The Ariana Trilogy

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  She stared at me, and for a long moment our souls communicated; we were bonded by our loss. Then, “Yes,” she said in a whisper, full of hope and longing. “Please. Oh, please come in.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The July day was hot and sweltering, but my companion and I didn’t notice the heat. With smiles on our lips and a song in our hearts, we made our way from the church to Louise’s apartment, where an informal gathering was celebrating our ward’s latest converts, Elisabeth and her husband, René. They had been baptized only that day by Pierre, Louise’s oldest son, Jean-Marc’s brother.

  We’d spent two long months working with them, weaving the discussions into my story so they would listen. Getting Elisabeth to pray had been the most difficult, but her husband’s eager willingness to do anything at all that might bring his beloved wife back to herself helped things along. Many days Elisabeth and I had simply cried together. But finally, she gained a testimony for herself and had begun to live again, even thinking of having another child one day—something her husband had been urging but that she had utterly refused to consider. “To bring another child into the world so that God can take it away?” she said contemptuously the first time I had brought it up. But gradually her misplaced anger at the Lord grew into acceptance and even understanding. She began to smile and read the Book of Mormon and at last had asked to be baptized.

  “Thank you, Sister Merson,” she said afterwards. “I can never thank you enough for giving my baby boy back to me again, and my husband, and my faith.” I hugged her and cried, not knowing how to tell her that I hadn’t done anything someone hadn’t already done for me.

  My companion, a new one since Sister Moura had been transferred only last week, and I were a little late to the baptismal celebration at Louise’s because of the next three people on Jean-Marc’s list. They were all young, single people from Jean-Marc’s school days, and we had taken them to see the baptisms. Afterward they had many questions for us, so we had stayed to teach them. We had been impressed to challenge them to be baptized, and two had immediately accepted. I felt the third would soon follow. As many missionaries would be content to baptize only one person during their entire mission in France, I felt considerably blessed.

  On the way to Louise’s apartment, I was thinking about the long letter I would write to Jean-Marc the next preparation day when I saw a scrawny figure slumped, unseeing, against an apartment building near Louise’s. From the looks of the thin legs jutting out at odd angles from the rag-clothed torso, I knew it was a woman. She had her head thrown back against the wall, her dull brown hair swept up and over to cover her face entirely, dirty arms limply dangling, fingers with broken nails caught between loose cobblestones on the sidewalk.

  We stopped and stared, as did several other people. It was a repulsive sight, and part of me wanted to flee. Yet somehow, the figure was strangely familiar. People shifted uncomfortably in the hot sun. A sight such as this was familiar to some but certainly not on this side of town.

  “Call the police,” said one man somewhat tersely.

  “Yeah, we don’t want any whores around here,” said another next to him.

  “She needs help,” I heard myself saying. I drew closer to the sprawled figure, glancing only once at my American junior companion, Sister Osborne, who followed somewhat nervously.

  “Be careful, girl,” warned the first man. “These people are sometimes dangerous.”

  “And you might catch something,” murmured the second man, almost under his breath.

  I was standing beside the woman now and gingerly pushed back her hair. I gasped in shock.

  “Paulette!”

  I was kneeling beside her in an instant, shaking her and trying to wake her. When my efforts failed, I simply hugged her tightly.

  “Is she dead?” the first man asked.

  I shook my head. “Unconscious.”

  “You know her?”

  I nodded. “She was my best friend—once. She needs a doctor.” I peered up at the two men who had come closer, pleading. “Please, will you help me? There’s a doctor nearby, a friend of mine.” Even though Paulette looked thin, she was dead weight. There was no way I could get her back to the apartment alone, and my companion wouldn’t be much help because of all our books and discussion guides.

  “Not me,” said the second man, backing away.

  The other man regarded me intently for a moment. “Hey, you’re the girl on that drug commercial, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, that’s me. Will you help me?”

