic moment of silence over the phone. I could still hear Mother’s teeth grinding, so I knew she had not yet hung up on me.
“What in the hell is the matter with you?” she questioned, trying to keep her voice steady. “You have a handsome doctor who wants to marry you. Then you run off and leave him hanging for some low class bum and his worthless family.”
I stared at my cell phone as that familiar nagging burn flared in the pit of my stomach. “I’ll be back in two weeks. Why don’t you just forget about the wedding for a while? Take a vacation.” I pulled the phone away from my ear. “You sound like you could use it.” Without another thought, I hung up.
I headed out the back door of Gaspard House and found myself almost running toward the path that led to Jean Marc’s cottage. My mother’s words kept circling around my head like tornado. Three hundred wedding guests, the dress fittings, the band for the reception, all the things she wanted done. All the things she felt were important for me. Then, I began to think of John and about his demands, his timetable for our life, and all the things he thought were necessary for us. As I made my way along the path, the wall of trees on either side of me began closing in, choking off my breath and stifling my voice. I picked up my pace, jogging quickly, then running, and before I knew where I was heading, I broke free of the trees and I was standing in the clearing in front of Jean Marc’s cottage.
I stopped and bent over, grabbing my knees and trying to catch my breath, but I couldn’t. The wall of trees closing in around me was gone, but the feeling of panic was still ricocheting within my chest. My heart was pounding and I was breathing in short, fast gasps, as if there was not enough air to satisfy me.
“Stop…this,” I wheezed, trying to halt the anxiety coursing through me.
“Nora!” a man’s voice cried out, sounding far away across the clearing.
I glanced up from the ground to see Jean Marc standing on the steps of his cottage.
I tried to call to him, but my lips could not form the words. All I could do was stand there, fighting for breath and wishing the world would swallow me up.
I thought I could make out Jean Marc rushing down the steps toward me, but the little black spots forming before my eyes were making it difficult to see.
“Nora!” I heard his voice coming closer.
I forced my lips to obey my commands, but the words only sounded garbled and unintelligible.
“Nora!” His voice sounded close by, but by this time I could not tell if it was truly him, or some figment of my imagination. Blurry spots and flashes of light were zooming around before my eyes, and then, just when I tried to stand up, everything went black.
* * *
I woke up spread out on Jean Marc’s red leather couch inside the little cottage, not entirely sure how I got there. As I tried to sit up, the dizziness hit me.
“Whoa, there. Take it easy, Nora.” Jean Marc kneeled next to the couch and gently guided me to a sitting position.
“What happened?” I asked as I placed my hands on either side of my head.
“You were hyperventilating like hell when I got to you. Next thing I know, you went out like a light. I carried you in here and put you on the couch.” He reached to the coffee table behind him and grabbed a mug. “Here. It’s chicken soup.”
I frowned at the mug in his hand. “I don’t have the flu, Jean Marc.”
“Well, I didn’t know what to do. I’m not the doctor, Nora.” He put the mug back on the coffee table.
“Do you have any Valium, Xanax, or Ativan?”
He shook his head, half-laughing. “No, of course not.”
“Then how about a beer?” I closed my eyes, hoping to ease the throbbing in my head.
“Yeah, I got beer.”
I listened as his feet padded across the hardwood floor to the kitchen, and then heard the clink of two bottles coming together. When I opened my eyes, Jean Marc was standing by the couch, holding out a cold longneck to me. After greedily taking the bottle from him, I poured the liquid into my mouth.
Jean Marc had a seat on the coffee table across from me and watched me quickly down three gulps of beer. “So what happened out there?”
“I had an anxiety attack,” I told him, after swallowing the cool alcohol. “A pretty bad one.”
“Anxiety attack? You? That’s something new.” He raised his bottle of beer to his lips.
“I haven’t had one in years. After Dad died, I used to have them quite a bit.”
He leaned in closer to me. “I don’t understand. Why were you having anxiety attacks?”
“Mother was spending a lot of money. Money we didn’t have. I remember phone calls from bill collectors, and people showing up at the house looking for money. I thought we were going to end up on the streets; living in a cardboard box, with Baccarat crystal and Royal Worcester china, but living in a box, nonetheless.”
He placed his bottle on the coffee table. “Why didn’t you call me? You could have talked to me, Nora. Even come here to stay, you know that.”
“Mother would never have allowed that. You know how she feels about your family. Anyway, you were in Texas at the time. You couldn’t have helped.” I took another swig from my beer.
“I didn’t leave you, Nora,” he softly said.
I lowered my eyes to the green bottle in my hand as I remembered back to the time right after Jean Marc went off to college. “For a long time I thought you did leave me. I was really mad at you for leaving. I remember crying into my pillow every night for days after you left for college. When I grew up, I realized you probably needed to get away for one reason or another. I thought perhaps I would hear from you. You were gone twelve years, Jean Marc. That’s a long time.”
He placed his hand under my chin and raised my eyes to his. “Before I went off to school, you asked me to marry you. You thought maybe that would make me stay.”
I removed his hand from my chin. “I was eight and you were eighteen. It would never have worked out.”
“You even gave me a ring made from aluminum foil. You had painted it gold, and glued rhinestones on it.”
