The Ariana Trilogy

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  Louise looked about ready to explode, but I cautioned her. “Let it ride for tonight,” I said. “We’ll decide what to do later.” It wasn’t really our choice, I knew. But our actions could force Lu-Lu into a quick decision—one she might regret. Lu-Lu was coming back into the room, so there was no time for further discussion. I was glad to see Louise purse her lips and say nothing.

  While Jean-Marc explained the details of how we had found out about Paulette, I went to the kitchen to make hot chocolate, forgetting for a moment about our fast. It was really an excuse to escape the tense conversation in the sitting room. As the milk heated, the phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Ariana, it’s me,” my mother said. Her voice was rough as though from crying.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “I just wanted to talk with you.”

  “You told Father, didn’t you?” I waited for a response and then prompted, “And?”

  Usually my mother was full of words, but tonight I had to drag them from her.

  “He got angry. Said he wouldn’t allow it.”

  “And you said?”

  “I said I was going to do it anyway, and he said that if I loved the Church more than I loved him, then I should be baptized. Then he went into his study.”

  I wasn’t surprised; Father always retreated to his study when things didn’t go as he planned. He liked to control the world around him, and he became upset when someone altered or disagreed with what he believed was right. “Give him time,” I said, gently fingering one of the white roses arranged in a large vase in the middle of the table. Their sweet smell contrasted sharply with the horror that had come into our lives, and I was grateful to be reminded of beauty in the midst of our ugly reality.

  “I don’t have any choice, do I?” my mother said bitterly.

  But she did have choices; we all did. Except Paulette.

  “The Church is true!” my mother continued. “I can’t deny it any longer. But I love him. We’ve been through everything together, and our love is stronger now than it has ever been. I can’t lose him, yet I feel torn. I want to follow the Lord! Doesn’t God come first?”

  I was unsure what to tell her until I remembered my father’s face in the cemetery. “He loves you,” I said. “As much as you love him. He has to come around.”

  “I don’t know, Ari. He’s so stubborn.”

  “Well, so was I.” We talked more, until the despair faded from her voice.

  “Are you still coming over tomorrow?” I asked finally. “To be here when we find out the test results?”

  “Of course. Our fighting has nothing to do with you. You’re calling the hospital at nine, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll be there for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  The milk had long since boiled over onto the stove and had actually put out the fire underneath the gas burner. “I have to go now, Mother. I love you. Will you remind Father about tomorrow?”

  “As if he’d forget. But I’ll tell him.”

  I hoped my request would at least force them to talk. Perhaps it might even draw them together and help my father rethink his objection to my mother’s baptism. Regrettably, the thought held little hope.

  I cleaned up the milk and had started to relight the burner when I remembered the fast. Guiltily, I switched off the gas and went instead to check on the children. The twins’ bedroom door was ajar, and I pushed it open wider with my hand. The light from the hallway cut into the room, illuminating it enough to see my children and Marie-Thérèse sleeping peacefully in their beds.

  I kissed each soft cheek, marveling at how peaceful they were, how like small angels. How could Jean-Marc stand to be separated from them so much? Josette opened her eyes, and her hands went up and around my neck. “I love you, Mommy.”

  “I love you too, honey.” I kissed her again.

  Next, I checked on André. He was curled under his blankets, his small head using a stuffed bear for a pillow. The twins would never have fallen asleep alone at that age; I’d had to rock them or pat their backs. But André seemed to prefer to sleep alone.

  I went into the sitting room and bade good night to Louise and Lu-Lu. After helping them settle in, Jean-Marc and I retired. A short time later, Jean-Marc’s soft snores came quickly and before I knew it, I drifted off to sleep. I had scarcely reached the point of oblivion when a sob reached my subconscious mind and compelled me to wake. It sounded like Josette.

