The Ariana Trilogy

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  She glanced up as I entered. “She’s awake,” she said.

  “Did you sleep okay?”

  She nodded. “Do you know why I’m here?”

  “You wanted to say good morning to Pauline?”

  The little head shook. “No, I came to give her a present.”

  “What is it?” I asked, wondering which of her new birthday gifts would go to the baby.

  “You’ll see.” Marie-Thérèse stared at her sister. “I have something for you,” she said softly. She lifted the rag doll over the side of the crib and settled it next to the baby. “Mommy made it. She would have made one for you, too, but since she can’t, I want you to have this one.”

  Her face was somber, and I wondered why she would give away something that meant so much to her. She felt my gaze and looked up at me.

  “Pauline won’t remember Mommy at all,” she explained. “She won’t even remember when she sees a picture. I want her to have a part of Mommy.”

  I put my arm around her. “You’re a wonderful sister,” I said. “And I’m sure if you ever want to borrow Dolly for a while, Pauline won’t mind.”

  The baby had discovered the doll, and her tiny hands reached out for it clumsily, pulling it closer. Because she had been born prematurely, her development was behind that of a normal baby her age, so the motion was unexpected. Marie-Thérèse gave a cry of delight. “See? She likes it! She’s trying to get it! She never did that! Do you think she knows Mommy made it?”

  “Who knows?” I said. The diffused light in the room seemed to grow stronger, though I knew it was only my imagination. This, I decided, was a little piece of heaven on earth. This quiet moment alone with my new daughters.

  * * *

  February came with its endless wetness and melancholy grays. The twins turned five, and Lu-Lu left on a mission to the south of France. Pierre’s condition had worsened, yet he clung to life, despite the pain, if only for his daughters. By May he was completely bedridden, and Louise moved into our house to help me care for him. “There’s no sense in getting a nurse,” she said as she settled her belongings into Pauline’s room. “I’m his mother, and I want to do it.”

  Jean-Marc moved Pauline’s crib into our room, and the baby monitor became Louise’s way of knowing if Pierre needed her. I worried that despair would fall over our household, and some days it did, but it never stayed for long.

  “It seems as though I can see right through him to heaven,” Jean-Marc said to me one day. The children were in bed, and we sat cuddled together on the sofa. I could feel his breath on my neck.

  “I know what you mean,” I said. “It’s as if heaven is closer than we ordinarily know. It’s a comfort, and yet—”

  “He doesn’t even look like himself.”

  I knew what he meant. Pierre was so thin now that he seemed hardly bigger than a child under the blanket. His gaunt face resembled a skeleton more than a living human, with dry skin stretched taut over his face.

  A sob shook Jean-Marc. “I don’t want to let him go.”

  “I know.” There was nothing I could do but hold him.

  “Have I kept my promise to you?” he asked abruptly. “To be the husband you wanted?”

  I faced him. “You’re not perfect,” I said. “But neither am I. And you have come home on time at least half the time.” I kissed his lips. “I am happy, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “It is. I want you and the children to be happy for as long as we have left.”

  “We have eternity.”

  “I know. But sometimes it’s hard to remember.”

  “We have to remember. We have to.”

  The children enjoyed having Pierre at home all the time. He often read them stories of Jesus, filling our house with enough hope to get us through the hard days.

  “It’s all in the attitude,” he said to me at the end of June. The children were sitting around him on the double bed he used, holding handfuls of books for Pierre to read. “We can choose to be happy in any circumstance. We can choose to have faith. It’s our choice! I feel so grateful to the Lord for everything.”

  He appeared tired, so I motioned the children off the bed. “Let’s go make Pierre some lunch,” I said. The twins and André jumped off the bed and raced each other from the room. I picked up Pauline, who was nearly eleven months old.

  “Can I carry the food, Mom—I mean, Aunt Ariana?” Consternation filled Marie-Thérèse’s face at the slip. Pierre and I glanced at each other with concern. Though I had longed for this day, I feared anything I might say would make the situation worse.