  “Yes, I will,” he said. “I’d do just about anything for you. Your commercial helped me get my own daughter off drugs.” He bent to pick up Paulette, while I reached for the dirty duffel bag that was half under her.

  “Thanks.” I cast a hard glance at the second man who had refused to help, but he and the others were already moving away to find something else to do with their lives.

  “Is that from your drug organization?” the man asked me, motioning to my name tag.

  So I began to explain about the Church, about how I joined and what I had been doing since. When I was finished, the man smiled at me for the first time. “It sounds as though your church is something my daughter needs. Maybe you could come by and meet her.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. It seemed as though the promise our mission president had made to us was coming true: “People are out there waiting to be baptized. They are practically falling out of the sky and into the baptismal font. Keep the mission rules, pray hard, and most of all, open your mouths, and people will find you.”

  We took Paulette to Louise’s, where the party was in full swing. At Louise’s insistence, the man who carried her stayed for refreshments. I asked Lu-Lu to be a temporary companion to Sister Osborne and help her watch over the man who unknowingly had just become our newest investigator. Then I went into the back bedroom where Louise, Elisabeth, and René were standing over Paulette.

  Now, I had exaggerated when I said I knew a doctor. René was only studying to become one and still had years left to complete his studies. But he had always planned to specialize in drug rehabilitation, so I figured he must know something.

  “Will she be all right?” I asked.

  He sighed. “I don’t know, Sister.” He pulled up her sleeve and showed me the needle tracks on her arm. “I mean, she’ll come out of it this time, but the next she may not be so lucky. She’ll have severe withdrawal symptoms, and there’s nothing we can give her that will dim the cravings. She’ll do almost anything to get drugs. It’s my bet that she’s already done things she never dreamed of doing.”

  I knew he was talking about prostitution, and I looked down at my once-best friend sadly. “Isn’t there anything we can do for her?” Even my time on the drug hotline hadn’t prepared me for this. Mostly I had talked to depressed teenagers who were thinking about doing drugs, not ones who were truly addicted.

  “Yes, we can keep her away from drugs,” René said. “But none of us has the money to put her into one of those fancy programs, and the free ones don’t have the constant supervision she’ll need until she’s stronger. That is, assuming she even wants to be free of the drugs.”

  “We can do it,” said Louise without hesitation. “We can get volunteers from the ward to stay with her while we’re working, and she can sleep here.” Her voice was firm. “Don’t worry, Ari,” she added softly, for the first time forgetting my missionary title. “We’ll help your friend, won’t we, Elisabeth?”

  Elisabeth nodded. “Remember, you told me that’s what a ward was for—to help each other. I’ll take a shift with her each day after work. And René will be our medical advisor.”

  “We’ll start with volunteers from the party.” Louise was already out the door, followed by the other two.

  I stayed behind to study Paulette’s lifeless face, the lavish makeup smeared, a blackening bruise covering one side. She looked so old and ravaged. “This is partly my fault,” I whispered to her, rememberi
ng the many times she had come to the café to play with Nette. “I never imagined how you must have suffered with Nette’s death. I’m so sorry.” I bent down to kiss her pale cheek.

  Paulette didn’t wake until late the next afternoon. Lu-Lu and another girl in the ward were with her. They helped her bathe and dress and fixed her something to eat, all the while talking and laughing like the youngsters they were. I had been calling after every teaching appointment to see how she was doing. Finally Lu-Lu announced that she was awake and wanted to see me.

  We had just finished giving the first discussion to the man who had helped us with Paulette. He, his wife, and two daughters seemed very open and willing to learn. The daughters even offered to take turns sitting with Paulette when they heard what had happened. After our lesson, they let me use their phone to call and check up on Paulette.

  “We’ll be right there, Lu-Lu!” I practically yelled into the phone. I turned to the others. “She’s awake. We’ll let you know what happens.” In seconds we were out the door and waiting to catch a bus to Louise’s apartment.

