The Ariana Trilogy

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  “You’re such an idiot.” The slow drawl came from André, who up until then had watched the display in silence.

  Josette whirled to face him, her dark hair once again flying, giving me the impression of a cat arching angrily to face a dog. “What!”

  “Mom doesn’t love her better than you. She’s just trying to make up for Marie-Thérèse not having her real mother!”

  Am I doing that? I thought. Aloud I said, “Don’t call your sister names, André. And I’m not trying to make up for anything. I love all of you.”

  “Sorry, Mom.” He was instantly contrite. André had always been the child most attuned to my feelings. Ever since he was a baby, he had given me practically no trouble.

  Josette stomped into the kitchen, muttering something under her breath about nosy little brothers. André laughed. “Don’t worry. She’ll get over it.” He kissed my cheek. “I’m leaving now.” Coat in hand, he disappeared through the door.

  I followed Josette into the kitchen. The dishes from lunch were still sitting on the table. I knew it was her turn to clean up.

  “Please change your mind,” she pleaded. “I’m old enough. Why can’t you see that?” A flash of memory came to mind—a memory of me at the same age. There was no doubt who Josette got her nature from. Had I ever been so young and innocent? So passionate?

  “Whose turn is it to clean up?” I asked lightly.

  Her face darkened a shade. “Mine,” she muttered. “That’s all you care about. Dishes and your precious Marie-Thérèse!”

  I faced her, my patience fading. “Enough! That’s enough!”

  Her mouth was open, but it clamped shut as she recognized the seriousness in my voice.

  I stalked to the door. “When I get back, I’d better find a lot of things changed around here,” I declared. “Especially your attitude!” I grabbed my coat from its hanger in the closet near the door and left the apartment.

  Now at the graveyard on the outskirts of Paris, I pondered my life since Jean-Marc and I had adopted our young nieces after losing their parents to AIDS. We’d had our problems, but life had been very good. It was hard to believe that ten more years had passed and I would soon be forty. Forty! Where did the years go?

  There was only one thing I really regretted. I had wanted to have a child with Jean-Marc’s green-brown eyes. I had thought it might happen in the years after we had adopted the girls, but I had been disappointed. Perhaps that was one more reason why I had been given Paulette’s children to raise. The Lord knew that I would never have any more of my own.

  Our three biological children all resembled me. Oh, André had his father’s firm jaw, but each had my oval face and dark brown eyes, as well as my thick, unruly brown tresses instead of Jean-Marc’s more manageable hair. Marie-Thérèse, of course, looked like her mother. Little Pauline, with her round face, resembled my husband more than anyone; she took after her father, Pierre, Jean-Marc’s brother. But none of the children had those extraordinary green-brown eyes.

  Feeling a bit foolish, I smiled and laughed aloud, purposely steering my mind back to the letter in my hand. Becoming sentimental seemed to go with turning forty. Something to do with holding on to youth, I supposed.

  Jean-Marc had used a simple sheet of lined paper with holes that told me he had taken it from the six-ring binder he always carried in his briefcase. Not very romantic, but at least he had thought to write to me. It was the four-day-old date that first gave me an inkling that something wasn’t right; it was odd for my husband to have kept silent about it for so long. His usual way would be to contrive something to force me to look in my pocket. He would have taken me out for dinner and asked me to hold the car keys, or some such thing. Why was this different?

  These thoughts raced through my mind as I focused on the words and their meaning:

  My Dearest Ari,

  Have I told you recently how much I love you? Every day you grow more beautiful to me. I don’t know how to tell you that I’ve failed you. I guess by writing this letter, I’m running from having to face you, but I have learned over the years that I can’t solve the big things alone. This is one of those things, Ari.

  My pulse quickened fearfully, and my hand went to my heart. I didn’t want to read the rest. Regardless, my eyes moved relentlessly down the page.