  “Come here.” Pierre motioned to his daughter. She climbed onto the bed next to him, her face downcast. “Are you worried because you called Ariana Mom?” he asked. She nodded. “I know what you mean. It’s hard not to call her that when she does all the stuff mothers do.”

  Her light brown eyes lifted to meet his. “Do you think Mommy would be mad?”

  He shook his head. “No. It’s kind of like how you call Simone, Louise, and Josephine Grandma. They don’t mind that you call the others that, too; it doesn’t take away from them.”

  “But they are all my grandmas, except Grandma Josephine. She’s not my real grandma. She’s Josette’s and Marc’s.”

  Pierre’s eyebrows drew together slightly. “Well, I’ve got a better example, then. You know how Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother are your parents in heaven?”

  She nodded. “Yeah.”

  “You see, they lent you to your mom and me to raise here on earth. Do you think they mind if you call me Father or Daddy? Of course they don’t. And with Mommy, it’s just like that. She’s lending you to Aunt Ariana to raise. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you called her Mom.” Marie-Thérèse didn’t seem convinced, and Pierre continued quickly, “If you’re still worried, maybe you could always refer to your mommy as Mommy, and you could always call Ariana just plain Mom. That way they would each have their own special name, like your grandmas. Does that sound good?”

  A slow smile spread over her face. She slid off the bed, glancing up at me shyly, waiting.

  “I would love that,” I said. She ducked her head and ran out of the room, giggling self-consciously.

  “Thank you, Pierre.” I wondered if he realized what he had imparted to both his daughter and to me. By giving Marie-Thérèse permission to call me Mom, he had paved the way for many future transitions.

  “Paulette knew this day would come,” he said softly. “And she was right; a child needs a mother.”

  Pierre died two weeks later, passing away in his sleep, his pain at last ended and the torment on his face forever stilled. After a brief time of grieving, the children rebounded, but Jean-Marc seemed to go into a depression. Once again he began to spend long hours at work. I knew he was only trying to forget his loss, but after waiting three weeks for him to return to normal, I called him on his cellular phone.

  “It’s time to come home,” I said. “You’re taking a vacation.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes. I’ve cleared it with the boss.”

  His chuckle was low. “I’m doing it again, aren’t I?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I am telling you. Now come home.”

  His step was a little lighter as we carried our suitcases to the van and set off for a long-overdue vacation, just us and our five children.

  We made the long drive to Deauville, on the western coast of France—a crowded, internationally famous seaside resort where the children could play in the ocean. There were also horse racing and boat sailing to keep people occupied, but my interest was simply to spend time with my family. It didn’t matter what we chose to do.

  “Hmm,” Jean-Marc said when we arrived in Deauville the next morning. “Isn’t that the place with the balcony?”

  “The very one,” I said with a smile. I had in fact reserved the same suite we had stayed in the night the twins were conceived.

  W
e settled in the rooms and headed for the beach.

  “Thank you,” Jean-Marc said. “This is exactly what I needed.”

  “It’s what we all needed.”

  “I love you so much, Ari.” His voice was gruff. He reached out and cradled my face with one hand, his thumb moving under my eye and wiping off the sand clinging to my cheek.

  A loud crying spoiled the moment, and I jerked away to focus on Pauline, who was trying to spit out a mouthful of sand.

  “I told her not to eat it,” said Josette.

  André grabbed a cloth from the picnic basket and with clumsy fingers tried to sweep the sand out of the one-year-old’s mouth. I noticed he was careful not to get the saliva on himself, though such an amount would never pass the HIV virus; we had taught him well. At his ministrations, Pauline cried harder.

  “She needs a drink,” little Marc said helpfully.

  I sighed and pulled Pauline onto my lap. “Spit it out.”