  Paulette was on the flowered couch in the sitting room when we arrived. She looked impossibly thin and somewhat rebellious. “The girls say I can’t leave without them,” she remarked. “Am I a prisoner here, or what?”

  I smiled. “Don’t be ridiculous. We just want to take care of you for a while. Will you stay?”

  A tired expression came over Paulette’s face. “Yes, I’ll stay—for now. But I’m not promising anything, Ariana.”

  “I want you to promise me one thing.” I crossed the room and sat next to her. “That before you leave, you’ll say good-bye. You didn’t the last time, you know.”

  “You didn’t either,” she muttered evasively.

  “I know, and I’m sorry.” For a moment she seemed close to tears. I reached over to hug her. “I love you, you know,” I whispered. She didn’t reply.

  The shakes started the next day. By the time I saw her again in the evening, she was nervous, hyper, and unsteady as her body cried out for the drugs. She talked too fast, didn’t listen to what was being said in return, and was rude to those who reached out to help. But the many volunteers had been warned, and they came prepared with iron-clad feelings and projects that might keep Paulette’s thoughts off drugs. The young adults in the ward took her to activities, service projects, and even home to their own families. I was continually amazed at their dedication.

  But despite their help and our first successful week of keeping Paulette off drugs, I could see she wasn’t going to make it. Everyone was working for Paulette except for Paulette. She kept talking about leaving, about finding something to relieve her tension—drugs. Yet, she didn’t go. I wasn’t sure why until we stopped by on Saturday morning.

  The door to Louise’s apartment was opened by Pierre, Jean-Marc’s brother. He looked a great deal like Jean-Marc, and every time I saw him my heart leapt, though when he spoke, it was clear he wasn’t the man whose letters were making me love him more each week.

  “Sisters! I’m so glad you’re here!” Pierre’s honest face shone with relief. “Elisabeth was supposed to be staying with Paulette, but she’s gone. I don’t know what happened. I was in the sitting room with Paulette, talking about her past—I thought it would help her to understand why she got so involved with drugs in the first place—and Elisabeth was in the kitchen listening to us, but she suddenly left. I went and knocked on her door and she wouldn’t answer, but I know she’s in there. Now I’m late for the store, and Saturday’s our biggest day. I’ve called a few people, but no one’s home or they can’t come to sit with Paulette. But that’s not the worst thing. Paulette says she’s leaving now. She’s packing that dingy old bag she has with the clothes we all gave her, and she’s leaving! Can you stop her?”

  The rush of words finally ended. I watched him with interest. For some reason he was very upset by Paulette’s pending departure, much more than I would have thought. Of course he had been spending a lot of time with her, as had Elisabeth.

  Thinking of Elisabeth brought me abruptly around. As a very new member whose testimony was still fragile, she had to be my first concern. “Okay, Sister Osborne and I will go talk to Elisabeth, quickly, just for a minute. After that we’ll talk to Paulette while you go to work and see if we can get her to stay. Then we’ll call someone to sit with her. If we can’t find anyone, we’ll take her proselyting.”

  Pierre blinked once or twice at that and then smiled the endearing grin he shared with his brother. “I like that idea.” We all laughed.

  “Now don’t let her leave, Pierre,” I said. “Tell her she promised to say good-bye to me.” He nodded, and we turned and headed down the hall to Elisabeth’s. She opened the door on the very first ring, as if she had been waiting for us.

  “I saw you through the peephole,” she admitted. “I was trying to decide whether or not to go back to Paulette when you came.” She began to wring her hands as she talked, glancing around her small entryway, avoiding our eyes.

  “What happened?” Sister Osborne asked.

