The Ariana Trilogy

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  Her words made me start, and Jean-Marc’s teeth ground together. Simone, unaware of our reactions, continued blithely, “I’ll be goin’ now. But I’ll check in later in case you need me. Frédéric will want to know what’s happenin’.” Her lips curved in a girlish smile. She blew us a kiss and whisked out the door.

  “It’s probably a coincidence,” I said.

  “Nothing can be considered a coincidence where Jacques is concerned.” A dark shadow passed over his face. “I just had an awful thought.” Standing, he pulled his cell phone from his suit pocket. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Is Dad okay?” Pauline asked, staring after him.

  I followed her gaze. “I think so. He’s just had a few shocks today.”

  “Good. When he comes back, I’m going to have to talk with him.”

  I hid a smile behind my hand. If anyone could lighten Jean-Marc’s mood, it would be Pauline. She perfectly embodied the meaning of her name: small in stature, big in love.

  When Jean-Marc returned a short time later, he didn’t explain his odd behavior, and I didn’t question him about it. When he was ready, he would tell me, as he always did. Pauline made him sit with her and describe his airplane trip, and then she fell asleep contentedly in his arms.

  After school let out that afternoon, the other children met us at the hospital. Pauline was awake and in high spirits. Her siblings seemed relieved when they learned she would most likely be coming home the next day.

  “We’d better make sure the heat’s on first,” André said. His eyes hadn’t moved from Pauline since he arrived, and his expression was unusually sullen.

  “What?” Jean-Marc asked. In all the excitement, I hadn’t yet explained about the heater or the fire.

  “It’s a long story,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah, guess what? We completely forgot to tell you. We’re going to own a café!” Pauline chose that moment to make the announcement to the others.

  “We’re thinking about managing one,” Jean-Marc corrected. “Perhaps now is as good a time as any to have a family council about it.” He explained Jules’ idea, and the children immediately became excited.

  “We could actually work there after school,” Josette said, her face blushing. “Think of all the people we’d meet!”

  “Boys, you mean,” Marc said. Josette punched him.

  “What about me?” asked Pauline. “Can I work, too?”

  “I’m sure there’ll be something you can do,” Marie-Thérèse said, echoing my earlier words.

  The vote was cast and the decision unanimous: we would try our luck at the café. That didn’t mean Jean-Marc would stop looking for a job; it just meant he could take his time and pick what he wanted. We would run the café ourselves, with only the help from three longtime employees, all of whom were also members of our ward.

  Next, we discussed the private school and decided to try public education for a time, except for Pauline. Jean-Marc was reluctant to have any of them change schools, but together the children and I convinced him.

  “You never went to a private school,” I pointed out, “and you turned out fine.” Sending the children to a private school was what people in our former position normally did, and it was difficult for Jean-Marc to let go completely; it seemed tantamount to admitting that he would never recover his position.

  “Besides, it’s only until you’re rich again, Dad.” This show of Marc’s utter faith in his father won Jean-Marc over. There would be a few things we had to change but never our faith in his abilities.

  Louise, Jean-Marc’s mother, came to sit with Pauline, and with the exception of André, who insisted on staying, we went home. The children wandered into the kitchen for a snack and to do their homework, while Jean-Marc and I went to the bedroom to change for our night out. The closet where the heater had blown was scorched and ugly, but the bedroom wall was worse. One-fourth of the wall was completely blackened; the wallpaper along the dark stain was curled, the edges brown. The holes in the carpet seemed larger and blacker than I remembered.

  “Tough night, huh?” Jean-Marc’s grin was sympathetic.

  I nodded. “You could say that.” I began to recount the night’s events, this time leaving nothing out.

  He came over and circled his arms lightly around me. “Are you okay?”

  “I am now. Are you?”

  “Yeah.” But his voice was worried. I wondered if it had something to do with the phone call he had made at the hospital earlier.