  The bank is failing. I’ve done everything I know to do and have employed the best people to try to stop it, but I can’t. It’s my fault because I approve all the decisions, but I daresay that several of my employees will be investigated. I suspect they have been embezzling since before your father turned the bank over to me last year—perhaps for many years before that.

  Everything we have is tied up in the bank. Everything. I don’t know what we’re going to do. Our insurance will end next month, and there are Pauline’s treatments and special drugs. The children’s college and mission funds are gone, too, though we might recover a portion later on. The funds were not insured as they should have been, as the company promised they were—one more thing to be investigated. I just don’t know where to go from here. I guess I need to find the heart to start over.

  I’m sorry, so very sorry I have failed you. Please forgive me.

  Jean-Marc

  I blinked twice and shook my head, but the words on the page before me did not change. My heart thudded dully in my chest, and a queasy feeling gripped my stomach. Everything gone? But how? Why? I reread the letter slowly, letting realization penetrate my soggy brain.

  Fear was my first emotion—What would we do? How would we pay the bills?—but anger came close on its heels as I instinctively tried to protect myself. We were too old to have to start over! It wasn’t fair—we had worked so hard to save and be frugal. Now that the children were older, our life together, Jean-Marc’s and mine, was supposed to allow us more time to explore our relationship. We shouldn’t have to worry about eking out a living!

  The more I thought along these lines, the angrier I grew. I imagined confronting those who had wronged us, seeing them locked away forever behind thick prison bars. They could never replace the comfortable security they had stolen from my life. What about my children? What about little Pauline, who needed a daily dose of expensive drugs for her HIV treatments? All our careful plans for the future now lay in ruins. Could this really be happening?

  The anger intensified. Minutes ticked away into an hour as I became absorbed by my fury. Intertwined so intimately with the fear, I felt it eating away at my soul. I knew I should make it stop; yet, in some indescribable way, I wanted to feel the sharp pain because it seemed to further justify my wrath.

  Jumping to my feet, I began to pace back and forth before the headstones of my brother, Antoine, and my daughter Nette. The normally brilliant green grass of the graveyard was faded with the cold, and the trees had lost many of their leaves; yet there was a strange, austere beauty here, even during this time of year. The frail light reflected off the scrollwork on top of the gray stone on Antoine’s grave and seemed to send a brief, piercing flash that stopped me abruptly.

  The panic I had yielded myself to was suddenly overcome by another emotion, a stronger one of compassion. Poor Jean-Marc! How long had he known? How many months had he tortured himself with these same visions as he tried to shield his family? If I felt the devastation this clearly, how deeply his must run! He had always been confident of his ability to support us—what must he be feeling now?

  This new emotion was welcome; it coated my anger, sweet over sour. I had to get to Jean-Marc.

  My feet nearly ran down the cobblestone path, boots crunching on loose pebbles, but I hesitated before reaching the black cast-iron gate. I stared at the menacing, pointed tips that topped the fence surrounding the graveyard. Even in the diluted light, they gleamed like inky arrows.

  What would I say to my husband? What had I to offer him, except perhaps my own anger at the situation? No; before I faced him, I needed to have something to offer, something to start us in a positive direction. I knew he
must be deeply wounded at what he saw as his failure, and my reaction would be a defining moment.

  I sighed aloud. “Thank you, Father,” I prayed. I didn’t want to think about what I might have said had I discovered this note in Jean-Marc’s presence. Whatever it was that made him write instead of telling me himself had worked to our advantage.

  I methodically retraced my steps and sat again on the stone bench, drawing from my pocket the now-crumpled letter. My coat had opened, and I smoothed the paper out over the thick black leggings I wore underneath a semi-dressy gray sweater. The fear in my husband’s simple words was obvious, and it renewed the trepidation in my own heart. I wondered if our lives had changed forever in this short moment of time.

  I stopped myself. It was only money. What did it matter as long as we still had each other? Our love had already suffered through much more than this. “You’ll get work,” I practiced saying aloud. “I can, too, now that the children are older. It’s not that big a deal. We’ll get through this.”