  Elisabeth sighed and looked at the ceiling, blinking rapidly to stop the tears from falling. “They were talking, Paulette and Pierre, about what happened before she came here, how she used to do drugs, but how after your baby died she went totally crazy. She said that for a long time, she didn’t even know what town she was in or where she was sleeping. Just a blur, she said. But the part that got me was where she sat and watched your husband give drugs to that tiny little baby without stopping him. I suddenly couldn’t stand to be around a person who could sit and watch a baby die! I can’t believe I even spent so much time with her this week—I feel sick when I think about it!” She glared at me defiantly, but I nodded in understanding. I too had hated Paulette for what she had done—until I had seen her sprawled on the sidewalk nearly a week before. I didn’t know exactly what had changed me or when it happened, but I didn’t blame Paulette anymore.

  Then Elisabeth asked the question I knew was coming. “How can you stand to help a person who did that to your baby? I don’t think I could do it. If the person who killed my baby hadn’t also died in the car accident, I think I would hate him still!”

  I blinked and took a big breath before replying. “I hated Paulette for a long time—blamed her, even. But you don’t know how manipulative my ex-husband could be. He killed Nette; Paulette didn’t. She was even under the influence of drugs at the time it happened. She did try to stop him, and she called the police. But all that doesn’t matter, not really. The fact is that she is repentant; and no one, not you, not me, can judge her or say that Jesus’ atonement doesn’t apply to her.” Until I said the words, I hadn’t realized I felt them that strongly. “Jesus loves Paulette just as much as he loves us. We have to forgive her. Remember that by the same spirit we judge and forgive, we will be judged and forgiven. Please, Elisabeth, see if you can’t find it within yourself to forgive Paulette. She needs us now, and I know she has become especially attached to you. I’m afraid that without all of us, we will lose her.”

  I hugged her, but she didn’t return the embrace. “We’ll be over at Louise’s if you change your mind,” I added softly. “I hope you come.” My companion and I were silent as we made our way quickly back to Louise’s.

  “Thanks,” Pierre said as he left, pausing at the door to cast a pleading glance at Paulette. “Please be here when I come back.” She shook her head violently, but he was already out the door.

  “Don’t try and stop me, Ariana.” Paulette picked up her duffel bag. Her hands were shaking, and I could tell she was suffering more withdrawal pains, maybe not as severe as before, but still very real and compelling.

  Our eyes met from across the entryway, hers looking so scared and young without her mask of makeup. “Were you going to leave without saying good-bye?”

  She shrugged indifferently. “You’re the only reason I’ve stayed as long as I have—you and Pierre. But I didn’t think you would want me to say
good-bye under the circumstances.”

  That made me angry. “What circumstances—because you’re going to get a fix? Do you think I don’t know what you’re feeling? Maybe not exactly, but I do know that you’re suffering! Your face is haggard, you’ve got the shakes, and you’re downright rude! But everyone here has opened their hearts to you, given you a place to stay, helped you. Everyone except you, Paulette. It all comes down to you in the end. What do you want to do with the rest of your life? Do you even want a life?” I shook my head slowly. “No, that’s it, isn’t it? You don’t even want to live. You don’t care about any of us.”

  She didn’t reply but dropped her gaze. I moved closer to her, fighting to contain my desire to shake her. “Paulette, look at me! Can you at least tell me why? I know it’s hard, but with so much help, you could beat the drugs. Tell me, why quit now?” Tears flooded my eyes.

  Paulette clenched her jaw, and for a moment I thought she would flee, but she didn’t. “It’s you, Ariana. I keep seeing your face the night Nette died and knowing I was responsible. Every day here you have come to see me, and I see your pain again, and I don’t know how you can ever forgive me for what I’ve done!” She began to sob. I reached out, not to shake but to hug my friend.

  “But it wasn’t your fault, Paulette. And I did forgive you. It took a long time, but I don’t blame you anymore. And now you’ve got to forgive yourself.” I swallowed hard. “I know for me, forgiving myself took even longer.” I held her back to stare into her eyes again. “But look at my face now. Do you see pain, unhappiness, anger? I hope you don’t, because that’s all gone now, since I’ve accepted the truth. Take a good look at me.”

  She did as I asked and abruptly stopped crying.