  The doorbell rang, and we heard the children run to answer it. Excited cries filled the air. Casting puzzled glances at each other, Jean-Marc and I hurried down the hall to the entryway. Our three teenagers were bent over a large cloth sack of the brightest red, pulling out new articles of clothing, toys, and even food.

  “It’s Father Christmas’s bag,” Marc exclaimed.

  “Merry Christmas to Josette.” Marie-Thérèse read the card on a leather coat almost identical to the one she had returned to the store. Josette squealed and grabbed for it.

  “Here’s another just like it for you, Marie-Thérèse,” Marc said, rummaging farther into the sack. “And look—a new pair of roller blades for me. Wow! These are the best!”

  There were more items in the bag, each addressed to one of the children, and each horribly expensive. “Did you catch any sign of who delivered it?” I asked. The children shook their heads.

  “One of the neighbors must have let them in the downstairs,” Jean-Marc mused. “We could ask them if they recognized who it was.”

  “It must be from the ward,” I said. “Or from a group of the members together.”

  “This is the best Christmas ever!” Josette cried. She shoved her arms into the jacket and danced around us, eyes flashing. “It’s like they knew exactly what we all wanted.”

  Jean-Marc smiled. “They sure know how to cheer you guys up. I wonder why it wasn’t wrapped, though. What do you say we wrap them all up to put under the Christmas tree? You three have seen them, but that doesn’t mean André and Pauline shouldn’t have a surprise.”

  “Let’s do it!” Marie-Thérèse said.

  “Even the jacket?” Josette said reluctantly.

  “Don’t be so selfish,” Marie-Thérèse said. Josette threw daggers with her eyes but finally agreed.

  A tiny beeping sound came from Jean-Marc’s pocket. He quickly retrieved his cell phone from deep inside his suit coat. “Go ahead,” he said to us, retreating into the kitchen. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Mom, here’s one at the bottom addressed to you,” Marc said. He had taken the presents one at a time from the red bag and now held a sturdy oblong box tied with a thick red ribbon. I knelt on the floor next to the children and studied it.

  “Open it, Mom,” they urged.

  “Maybe I should save it for Christmas.”

  Marie-Thérèse wrinkled her freckled nose. “I don’t know. The rest of this stuff wasn’t wrapped. What if it’s something that should be opened now? It looks like flowers.”

  “You have to open it,” Josette pleaded. “I’ll die if I have to wait to see what it is!”

  “Go on,” Jean-Marc encouraged, coming from behind. “We can’t have Josette dying now.”

  With so much urging, I grew excited to see what the white box held inside. My hand reached for the ribbon and untied the bow. Carefully, I lifted the lid. As I saw the contents, a sinking feeling pierced my stomach, and I had to fight the urge to run to the bathroom and lose what little food remained from my lunch.

  “How beautiful!” the girls chimed together.

  Marc shrugged. “It’s okay.”

  “Exquisite,” Jean-Marc said. “Just like you, Ari.”

  Nestled in the folds of the softest tissue paper was a delicate flower made from the finest crystal—if the store name on the tag could be believed. A flawless, dainty white rose.

  “What’s wrong, Ari?” Jean-Marc asked. “You’ve suddenly turned white. Marie-Thérèse, go get your mother a drin
k.”

  “No, I’m fine,” I said. “I’ll go myself. Kids, you clean up these things.” I arose, leaving the white box with its rose behind on the polished wooden floor.

  Jean-Marc followed me to the kitchen, carrying the glass rose. “Better put this up. They might break it.” I took it from him and placed it in the garbage can. “What! But it’s your favorite!” he exclaimed.

  “It’s from Jacques.”

  His eyes widened. “How do you know?”

  “I just do.” I motioned over my shoulder through the door where we could see the children in the entryway. “Every single thing in there is exactly what the children wanted. Jacques pumped Josette for this information, and at the cemetery he gave me a white rose. This glass rose is his way of telling me these presents are from him. Why can’t he leave us alone?”