  “Hold it there! What a great picture!” Jean-Marc pulled out both the camera and the videotape recorder.

  “Me too! Get me too!” chorused the other children.

  “Can I be by you, Mom?” Marie-Thérèse asked.

  “Sure.”

  I posed for the camera, for some reason remembering the day I had filmed Paulette making the baby curtains. As always, I felt a stab of heartache when I remembered my friend. It wasn’t the aching grief I had felt when she died but more the longing for what could have been, for what would be one day. Until then, I would do my best to satisfy the role that had been thrust upon me.

  “Smile!” Jean-Marc said, poking the camera in my face.

  Upon us, I amended silently. Paulette had given us a gift most precious: this little toddler in my arms. I lowered my face to her soft halo of brown hair and breathed deeply the baby scent of her. She was so precious to me. In dying, Paulette had given me more than what had been taken away—just as the eternal gift of her testimony had forever changed the lives of so many others who had been important to her.

  Jean-Marc put down the camera and came to my side. We held hands as we watched our children playing in the sand, dancing barely out of the waves’ reach, as if taunting the ocean. Their cherished faces crinkled in wide smiles, and laughter sounded over the crowded beach.

  I felt alive as I never had before; every moment seemed priceless. How incredibly beautiful the world was! How unique! I would live each moment to its fullest.

  Pauline’s tears had ended, along with her patience, and she wriggled, trying to leave my lap and crawl to the gritty sand. For a moment I resisted, thinking of the future. As yet she had shown no signs of the illnesses that marked AIDS, and though it might seem like holding water in my cupped hands, I would try to hold on to her forever. Hold on to her as I hadn’t been able to do with my beloved little Nette. At least until the time came to say good-bye.

  In the meantime, the future always held the chance of a cure. I never let go of the hope—or the faith that the Lord knew what He was doing, what He was building in us. And who knew but that the time would shortly come when the Savior Himself would put His hands on her head and make her whole?

  I let Pauline go, and she giggled softly as she reached the end of the towel. Promptly, she picked up a handful of sand and tried to bring it to her mouth. “Oh, no, you don’t,” Jean-Marc chided, reaching for her.

  I laughed softly and gazed out over the ocean. The waves lapped lazily onto the shore in steady repetition, reminding me of the gentle waves in the River Seine. I watched, recalling vividly what Simone had said the first day we had met at the stone wall above the riverbank near the booksellers’ stalls.

  “The water is us,” she had said. “We’re helpless against the trials that come. We can’t push them away; we can only go where we’re pushed. What good is life when we can’t control anythin’?”

  I smiled at the memory, understanding much more than I had that day. We were like the river water, as she had suggested, being tossed to and fro by the wind and the wakes of the boats. But when the boats were gone and the wind ceased, the water remained in its place. Like the water, we too remained when the problems and trials were over, falling back into our lives as before until the next waves came to test our endurance. And always, we were cradled in the banks of our Father’s firm hands.

  “Do you think it might rain tonight?” Jean-Marc asked, scanning the sky hopefully. “I thought we might sleep out on the balcony,” he added, his voice teasing.

  “You want to get wet?” I asked, jumping to my feet. Laughing, I pulled him to the frothy waves. In his arms, Pauline giggled.

  Yes, water was mighty and resilient, as we were. We, the children of God!

  Ariana A New Beginning

  Ten Years Later

  Chapter One

  The late November sunlight peeked faintly through the heavy layering of clouds in the sky. The dark billows threatened rain, but I didn’t care. Anything was better than what I had faced at home scarcely half an hour earlier. I pulled my long coat tightly about my body and sat down on the stone bench opposite my daughter’s grave.

  I always go to the graveyard when I am troubled. Somehow it seems to make everything clearer. But today things were about to get worse. A lot worse.