  I groaned and rolled from the bed, nearly falling despite the night light in the hall. Jean-Marc’s eyes fluttered, but he didn’t wake. He never did when the children called, or if he did, he never acknowledged it, as if he felt it was somehow strictly a mother’s duty to stay up at night with the children. It hadn’t bothered me until André was born, and I had spent most of the nights nursing him and still getting up with the other two. I began to resent his indifference to my dilemma. It seemed one more part of his drawing away from his family.

  In the twins’ bedroom, I found not Josette but Marie-Thérèse crying and clutching her doll. I sat on her bed and drew her close, rocking her until she slept. She had stayed many times before at our house, but I understood that tonight was different. It wasn’t just for fun.

  “Life isn’t always what we expect,” I murmured, stroking her cheek. “Sometimes we need to take one day at a time.”

  Chapter Eight

  Thin light filtered in through the curtains early Tuesday morning and woke me. I had been dreaming that someone was shining a light into my eyes, but it was only the bright May sun. Birds called loudly to one another in the few trees outside our apartment building. I started and glanced at the clock radio by my bedside. It was only seven—not yet time to call the hospital.

  Jean-Marc’s soft laugh came from the pillow beside me. He had his elbow bent, propping up his head as he gazed at me with his laughing green-brown eyes. “You are so beautiful,” he said. The love in his stare was unmistakable. “I’m so lucky to have you.”

  I hoped he wasn’t feeling emotional because he had some tragic insight about our forthcoming test results. I rolled over next to him. “How long have you been watching me?”

  He kissed my nose. “Long enough to know how much I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” I pushed him back on the pillow and laid my head on his chest. I could hear his heart, a calm and steady thumping.

  “They’re up! They’re up!” Marc hurled himself on the bed, yelling with abandon as only small children can do. The others followed Marc, jumping onto the bed and throwing themselves on Jean-Marc excitedly. Even Marie-Thérèse, who didn’t appear to remember crying the night before, joined in the wrestling. Someone had helped André out of his crib, and he covered both Jean-Marc and me with slobbery kisses. Far from shattering our peace, the children only added to our special moment.

  I loved mornings like this. They were what reminded me of why I had wanted a family in the first place, why Jean-Marc and I had fallen in love.

  “I’m going to get you!” Jean-Marc snarled. The twins screamed and jumped to the other side of the bed, but André catapulted himself into his father’s arms, growling like a lion cub.

  “I know, I’ll get Mommy!” Jean-Marc crawled over to me with André still hanging on his neck. He started to bite my arm, working his way up. “Yum, yum.” He licked his lips.

  “Help!” I squeaked. The twins and Marie-Thérèse were on him in an instant, pulling him off me and laughing almost hysterically when he turned and nibbled on them instead. We played for half an hour before forcing ourselves out of bed. Then I fed the children while Jean-Marc showered and dressed. Louise and Lu-Lu sat in the kitchen with us but declined to eat, and I knew that like Jean-Marc and me, they were fasting.

  I was in the bathroom getting ready when the doorbell rang. “It’s your parents,” Jean-Marc came to tell me. I had him zip up the white dress I had chosen to wear, not only because I could bleach out any stain but beca
use it made me feel pure, not at all like someone who might have a fatal disease.

  Together we walked to the sitting room, where Lu-Lu had already made up the sofa bed and now sat silently opposite Louise. My parents still stood, both wearing serious expressions. I smiled and hugged them. There had been a time when they weren’t there for me—when Antoine died—but that was all in the past.

  “Let’s sit and talk,” I said.

  But it was suddenly hard to find conversation. The minutes ticked slowly by in the oppressive silence. The grandfather clock near the window didn’t miss a beat; its pendulum swung back and forth with a steady, unchanging rhythm. I seemed to have to remind myself to breathe. Only the children didn’t seem affected. They ran in and out of the room, playing a game that made sense in their minds, if not in ours. Though she played with the others, Marie-Thérèse was not her normal, smiling self but withdrawn and subdued.

  “It’s nine, Ari. Do you want me to call?” Jean-Marc picked up the phone on the table beside the lamp near the window. It was the phone he had bought last Christmas when I complained about having only one extension in the kitchen.