  Jean-Marc’s face darkened. “I should have hit him,” he muttered.

  “No, we did the right thing.”

  “You don’t understand. That call I got a few minutes ago—I asked them earlier this afternoon to check the possibility of bribery as a motive for the employees at the bank who were caught stealing. One of them admits to having been bribed, and he’s agreed to testify, but he doesn’t know the person who paid him. The authorities think they will never know. I think it’s been a setup, systematically put in place over a very long time.”

  “You think Jacques is involved?” The idea seemed ludicrous.

  He sighed. “We’ll never know, I think. But we have to tread carefully where Jacques is concerned.”

  “Shall we return the presents?” I asked reluctantly. The children were so happy with the unexpected windfall, and the objects were exactly what I might have bought them. They would never understand the reasons for sending them back, and trying to explain it would make things worse for me.

  Jean-Marc considered, and I sensed he was also loath to steal their joy. “Let them have their innocence,” he said finally. His lips curved into a smile. “And I will write Jacques a thank-you note and send him a check to cover the items. We’ll get an advance on the credit card.”

  “I don’t want the rose.”

  Jean-Marc retrieved it from the garbage. “This I will send back with the check. If anyone is going to buy you something as elegant as this, it’s going to be me.”

  I could only hope that would be the end of it.

  That evening, Jules came by early to help Jean-Marc fix the furnace. He brought some supplies from his own stock, and they managed to get it working in a little over an hour. Jules also brought some painting supplies so that on another day we could fix the wall in our room. The insurance would most likely pay for the carpet. After they cleaned up, we went to pick up Kenneth and his wife for dinner.

  “I get the feeling people aren’t used to big families,” Kathy said in her awkward French. “We’ve been here two days, and whenever we take the children with us, we turn around to find people counting us. Then they ask Ken if all eight are ours!”

  “They did that to me when mine were little,” I said, laughing. “And I only had five. It is unusual to have so many.”

  “Oh, look, Kathy! There’s the Eiffel Tower!” Kenneth’s red head bobbed enthusiastically. “We tried to find it yesterday. I was driving, and Kathy was guiding us with the map. We never found it.”

  Kathy sat with Marguerite and me in the backseat of Jules’ car. “It’s my fault,” she confessed, leaning over conspiratorially. “There are so many naked statues! I get too distracted by the scenery to pay attention to the map!” We giggled almost uncontrollably. It was true; there seemed to be statues on almost every corner, many of them wearing nothing but fig leaves or even less. I could imagine such a thing would be distracting for someone not accustomed to the sight.

  For the first time that day my body relaxed, and I silently thanked my Father for sending Kathy to put things into perspective. It wasn’t until we left the restaurant that my worries came flooding back. Jacques sat at a table near the entrance, watching me. Both he and the important-looking man with him seemed to exude power. Dishes clanked, people talked, but for me the world stopped. Our eyes met for a brief instant, his questioning, mine angry. Before the others could notice, I turned away. I told myself it was a coincidence, just one more in a long line. But for some inexplicable reason, I felt his fate was tied up with mine.

  The thought made me furious.

  I clung to Jean-Marc’s hand as we stopped in at the hospital to say good night to our daughter. Nothing would come between us, I promised silently. Nothing.

  Chapter Eight

  The next day Pauline came home to continue her recovery, and life returned to normal. There were only a few days of school left before Christmas, but even when she was better, she wouldn’t be leaving home as long as the cold lingered. Jean-Marc and I used the extra time at home to fix the wall in our room and to supervise the carpet layers. We sanded and revarnished the burned parts of my cedar chest. It didn’t look like new, but I was satisfied.

  After finishing at the apartment, we asked Louise to sit with Pauline while we went over things at the café with Marguerite and Jules. Christmas fever was in the air, and the feeling buoyed up our hearts, giving us hope. Celebrating the Savior’s birth would mark our own new start in life.

