The Ariana Trilogy

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  “I need your help,” I said finally.

  “Is it Pauline?”

  I shook my head and felt a slight smile tug at my lips. “No. In fact, now that she’s on her new drug mix, she hasn’t had any problems at all. It’s like a miracle. I think they’re nearing a cure.”

  He smiled. “I’m glad, Ariana. I know if anyone deserves for that to happen, it’s you. It’s good to see you smile.”

  “But my son isn’t doing so well.”

  “I saw the newspapers. I’m sorry to hear about his problems. But I thought they had released him.”

  “They have. Only he went back in and then out again.” I sighed. “It’s just not a life for a young boy. No camping trips or vacations, just every other day hooked up to that impersonal dialysis machine. I sometimes imagine it sucking the life right out of him.” I didn’t look at Jacques as I spoke but kept my eyes on the gray carpet, not wanting him to see my tears.

  Jacques waited, but when I didn’t explain further, he stood and crossed to the desk. He pulled out a drawer. “How much do you need?” It was a simple question, and his voice held only kindness, but for some undefined reason it rankled me.

  “I don’t want money. I want you.”

  A glint of something flared in his eyes before I could correct my mistake. “Or part of you,” I added hastily. “Your kidney.”

  He gaped at me. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

  “I’m not.”

  He searched my face. “You’re serious.” The pen dropped from his hand and clattered to the desk. “You’re actually asking me for my kidney.”

  Feeling the height disadvantage, I stood. “You’re the same blood type as my son, and you said if I ever needed help I should—”

  “I meant money, of course,” he said, beginning to pace. One hand ran through his hair, pushing it back from his eyes. “Or comfort, or someone to talk to, or—” He stopped talking and faced me. “Do you know what giving a kidney is like? The risk of major surgery, six weeks of recovery, not to mention a lot of pain. What makes you think I would be willing to do that? What makes you think I could take six weeks away from my company, even if I wanted to?”

  His reaction surprised me. “And I thought I’d have to explain the risks to you,” I said dryly. “Where did you learn all that?”

  “I read,” he said defensively. Now that I knew was a lie. The Jacques of old would have done anything to avoid a book, and I had ample proof that he hadn’t really changed. No, more than likely he had gained this information while spying on me and my family, planning his next move. The thought made me uncomfortable.

  “Does your husband know you’re here?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said, glad that it was true. “He didn’t want to ask. Neither did I, but Marc . . . he’s . . . well, he’s just not the same. He might have to wait years because of his blood type; there are others on the list with the same type, and they’ve been waiting for years already. And now the doctor is worried Marc’ll get an infection—because of complications with the injuries caused in the bombing—that will make it so he can’t use dialysis. If that happens, he’ll have to get a new kidney or . . . or die. Then I remembered you, and how you were the same blood type. I thought you might help.” A tear fell from my eyes onto my cheek, sliding downward.

  Jacques watched my face for a brief second, following the progress of the tear. When he spoke, his voice was soft, almost aching. “I should have known when I told you I would help that it wouldn’t be something easy. I’d planned to fight to win you back—but a kidney?” His grin held no mirth. “I’m rather attached to it. To both of them.”

  “You don’t need both.” But I knew my request was excessive. “Oh, I shouldn’t have come.” As I started for the door, his hand closed around my upper arm, a hard, tight grasp.

  “I didn’t exactly say no,” he said with a touch of arrogance.

  “You didn’t exactly jump up and say yes, either.”

  “Give me some time to think about it.”

  I stared pointedly at my arm, and he released it.

  “You can think about it and call me. I’ll send you a packet of information.” I turned to leave.

  “Wait!”

  “Yes?”

  He appeared to make a rapid decision. “How badly do you want this kidney?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked slowly.

  “What are you willing to do for it?”

  His implication was insulting, and my eyes narrowed. “I’m willing to come here to ask my ex-husband to help me. I’m willing to risk upsetting my family by having you be the donor. I’m willing to humble myself and beg, if necessary. Isn’t that enough? What can you be thinking?”

  His lean features weren’t hard but needy, imploring. “I’ll give you my kidney, but I want you to give us another shot. I’ll take care of you, your children, whatever. Only come back. I’ll be the man you can love.”

  The idea was ludicrous, and I wondered that he didn’t see it. Though Jacques’ declaration would make a good fantasy or dream for a young girl, and even perhaps for me on a day I was feeling neglected by my husband, that’s all it could ever amount to—a dream, an ethereal vision brought by the wings of foolish imagination. It wasn’t even something I wanted to consider. It was absurd in the extreme. Trade a kidney for eternity? For my family? For the passion and love that Jean-Marc and I shared, however currently strained by circumstances of the past few months? There was no contest. Once, I had doubted my own motives in coming to see Jacques. But no longer.

  My swift anger dimmed in the light of knowing my family was eternal, and nothing Jacques could do would change that. By contrast, he was an unhappy man, alone with his blind desires. A great sadness overwhelmed me. “Oh, Jacques,” I said. “You don’t understand.”