  My bare hands slid into my pockets, and one hand touched paper. What’s this? A smile played on my lips as I brought it out and recognized Jean-Marc’s bold script. My husband had occasionally written to me during our nearly seventeen years of marriage, but it was uncommon enough to be unexpected. There was nothing to tell me this note was different. I felt only as if he were at the cemetery with me, warming my chilled hands in his.

  “This is just what I need,” I whispered softly. Jean-Marc was a good man who had a tendency toward tender, emotion-filled displays of love. He had mellowed over the years, and now his temper rarely surfaced; it was a pity his manner hadn’t spilled over to all of our five children. I could still see fifteen-year-old Josette’s face, her pretty features contorted with anger. It was she who had driven me here this afternoon.

  Marie-Thérèse and I had just returned from the shopping spree I had promised for her sixteenth birthday. She had wanted to find something special for her first date the next week, and I had wanted to give it to her. Though my adopted daughter had grown into a beautiful, self-assured young woman, she was considerably reserved around people outside the family, and I was surprised she had accepted the date at all. Of course he was a member of our church, and of course he would be well-behaved. My Marie-Thérèse would choose no other. I had hoped to help make the experience a positive one.

  Twelve-year-old André had met us at the door to our apartment. “Going somewhere?” I asked.

  “To Grandma Simone’s,” he answered.

  I nodded. Simone was the grandmother of my two adopted daughters on their mother’s side. She had only recently settled into an apartment within walking distance.

  “Where are the others?”

  “Josette’s in her room. Dad and Marc went to fix Grandma Simone’s sink. Pauline went with them.” That last sentence surprised me. André was rarely without Pauline; though Marc and Josette were the twins, André and Pauline were just as close.

  “I was sleeping when they left,” André added sheepishly, answering my unspoken question.

  “I wonder why he didn’t call a plumber like we usually do,” I said.

  At that point, Josette swept into the large entryway, slipping slightly on the polished wood floor. “You took long enough!” she exclaimed. Her dark brown eyes flashed as she surveyed her sister’s purchases. “You got one of those jackets?” She turned to me quickly, her long dark hair fanning out around her. “But you wouldn’t buy me one!”

  “I said you’d have to wait until your birthday for a second jacket, that’s all,” I explained calmly. “It was your choice to pick out the clothes you did when school started. You picked the nylon coat, not me.”

  Josette’s lips drew together in a po
ut, marring her perfect face. She fingered the rich brown leather her sister had chosen. “You’ll let me borrow it, won’t you?”

  Marie-Thérèse hesitated, and I understood all too well her dilemma. Once Josette was given permission to borrow something, it was almost like giving it away; she wouldn’t ask a second time. Besides, she didn’t care well for her things. Stains and rips were common in her clothing.

  Marie-Thérèse brushed back her light brown locks with a lean hand. Her freckled nose curved slightly upward, giving her a delicate, pixie appearance. “We’ll see,” she said.

  Her tone didn’t fool Josette. “You think you’re so great just because you get to go out alone with a boy. I’m the popular one; I’m the one who should be going!” She turned to me. “Mom, please let me go! Practically everyone’s asking me!”

  “Not until you’re sixteen.”

  She fumed with exasperation as her anger grew. Though I knew it stemmed from frustration, it bothered me that she had to react so violently. Couldn’t she take lessons from her sister?

  “A few months,” she said, nearly bursting. “It’s just a few months’ difference! I’ll bet if Marie-Thérèse had wanted to go a little early, you would have let her, wouldn’t you?”

  I didn’t answer. The truth was, I probably would have. Marie-Thérèse was a good judge of character, and she always behaved appropriately. Josette was too volatile, and I feared her immature nature and extraordinary beauty would get her into trouble.

  “You just love her better than me, don’t you, Mom?” Josette cried. “All my life, you’ve put her above me, just ’cause she’s a little older. It’s not fair!” She glared at both of us.

  Marie-Thérèse turned pale. She darted a nervous glance at me before making her way around Josette, running through the kitchen and down the hall to the room they had shared since childhood.