  That was when I heard steps to my left, on the path that led to the gate and my car parked beyond. I wiped the tears off my cheeks with hands stiff from the cold. I glanced up, thinking to nod and smile at the stranger as he passed. Our eyes met and held. For a moment I didn’t recognize the man with the longish dark blond hair who stared at me. His head cocked slightly backward and to the side in an oddly familiar way, and in his gloved hands he held a bouquet of white roses.

  White roses!

  At once the flowers bridged the seventeen years between us, and his features became even more familiar: the lean face, the dark brown eyes, the slight cleft in his chin—all spelling out a certain rugged handsomeness. The compelling smile on his full lips made his expression almost boyishly eager, and I sensed the magnetism that had always hung about him. I stood, trying to gain the advantage height might give me. It made no difference; he was taller still. Why was it that just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, they did?

  Lifting my chin slightly, I gazed into the face of the man I had once loved so desperately—the dashing playboy who had nearly destroyed my life, the man who had killed my daughter, my precious Nette. I had hoped never to see him again.

  My heart hammered in my ears as I spoke. “Hello, Jacques.”

  Chapter Two

  My voice was remarkably calm, given the circumstance. Jacques shifted nervously, moving the bouquet of flowers from one hand to the other.

  “It’s you who’s been bringing the roses,” I said. I had found them several times next to Nette’s grave in the past month and believed they had been put there by my father, recently returned from a mission to Canada with my mother.

  He glanced over at the stone. “It seemed the thing to do.” His breath made a hint of a white cloud as it reached the cold air. I tried to stifle the indignation that threatened to bubble to the surface. After all, he had every right to be here; Nette was his daughter, too.

  We stood in awkward silence for a long minute.

  “Now that we’ve met, do you mind talking for a while?” Jacques’ voice was hesitant, with a touch of pleading.

  I had closed that chapter in my life; the nightmare of Nette’s death had nothing to do with my present. Not once had I imagined this moment would come; not once had I wished for it. Yet here it was, and I couldn’t deny my sudden curiosity. “All right.” I inclined my head toward the bench. My backside was already cold from my long vigil, but my head whirled. I would rather sit than faint from the shock of seeing him.

  “I’ve dreamed of us meeting like this,” he began. I chewed the inside of my cheek and said nothing. He gave me a tentative grin. “I wanted to tell you that I beat the drugs. I was paroled a year and two months after you came to see me at the prison.” He paused before adding quietly, “I don’t think you’ll ever know how much it meant to me to know you forgave me for what happened. It was the only thing that got me through my time at the prison. That and this picture.” He slid a hand inside his long coat and drew out a photograph of our daughter, taken when she was seven months old, a month before her death. It was worn and dog-eared. “I’ve had copies made, of course, but I keep this always close to me so that I can remember her. Whenever I have a tough decision, she helps me.”

  I too felt she helped me. That was why I came so often to the graveyard. “You’ve changed, Jacques.”

  He relaxed. “I hoped you’d see that.”

  “So what have you been doing all these years?”

  “I’ve been in Nice with my father.”

  I couldn’t conceal my surprise. “I thought he would have nothing to do with you.” The man had, in fact, kicked Jacques out of his home long before we had met.

  “He wouldn’t, at first. But when he realized I was serious about changing my life, he gave me a position in his company.”

  “What company is that?” I knew enough of Jacques to be leery of anything he said, changed or not.

  He smiled. “Carpet.” He replaced the photograph in his pocket and took out a card with his name embossed in gold letters.

  For the first time, I noticed that his coat was a rich wool, and his shoes looked as expensive as those my husband wore. I stared at the card. “Carpet? You sell carpet?”

  His laugh came easily. “Not really. I mean, I make the decisions, but I’m not actually in the showrooms. Believe it or not, I’m the president and chairman of the board now, though it wasn’t easy. My father started me at the bottom. I had to actually lay the stuff for my first two years before he’d trust me to do anything else.”