  “I can’t live my life without you!” he returned almost angrily. “Life has no meaning. Without you, there’s simply . . . nothing.”

  “No meaning?” I nearly laughed. “Life has every meaning. We are children of God; doesn’t that mean anything to you? Children of a God who loves us! We have so much potential, so much inside. This life is but a blink in the eternity of time. If only you could see the world as I see it, Jacques!”

  “I want to,” he said, coming closer and reaching for my hands. “That’s why I want you with me.”

  “The gospel teaches us truths you’ve never even imagined,” I continued, stepping away from him. “You can be happy! Service, prayer, faith, knowledge—these are what bring it about, all based on the love of our Savior.”

  A feral sound came from the back of his throat. “What I need is you.”

  I edged toward the door, seeing the futility of trying to answer him. Anything I could tell Jacques about the Savior and the gospel would be swallowed up in his obsession with the past. Why couldn’t he let go?

  “Well?” he asked.

  “No. Not even if I weren’t married. The past is over.”

  “It’s not!” He grabbed my shoulder, his look wild and ruthless. “Isn’t that why you’re here? You think I owe you because of what I did to Nette, don’t you? That’s why you think you can come and ask me for such a thing. But I tell you, I didn’t mean to hurt Nette! There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about her and cry.”

  My shoulder ached under his rough grasp, but his sincerity touched my soul. “I know, I know.” I met his stare, and he must have found what he needed in my eyes, because his grip slowly lessened. So did my fear.

  “I’m sorry, Ariana.” The muscles in his jaw worked convulsively. “I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

  “You didn’t,” I lied, rubbing my shoulder. I started toward the door again. “I didn’t come because of Nette,” I added. “I came because you told me to and because Marc needs you. There’s nothing more to it.”

  A sardonic mask covered his face. “You have my answer.”

  Having reached the safety of the door, I paused, glancing one last time at the lifelike paintin
g of my youthful self. “Yes, I guess I do.”

  With effort, I refrained from slamming the door, shutting it carefully and quietly as if a baby slept inside. I half expected Jacques to follow me, but he didn’t. A great relief washed through my trembling body. Whatever possessed me to come here? It seemed a mother’s love knew few bounds.

  I wandered back down the long hallway. Charlotte wasn’t working. She sat back in her chair while the screen saver on her computer sent a flurry of fish swimming lazily across the screen. She glared at me. “I can’t believe you came to ask him to risk surgery like that,” she said, her voice sharper than the long, clear nails drumming relentlessly on top of the papers near the keyboard.

  Her vehemence struck me as comical, since the last time I visited she was the one who had gossiped behind Jacques’ back. “How did you know?”

  Her face reddened, and I knew that somehow she had listened on their intercom system. Perhaps Jacques had accidentally left his end open. It didn’t really matter.

  “Good-bye,” I said.

  She practically vaulted from her seat. “He’ll win in the end,” she insisted, and this time her voice was bitter. “He always gets what he wants.”

  “Not with me.” Some nuance in her expression begged me to continue, and despite my former resolve to give this woman nothing to gossip about, I obliged. “I’m happy with my life and my future. Jacques lives only in the past. I don’t want him.”

  “Do you really mean it?”

  Those five words held hope, and in a shower of inspiration, I realized this woman’s frustration came not because of spite or boredom but because she actually loved Jacques. And more, she didn’t realize it yet.

  “I mean it.” I tried to keep the pity from my voice.

  She sniffed and sat again in her chair. “Not that I care, of course.”

  “Of course. And I’m sorry.”

  I turned and left before she asked me to explain. What was I sorry for? Sorry for her and her impossible love? Sorry that I had misjudged her? Sorry that Jacques was so awful? Yes, all of it. But most of all because he wouldn’t give Marc his kidney.

  I thought about what Charlotte had said about Jacques always getting what he wanted. Ridiculous. No one ever got that. Take my own life, for example. I was happy more times than not, sometimes deliriously so, and still life denied me some things.

  Like a kidney.

  I shoved the thought aside. “It must be for the best,” I said aloud. The dark clouds overhead threatened rain, and I hurried to the subway. They still hadn’t completely repaired the station by the café, but at least the trains were going through. Jean-Marc would be waiting and wondering.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The café was alive with business. The older ladies had already gone home, but my oldest daughters and Annette handled the rush with the exuberance of youth. I passed them with a smile and a wave. I noticed that young Kenny was in the line, and both Marie-Thérèse and Josette were working feverishly to be the one to help him.

  The kitchen was loaded with cakes my mother had baked earlier, frosted with the yellow-orange mixture. “They’re a hit,” Annette said. “We’ve used up several already.” It seems my mother had found an interest and an outlet at last—one that didn’t involve my father.

  Through the open office door, I could see Jean-Marc and Pauline. My daughter flung herself at me for a hug, as if it had been a week since we had last spoken instead of only that morning. “Oh, Mom, I missed you!”

  Joy cut through the sadness of the day. “I love you too, Pauline.” Sometimes it seemed that she had been born simply to love us. Behind her, Jean-Marc smiled.