  “So have you settled on a destination yet?” I asked Marguerite. She and Jules were debating where to buy their retirement home. He wanted to find a place in the Algarve on the southern coast of Portugal, where it was warm almost all year round, but she was worried about the language barrier.

  “I’m not leaving France,” she said. “No matter what Jules says. But I wouldn’t mind visiting Portugal. I think we’ll go there after Christmas.”

  Sunday came, two days before Christmas, and I was thankful for the day of rest. We dressed Pauline warmly, and for the first time since leaving the hospital ten days earlier, she left the house. At the church, everyone eagerly waited to see Elder Tarr and his family. He had visited another ward the previous Sunday, but the news had spread about his being back in France. Today there were many visitors from other wards and branches who had come to see one of their favorite former missionaries.

  “Who’s that?” Josette whispered as they came up the walk.

  That turned out to be the Tarrs’ eldest son, seventeen-year-old Kenny. He was tall and rather gangly, with his mother’s honey blond hair and his father’s blue eyes. He didn’t seem any different from a hundred other young people I had met over the years, but my daughters jostled each other as they vied for position at the glass door.

  “He’s cute!” Josette exclaimed. Yet when the family came in the foyer, she suddenly pretended not to care; she preferred to be chased than to give chase. “Oh, yeah, nice to meet you,” she said with easy nonchalance. But her gaze darkened when Kenny sat by Marie-Thérèse in the chapel, talking animatedly in English. Marie-Thérèse’s hard studying in her second language was paying off.

  I sighed, wondering how long the jealousy would last between the two girls.

  “Where’s André?” Pauline asked, drawing my attention.

  “What?” I scanned the crowd, but André was nowhere to be found.

  “He’s been acting strange,” Pauline said. “I’m worried.”

  I stood and walked to the front of the chapel where Jean-Marc, as second counselor in the bishopric, was sitting with the bishop and the first counselor. “Have you seen André?” I asked.

  “No. He was with us in the van. I’m sure he’ll show up.”

  An uneasy feeling gripped my heart. “I’m going to look for him.”

  I met my mother in the hall. She wore an angry frown, and her face was flushed. “Have you seen André?” I asked, thinking he was possibly the reason for her distress.

  She stopped short. “Is he missing?”

  “It’s probably nothing. You know how boys are.”

  “Do I!” she said emphatically. Behind me in the chapel, the inspiring strains of the opening hymn fill
ed the air. They didn’t seem to soothe my mother’s soul. “Your father left me to go on the subway. Can you believe counseling someone this early on a Sunday morning? I’ve had it! He’s available for everyone except me! I don’t even know why I’m here. I hate sitting through sacrament meeting alone.”

  “Aren’t you exaggerating?” I asked. The financial ruin had been hard on everyone, but my mother’s chief pastime of decorating and buying things for everyone had been abruptly curtailed. Now, with my father’s busy calling as first counselor in the stake presidency, she had been left too much alone with nothing to do.

  She sighed. “Probably. Here, I’ll help you look for André.”

  We walked down the hall, eyes searching. “Have you noticed anything odd about André?” I asked.

  “Well, now that you mention it, he has seemed sort of withdrawn. I thought he was worried about beginning a new school or something.”

  “Ariana!” Giselle, the hugely pregnant granddaughter of Grandfather, the stake patriarch, motioned to me from a closet near the kitchen. As the Primary president, she had her own closet to store projects.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s André,” she said quietly. “I saw him through the kitchen door. I prayed about what to do, and then you showed up. You’d better go see for yourself. I’m so sorry.”

  Dread made my steps slow, but soon my mother and I were peering out the kitchen door into the cold winter outside. Seated next to the garbage can were André and another boy, huddled together in their coats for warmth. Gray smoke curled its way lazily to join with the white billows covering the sky above. The puffs of smoke weren’t stemming from hot breath meeting the cold air but from little sticks of poison held in young fingers.