  “Yes,” I said in a hollow voice. André toddled to the couch and climbed into my lap. I wrapped my arms around him, and for once he didn’t struggle at being held too tightly.

  My gaze flitted from my parents, to Louise, and to Lu-Lu before settling on Jean-Marc. In the silence of the room, my breath seemed loud.

  “Yes. I’m calling for the results of my family’s blood tests yesterday.” He gave the nurse the information and waited. I closed my eyes and said a quiet prayer.

  I saw the relief on his face before he spoke the words. “Negative. All negative!” He glanced around the room at the faces of our family before his eyes came to rest on me. “It’s negative, Ari.”

  I smiled, feeling my lips quiver with emotion. “The phone, Jean-Marc,” I reminded him.

  He stared at the receiver in his hand before understanding. He put it to his ear. “Hello? Are you still there? Thank you. Thank you so much!” He set the phone in its cradle and came to hug me. I met him halfway across the room.

  Louise was sobbing with relief, as was my own mother. Lu-Lu said nothing, but tears rolled onto her cheeks.

  “What do you say we go and celebrate?” my father asked, putting his arm around me and squeezing. “An early lunch for all of us. Or a late breakfast—whatever. I’m starved.”

  “That’s because you’ve been fasting since yesterday,” my mother said.

  “What!” I didn’t trust what I was hearing. “I thought you didn’t believe in all that stuff.”

  My father’s face changed color slightly, but I couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment or anger. “I don’t believe in ‘all that stuff,’” he said stiffly. “But I do believe in God. I have since before you were born.”

  “But he doesn’t believe in baptism.” My mother’s voice was resentful.

  “I don’t need a little water to get me to heaven,” my father retorted.

  “But you do,” she replied.

  “And I don’t need to go to church every week to show I believe in God,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. She glared at him, and he glared right back. She opened her mouth to speak.

  “Whatever made you do it, thank you,” I said quickly. My mother’s mouth clamped shut.

  “So are we going to eat or not?” Jean-Marc said. “I take it you’re treating, eh, Gèralde?”

  My father slapped him on the back and chuckled. “I am, my boy, I am.”

  “Are we going too?” Marc asked me.

  “Of course, but not in that.” For the first time I noticed his clothes—a green T-shirt, purple shorts, and dark blue socks without shoes. Josette was worse, dressed in a yellow and white striped dress layered over her pink fairy princess costume, with dark blue flowered pants poking out beneath. In her hand she held two pairs of socks, one a deep red and one a light pink, and her white Sunday shoes.

  “Which go better?” she asked me. “I think the red is the prettiest.”

  Brightest was what she should have said.

  I glanced at Marie-Thérèse, who wore a pink jumpsuit. It seemed she was the only child in our family with any fashion sense. Either that or Pierre hadn’t packed much variety in her little suitcase.

  The men were already heading out the door. “Uh, Jean-Marc,” I said, “look at your children.”

  He stopped and stared, a smile playing on his lips. “Colorful,” he said finally. “But not quite right for a nice restaurant. Back into the bedroom.”

  It took a short time to get the children presentable. Jean-Marc tried putting on Josette’s tights, but she cried because the toes weren’t right. I ran from the bedroom where I was gathering diapers for André. “I’ll do it,” I told Jean-Marc. He seemed relieved.

  Minutes later, we were ready to leave. But the joy of our good news was partially diminished as I worried about my parents. Once before, at Antoine’s death, our family had been torn apart. Could my mother’s love for the Church and my father’s rejection of it do the same thing now?

  * * *

  Once our early lunch—or breakfast, rather—was over, my father and Jean-Marc went to work. I was amazed at how much better I felt, knowing that my babies and husband were healthy, that I hadn’t unknowingly given them HIV.

  In the spirit of celebration, I changed from my white dress and packed a snack to take to the playground nearby. The children were exuberant, and I wished I could share their innocence.

  “Will you come with us?” I asked Louise as I helped the children into their play clothes. Lu-Lu had already disappeared somewhere with the infamous Philippe.

