“I’m sorry I waited until a time like this to come back,” she finally offered.
She had pulled her hair up into a clip, giving me a full look at her face. Still the same high cheekbones set behind round baby cheeks, and almond-shaped eyes that remarkably changed hue with her mood.
I hadn’t expected her to change though, had I?
“Why? Why are you sorry?” I asked her. With a twinge of unease, I wondered if I had misjudged her intentions. And what of my own? To close a door so a new one could open? Perhaps my own grief and awkwardness had blinded my better judgment. No, not perhaps: probably.
Bitten with cynicism from a long and taxing day, I added, “I didn’t bring you here so we could reminisce about our…colorful history.”
She set her coffee on the glass table and looked down at her hands, now fidgeting in her lap. She had always done that when she was nervous or cornered. Was she going to bring up the past or was she simply getting the long-overdue apology out of the way before moving on to me and what I was going through? Was she even here because of me?
It wasn’t fair of me to be so selfish, but then it wasn’t fair to have lost my wife in such a cruel way. Nothing was fair. I had been rash in my decision to bring her here, to think she would be able to somehow lessen my pain and help me move on. I knew then I didn’t want to talk about the past and I simultaneously realized we were at cross intentions.
“Please forgive me, that wasn’t where I was aiming. I said I was sorry because I am." Her words were hasty, as if she thought if she didn’t get them out in one stream, they would fade on her tongue.
“I am sorry that because of what I did, you’re in such a deep despair.”
What?
“What would cause you to say such a thing?” I stood up, fuming. The conversation had taken a sharp turn in the wrong direction. For her to come back into my life, on the day I buried my wife, and downplay my marriage as a rebound affair?
Who did she think she was?
But isn’t she right?
Fuck you.
“Oz, that isn’t-“
I thrust my hands out to stop her when she started toward me. The room was spinning, or perhaps it was my head. I realized I hadn’t eaten a single thing all day, but it was too late to do anything about it now. I felt my blood pressure rise, quickly and violently. An overwhelming need to keep Janie, Naomi, and myself on one side of the room, and her on the other, consumed me.
“The love I had, and still have, for Janie was wonderful and it was real. And out of that love came the most amazing little girl, and I wouldn’t take any of it back for the world. I can’t say the same about you,” I spat at her.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, my words had the desired reaction. I could see I had hurt her. Truly, this only made me feel worse because it was not in my nature to hurt others. The fact I was even considering her feelings made me angry at myself. I wanted this day over.
“I deserved that,” she conceded. “But I didn’t come here to make light of your marriage to Janie. I know you loved her, and I only wanted to say I was sorry things happened the way they did.
“Oz, I felt like my leaving you caused you nothing but pain. I’m not talking about your marriage; I’m talking about your loss of it. I feel responsible for it. No, I think I am responsible for it.”
She never was very good at choosing her words carefully. This only stirred up my anger again.
It was not gradual, what happened next. It was as if I had been drop kicked, slapped crudely across the face, then slammed into a brick wall. The surreal day became painfully lucid.
Oh my God, I’m finally losing it.
It was only partly her fault; mainly she happened to be present when I finally lost my grip. I looked up at the grandfather clock, which had belonged to Janie’s ancestors. The oak armoire in the corner that was her great-grandmother’s. The Civil War era chandelier in the dining room which had been passed down from one of her relatives. Janie, Janie, Janie, everything around me lived and breathed her! It was all too much, too fast, and I felt an invisible hand encircle my chest and squeeze.
Struggling to breathe, my chest further constricted as I tried to inhale.
A day which had been so complicated was immediately simple. She was a stranger to me now and I wanted her gone.
Spinning, wavering, the room danced circles around me until I gripped the mantle for balance. My hands slipped and the right hand came in contact with the edge of the marble, drawing blood.
“Oz? Are you alright?”
I heard her voice, at least I thought I did, but it was echoed and distant like a faraway train whistle at the end of a tunnel. I had no perception of what was happening to me, no firm grasp on reality, and it happened so fast I didn’t have time to make sense of it.
Everything started to fade and blur and come together. I could still hear my guest's voice, but all I could see was Janie. The next thing I remember was looking up at the ceiling from the floor.
Her mouth was moving, so I knew she was still talking, perhaps screaming. The room continued to spin, taunting me with my dead wife’s life print on everything we owned.
When I came to, I was lying on my bed, and she was sitting at my side. She had been crying, and despite having taken great pains to repair her make-up, her eyes were bloodshot.