I laughed and put my drink on the coffee table. “I had forgotten about that ring. I stole the rhinestones from one of Mother’s dresses. She about killed me when she found that dress.”
“I still have that ring,” he disclosed.
My heart skipped a beat as his eyes stared into mine. A nerve-racking silence settled between us. I looked away and fidgeted on the couch, pretending to get comfortable.
He picked up his beer from the table. “What brought on tonight’s anxiety attack?”
I took a deep breath. “I had a fight with my mother. She yelled, I listened and then I hung up on her. Never have hung up on her before.”
“Let me guess. She’s mad because you’re here and not in New Orleans planning your wedding. Is that what brought on the attack?”
“No, her telling me about the three hundred people she has on her guest list. That’s what did it.”
He lightly chuckled. “I’m sure my name is not on that list.” He took another sip from his longneck.
“I will be adding your family to my list.”
“Thanks, but I have no intention of watching you throw your life away at an expensively catered affair.” He pointed down at my left hand. “I thought I told you not to wear that ring tonight.”
“Yeah, I wore it, so what?” I jumped from the couch. “Stop treating me like a child, Jean Marc; and while you’re at it, you can stop acting like a child, as well.”
“Me?” He slammed his bottle of beer on the coffee table. “You’re the child here, Nora. Letting people boss you around, having an anxiety attack because you hung up on your mother.” He stood up next to me.
“I did not have an anxiety attack because of that. I had one because….” I stopped and turned away. “I have to get out of here,” I mumbled, and started for the front door.
“Oh, no.” Jean Marc was behind me, racing me to the door. “You’re not leaving here just when things start to get interesting.” He leapt in front of the door, blocking my escape.
“Get out of my way!”
“Why, Nora? Why are you running from me? What are you so afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid of anything, especially not you. Now let me out of here.” I reached for the door handle.
“Not until you tell me what has upset you?” He grabbed my arms, pinning them to my sides.
“I can’t do this,” I whispered as the fight faded within me. “I thought if I came here and saw you…but I can’t just throw everything away for you.”
He moved his face closer to mine. “Do you have feelings for me, Nora?” He grinned, a cruel grin. “Maybe you had a panic attack because tonight you realized you can’t marry John.”
“I have to marry John!”
“You don’t love him, Nora!”
“I care for him,” I insisted in a quivering voice.
“Admit it.” His lips hovered over mine. “You’re in love with me.”
My knees began caving in. “I’m not in love with you.”
He wrapped me in his arms. “Yes, you are. You’ve always been in love with me, Nora. Just like I’ve always been in love with you.”
His lips came down ruthlessly on mine just as my legs gave way. He pressed my body to his and a rush of passion consumed me. I was overwhelmed by his kiss, overcome by the force and desire behind it. I wanted to pull away, but then again I did not want it to stop.
His kissed my cheek and forehead. “How do you feel now?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted as his lips burned against my skin.
Suddenly, he let me go. “What am I doing?” He turned away from me. “Go back to the house, Nora.” He opened the front door. “I don’t want to compete with another man. I’ve done it before and I really don’t want to go down that road again. If you want me and just me, you know where to find me.”
I exami
ned Jean Marc’s profile as he stood beside the open door. I noticed how his straight nose sloped down perfectly to his upper lip, the strong line of his jaw, and the way his jaw muscles were flexing under his cheek.
“You’re right.” I sighed and took a step toward the door. “I can’t have both of you.”
I ran from the house and across the clearing just as the last gasps of sunlight were fading behind the trees.
Chapter 20
For the next three days I stayed inside Gaspard House and never ventured beyond the back porch. I took care of Henri, helped Ms. Marie with chores, and when I wasn’t needed for anything, I sat on my bed, thinking.
I kept running the conversation with Jean Marc over in my mind. He had said he loved me, and it had not been because it was the right moment or time to define our relationship. His declaration had been spontaneous, passionate, and completely unexpected. Or was it? That was what really bothered me. I guess I had always known how he felt, but never wanted to confront it.
For years I had believed that I was impervious to my mother’s toxic tirades against the Gaspard family, but looking back, I had to question if some of her venom had not found its way under my skin. Perhaps if she had been more accepting of them, I would have been more receptive to Jean Marc. All my life I thought I had been ignoring my mother’s constant nagging, only to discover I had been listening all along.
As I deliberated on my growing feelings for Jean Marc, my thoughts eventually turned to John. The practical Dr. Blessing had never made me feel the way Jean Marc had. His timetable of how to proceed with our relationship had cut me off from my emotions. But Jean Marc had awakened those dormant emotions. With him I was empowered, alive, and ready to conquer the world. With John, I simply wanted to disappear into a hole and never again face the sunshine.
I placed my head in my hands and sighed. “Mother is going to have a stroke.”
* * *
The following afternoon I had just put Henri in bed for a nap after one of his physical therapy sessions when I joined Ms. Marie in the kitchen. Henri was making progress and was able to stand and walk without assistance, but his right foot still dragged behind him and his right hand was still too weak to hold on to objects such as a spoon or fork. Ms. Marie, on the other hand, believed that every day brought new miracles of recovery.
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