  Once again our gazes locked. “Wise man, your father.”

  He nodded. “At some things. I only wish he could have helped before . . .”

  I turned away. We shared a past, that was true, but I didn’t want to have a connection with him now. Whatever he wished about the past was not my concern.

  “What about you, Ariana?” His voice caressed my name.

  “What about me?”

  “Did that guy Jean-Marc ever come back?”

  I nodded. “We got married. In April, it’ll be seventeen years. We have five children.”

  His eyebrows lifted. I noticed they were a darker color than his hair. “So many?”

  “Three are ours. The other two are Paulette’s. She died, you know. Of AIDS.”

  His expression dimmed. “I knew she had it; the hospital called to inform me. I guess she had me on the list of people who might have been at risk. I didn’t know she died.”

  “She did. Two months later—right after she gave birth to her baby, Pauline. She’s buried over there.” My hand waved in the direction beyond Nette’s grave. Then I reached for my wallet inside the breast pocket of my fur-lined leather coat. The family picture I showed him was fairly recent. “That’s Pauline,” I said. “She’s eleven.”

  “She looks a lot like your husband.”

  “She takes after her father, Jean-Marc’s brother. He also died from AIDS, a year after Paulette.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. We’re doing well, and I know where they are.”

  His eyes bored into mine, slightly challenging, but something in my face must have convinced him. “Yeah, I guess you probably do.” He studied the picture. “And who is this?”

  “Josette. She and Marc are twins. They’re fifteen, but Josette thinks she’s going on twenty.”

  As he studied my daughter’s picture, the lean edges of his face softened. “She looks just like you did when your hair was longer.” He glanced up. “You haven’t changed all that much. You’re a beautiful woman, Ariana.”

  I knew my cheeks must be streaked from crying, and my short hair had not seen a comb since early that morning, but Jacques had always known just the thing to say. I had always felt beautiful around him. Tears pricked behind my eyes, and a tenderness grew inside me. For the first time since my remarriage, I wondered what my life would have been like had circumstances been different . . . had Jacques and I been able to
hold on to our love.

  I bit my lip and forced my voice to be even. “Thank you.” I pointed again to the picture. “This is my son André.”

  He nodded. “And this must be Paulette’s other daughter.”

  “Marie-Thérèse,” I acknowledged. “She looks a lot like her mother, except that her hair is a little lighter and her nose kind of turns up a bit at the end.”

  “The resemblance to Paulette is striking, like with you and—what was her name? Josette?”

  “Yes, Josette.”

  We sat silently for a few minutes, staring at the picture. “Marie-Thérèse is the oldest,” I added to fill the silence. “She turned sixteen yesterday.”

  “You love her very much, don’t you?”

  I nodded. “And Pauline.”

  “They’re lucky to have you. But how is it they didn’t contract the virus?”

  Tears spilled over before I could stop them, and his face showed concern. He scooted closer and put a tentative hand on my shoulder.

  “They have it, don’t they?”

  “Just Pauline. It’s been eleven years now. She’s had some pretty serious illnesses lately, but she’s still okay. She has to take medication every day.” I looked up at him. “They named Pauline after Nette, you know. Her full name is Antoinette Pauline.”

  He pulled me closer into a loose embrace. I resisted, but the shocks of the day had sapped my energy. Jean-Marc and I were penniless, Josette’s temper was out of control, and telling Jacques about Pauline only made things worse. It was too much for me to bear, and for a moment I let my head rest on his shoulder as we sat on the bench.

  He patted my back. “I’m sorry, Ariana. I had always imagined you were happy.”

  That gave me strength to extract myself from his arms. “Oh, but I have been! Jean-Marc is so good to me. I love him, and I love my life with him and the children.”

  His eyebrows drew together, and I sensed disbelief. “Then why are you so sad? It’s not just Pauline, is it?”