“What happened?” I asked her, though I remembered every painful moment
“I don’t know Oz. One minute we were talking, the next you were on the floor, screaming.” Her voice trembled and she placed a cool washcloth on my forehead.
In her still-puffy eyes I saw a look I instantly recognized and just as quickly regretted seeing. It was a look that stopped time for me when I was twenty-one years old. Gave me butterflies of a roller-coaster caliber. It was a way Janie had never been able to make me feel.
Now, lying on my bed, I wished more than anything she would stop looking at me like that.
I wanted Janie back. I wanted to hold her again; I wanted to make love to her. I wanted to talk to her about my clients at the firm, and tell her how my day was, and learn about hers. I wanted her to come with me to the park so we could take Naomi on a picnic. I wanted all of these things I hadn’t wanted enough when she was alive.
But the reality of it was I had eight good months with my wife. Eight. I had the eight months all married couples daydream about years down the road when the honeymoon stage is but a distant memory. Eight months of her giving me everything she had to give and me only meeting her halfway.
We spent the rest in and out of hospitals, going for chemotherapy, and praying for the chance we might see the cancer go into remission.
It never did. I could deny it until I was blue in the face, but Janie had really died four months ago in the doctor’s office the day we received the news. And though she put on a brave face for me, and for Naomi, inside she had already given up, already thrown in the proverbial towel. She had begun to accept what I refused to until the very end. Part of me wasn’t even surprised when the police officer showed up at the door with Naomi shivering in a blanket to deliver the news.
Whether I was willing to face it or not, I knew, with the exception of my daughter, the last year of my life was quickly fading to a whisper. I could not go back and give her more of me, and make the last year of her life more worthwhile. And that, really, is what hurt the most. Regrets and good intentions carry forward. They cannot undo a past wrong.
True as that may be, your feelings stem more from guilt than love. And that is what hurts the most.
“I don’t know what made me come here.” She was overwhelmed with all she had just seen and seemed to realize for the first time the impact of her impeccable timing. “I can come back another time and we can talk,” she suggested. I reached out and seized her arm.
“I don’t want you to leave, Adrienne.”
“Oz-“
My eyes pleaded with her not to refuse me, knowing I was acting on irrational feelings, trying to make plans I
would come to regret perhaps even more than the last conversation with my wife. Still, I was overcome with such a deep loneliness I knew of no other way to conquer it.
“You don’t want this,” she whispered, brushing my forehead softly with her hand.
“I know,” I said, just as soft, but less convincing. After all, being right was only half of it. Was I going to hell for trying to sleep with this woman on the same day I put my wife into her tomb? Probably. It didn’t matter. Whoever it was I had grown up to be, it was not the person I set out to be.
I turned from her then and closed my eyes, allowing the tears and exhaustion to lull me into sleep. I pushed the voice of guilt from my head, banishing it so I could get momentary peace. Adrienne made no move to leave, and when I woke up around one the next morning, I found her curled up sideways in the chair beside my bed, sleeping peacefully.
Not so long ago, at the tender age of one and twenty-one, I had been ready to make this woman my wife. Instead she chose another life and so I had chosen mine.
But it was with her that my life really began.
Ancestry of August and Blanche Deschanel
All current Deschanels are either descendants of August, or descendants of Blanche. Below is a representation of the direct ancestry leading to their entrance into the family tree. For more detailed ancestry charts, please visit www.sarahmcradit.com.
Current year in the series is 2006.
Charles Deschanel I (1810-1908) + Brigitte L’Allarde (1832-1866)
I
Jean Deschanel (1846-1931) + Julianne Bonapartie (1848-1896)
I
Charles Deschanel II (1875-1930) + Amelia Cutright (1880-1910)
I
August & Blanche (siblings)
Descendants of August Deschanel (1905-1961)
August Deschanel and his second wife, Colleen Brady, had seven children in total, six surviving into adulthood. From those immediate progeny, came sixteen grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. August’s grandchild, Nicolas, is the current living Deschanel heir.