  “No, I want to wait for Lu-Lu,” she said wearily.

  Once outside, I breathed in the late May air appreciatively. Though the stark heat of summer was not yet upon us, the air was warm with the scent of flowers coming from the landscaped beds in front of the apartment building. I pushed André in his stroller while the twins and Marie-Thérèse skipped on ahead.

  The playground wasn’t very big. It featured a small sandbox filled with very fine sand surrounded by a cement barrier. To one side of this stood a swing set with two swings and a slide. Below it, the soil was covered with more sand, coarser than what was in the sandbox. That was all. Cement sidewalks with scattered benches made up the rest of the play area. There was no green anywhere. In France, grass was for decoration, not for play.

  “I’m going to dig to the bottom this time.” Marc’s voice was determined as he started for the sandbox. “I have to know what’s there.”

  I smiled. My brother, Antoine, and I had done the same thing at our own playground. The sand had been deep enough to reach our shoulders, the bottom paved with cement. But I wouldn’t spoil the surprise. One day my son wouldn’t tire of digging, and then he would discover the secret for himself.

  My thoughts floated back to Paulette and AIDS. She and Pierre were both going to die! I still couldn’t come to terms with it. Hadn’t Paulette been forgiven for her terrible past? I had always believed that the Atonement was expansive enough to cover any sin, no matter how grave, aside from murder and denying the Holy Ghost. Any sin. The Savior suffered the pain Paulette bore now and also that which was to come. Then why did she have to go through the agony as well?

  For the first time since my marriage, I had a serious question that I was unable to answer with any Church doctrine I was familiar with.

  “Mom, it’s raining!” Josette tugged on my sleeve.

  So it was! I looked up and saw André in the sandbox, sitting contentedly in the large hole Marc had made. With chubby fingers, he patted a large handful of sand into his hair. My oldest son was now building a mountain or a volcano, his goal to reach the bottom of the sandbox discarded for another day. Marie-Thérèse sat on a swing, staring at the sand, her rag doll in her lap.

  The rain fell faster, and soon the warm cement was dotted with dark spots where the drops hit and splashed.
I breathed in the pungent smell of the wet pavement. I loved the smell now, though once I had despised it for the memories of death it had brought. Those days were over, replaced now by new experiences. A fleeting memory came to mind of a romantic evening when Jean-Marc and I had slept in the rain on a roofless balcony in a hotel near the ocean where we had gone on business several months after our wedding. That was the night I was sure the twins had been conceived. The recollection filled me with tenderness.

  Marc began to dance in the rain. Marie-Thérèse left the swing and ran over to him, laughing. André stood up in his hole and fell down again, a smile on his face. Yes, the rain could be a marvelous thing.

  I took Josette’s hand and whirled her around. She laughed. The others came to join us—even André, who didn’t trust his legs on the sand and came crawling.

  The smell of wet cement was stronger now as we danced and laughed. The other mothers in the playground were hustling their children away, but we stayed. It was warm, and I saw no danger in letting them play. At least Marie-Thérèse was smiling.

  We were soaked by the time we reached the outer door to our building—and covered in wet sand. We stomped off as much as we could outside, but still the children’s faces sported adorable splotches of sand, especially André, who wore it in his hair as well.

  On the eighth floor, Louise opened the apartment door for us. “Goodness, I didn’t realize it was raining! Come on. Let’s get you in the bath.” She led the children down the hall. I began to follow her, but she stopped me. “Lu-Lu’s in the sitting room. Could you talk to her, please?”

  “Okay.” Something was up. Louise appeared ill, worse than when I had left the apartment. It was as if she had reached the level where she couldn’t cope with anything more. I felt sorry for her, and it was an odd sensation. She had always been so strong.

  “You’re back,” Lu-Lu said to me. “That’s good. I have something to ask you.”

  “What is it?” Because I was wet, I didn’t sit next to her on the flowered sofa. As it was, the sand still clinging to my pant legs tumbled to the carpet. I grimaced.