Charles Deschanel III (1950-1996)
Children by Cordelia Hendrickson (1951-1996):
Nicolas (1975)
Children by Lisette Duchene (1958-1980):
Nathalie (1977-1996)
Giselle (1978-1996)
Lucienne (1979-1996)
Adrienne (1980) m. Oz Sullivan (1975)
Children by Angelique Fontaine:
Anne (1981)
Augustus Deschanel (1951)
Children by Ekatherina Vasilyeva (1950-1975):
Anasofiya (1975)
Colleen Deschanel Jameson (1952)
Children by Noah Jameson (1950):
Amelia (1976)
Ben (1977-1996) m. Laurel Green (1977-1996)
Ashley (1978) m. Christine Eames (1978)
Madeline Deschanel (1953-1970)
Evangeline Deschanel Gehring (1954)
Children by Johannes Gehring (1955):
Markus (1985)
Katja (1987)
Maureen Deschanel Blanchard (1956)
Children by Edouard Blanchard (1935-1998):
Olivia (1975) m. Greg Claiborne (1975)
Alain (1980)
Elizabeth Deschanel Sullivan (1959)
Children by Connor Sullivan (1960):
Danielle (1982-1996)
Tristan (1985)
Descendants of Blanche Deschanel (1906-1990)
Blanche Deschanel had three husbands over the course of her colorful lifetime. The first, Ellis Kenner, died under suspicious circumstances before they could produce issue. She had only one child with her second husband, Johnson Guidry, who also died of suspicious cause. Finally, she had three with her third husband, Claudius Broussard, of whom it was said she finally met her match. The Broussard line then additionally produced the Fontenot and Dubois branches.
Blanche and Johnson Guidry (1890-1930) begat Pierce Guidry (1950-1996)
Children by Winnifred Babin (1926):
Pansy Guidry (1949)
Fathers unknown:
Rex (1973) m. Sissy Dupuis (1975)
Clothilde (1976) m. Virgil Dupuis (1970)
Eugenia (1978) m. Beau Frederick (1977)
Antoine (1980)
Eloise (1982) m. Napoleon Audette (1980)
Rene (1987)
Alton Guidry (1950)
Kitty Guidry Marsolet (1954)
Children by Landry Marsolet (1952):
Charles (1980)
Winnifred (1984)
Blanche and Claudius Broussard (1900-1975) begat Eugenia Broussard Fontenot (1940)
Children by Wallace Fontenot (1939):
Luther Fontenot (1962)
Children by Josephine Plaisance (1964):
Remy (1981)
Fleur (1981) (twins)
Theodore (1990)
Llewellyn Fontenot (1963)
Children by Sophie Doucet (1962):
Charlotte (1983)
Annette (1987)
Lowell Fontenot (1964)
Children by Julia Vizier (1965):
Noelle (1990)
Blanche and Claudius Broussard (1900-1975) begat Cassius Broussard (1942)
Children by Helene Barrow (1944):
Jasper Broussard (1963)
Children by Pandora Prejean (1963):
Leander (1982)
Estella (1984)
Harriett (1987)
Imogen Broussard Dubois (1965)
Children by Harris Dubois (1960):
Leon (1985)
Violet (1988)
Dive into the secretive, ancient, powerful world of the Deschanels and Sullivans…
THE HOUSE OF CRIMSON & CLOVER:
Volume 1: The Illusions of Eventide
Nicolas spent 30 years under his flawed set of principles. Mercy, three millennia under hers. Both are bound by these chosen illusions, until their paths unexpectedly cross.
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Volume 2: Bound
Beyond Eventide: Bound- Ana, Finn, and Aidrik are forever bound. By love, promises, and the undeniable threads of fate.
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BN: http://bit.ly/1eqQpqZ
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Volume 3: Midnight Dynasty
The Deschanel Curse is back. Who will be its next victim?
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BN: http://bit.ly/1tzZCY6
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Volume 4: Asunder
Destiny reaches across the centuries.
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Google Books: http://bit.ly/1q5zCVR
All Romance: http://bit.ly/1yQZ54z
Goodreads: http://bit.ly/1qtvPzD
HOUSE OF CRIMSON & CLOVER PREQUELS:
The Storm and the Darkness
Ana is about to discover a startling truth: there exists no greater darkness than the one which lives inside of us.
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BN: http://bit.ly/IeFN
SW
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Google Books: http://bit.ly/1qLe7nX
All Romance: http://bit.ly/1zBoVug
Goodreads: http://bit.ly/1bopnAM
Beyond Darkness: Shattered
Think you know the story of Ana, Finn, and Jon? Guess again.
Amazon: http://amzn.to/SmOtuA
BN: http://bit.ly/NmUOoa
Kobo: http://bit.ly/1aS4PnI
Itunes: http://bit.ly/1ibzVGY
Google Play: http://bit.ly/1uqOQES
Google Books: http://bit.ly/1ufIEOr
Flourish: The Story of Anne Fontaine (A La Famille Lagniappe) Page 6