  “Come and eat with Dad,” she said. “I want to go out and wait for André.”

  “He’s not here?”

  “Josette said he stayed after school to hang out.” He had been doing that a lot lately since the children changed schools, though it wasn’t something we allowed without reason. We would have to talk with him again.

  Pauline chattered on. “I have a talk in Primary on Sunday, and he said he’d help me write it.” André was a year and a half her senior, and she was in the habit of having him help with schoolwork, but she had usually asked me to help with Church talks.

  “Do you want me to find a story for you?” I volunteered. “I’m not too busy.”

  “No,” she said, picking up a stack of Church magazines from the desk. “I think it’s something André needs to do.”

  How keen her insight! André did need this link to the Lord. Anything we tried seemed to fail or bounce off the invisible wall he had built around himself. On our order, he went to church each Sunday, though reluctantly and with a bad attitude. In class, he either disrupted or stared sullenly out the window. Twice we’d found him in the halls. I consoled myself by thinking that at least he hadn’t been smoking, but I knew he could hide that fact if he wanted.

  “Good idea,” I said. Pauline flashed me her merry grin and danced away.

  I sank onto a chair, feeling Jean-Marc’s eyes on me. “How’d it go?”

  Frowning and shaking my head, I reached for one of the meat cakes on a plate sitting on the desk. “He won’t do it.”

  Jean-Marc nodded. “Well, we tried.” I could tell he was relieved.

  Frustration made me angry. “You’re glad,” I accused.

  “I guess I am, in some way. I don’t want Jacques in our lives.”

  I nearly shouted, “And you think I do?” An inner part of me felt surprised at the intense, almost irrational emotion I displayed. “You just can’t get it through your head—can you?—that I only want what’s best for Marc. I don’t care about Jacques—not as a man, anyway.” I stood, accidentally knocking over the chair. “I wish you’d get over your inferiority complex, or your middle-age crisis, or whatever it is that’s bothering you, and just love me.” And I want a part of each and every aspect of your life, I almost added. Even part of the rejection you face each day as you search for work. I could help him deal with that, couldn’t I? But he wouldn’t talk about his failures, not to me.

  “Ari, calm down. Let’s talk about this.” His expression was baffled, but there was irritation, even outrage, there as well.

  “I just can’t talk to you anymore.”

  “Fine.”

  We glared at each other, both hurt but not wanting to be the one to back down. I knew I was wrong. We were both wrong. But I didn’t really care whose fault it was; I just wanted things back to normal. Fighting the tears, I stalked out of the office, leaving Jean-Marc alone.

  I held in my emotions until later that night after the children went to bed. Then I sobbed quietly in the bathroom, feeling a terrible loneliness surge through my aching heart. Should I say I’m sorry to Jean-Marc? I thought. Sorry for what? a caustic voice inside me replied. Sorry for wanting to improve your son’s life? Maybe even save it? Or sorry for wanting to be a full part of Jean-Marc’s life?

  I went to bed, tears dried, but the heartache still all-encompassing. There, I clutched my knees to my chest in the fetal position. Jean-Marc lay on his side of the bed, silent and unmoving. Minutes ticked slowly by. Then he reached out a hand and touched my shoulder. I didn’t respond, and after a long moment he pulled away. I could hear him awake beside me, just out of my reach, hugging his misery to his chest as did I. It was a long time before I finally slept.

  The next morning found me cleaning between the cracks on my tiled kitchen floor, a task I had long neglected because of my work at the café. The cleaning fluid seemed unusually pungent, but the scrubbing action gave vent to the remaining frustrations eating at my soul. After we awakened, Jean-Marc and I had talked as if nothing had happened last night, neither caring to bring up the pain again. As a result, the words and feelings we had exchanged still sat like a heavy lump of iron in my stomach, making me feel out of sorts with everyone and everything. I wanted to make up with my husband so that my world could be at peace once more, but I had missed my opportunity.

  J
ean-Marc had already left, taking André with him to fix the blinds in one of the apartments. The girls had gone to the café, though not to work. We had hired three other people from our ward to take their places on Saturday. We felt the children needed a free day as much as we did, and Saturday usually ended up as such. They found plenty of time during the weekday lulls at the café to finish their homework, leaving Saturday for play. But play to them meant other teenagers, especially boys—but at least they were Mormon ones. So they went to the café, where the youth in our ward hung out. I stayed home, nursing my grief. Marc was in the apartment, too, but had already returned to his room for a nap. Once, he would have been zooming in the basement garage on his roller blades. Perhaps, in time, he would do so again.

  The buzzer below rang. Who could it be? I picked myself up off the floor and let my brush drop. I punched the intercom. “Who is it?”

  “It’s me, Lu-Lu.”

  I buzzed her in, left the apartment door ajar, and went back to my scrubbing. The elevator bell dinged, and Lu-Lu swept in. I stood up to greet her. Her dress was immaculate and set off her slender figure. Glancing down at my own body, I made a commitment to stay away from the pastries at the café. I was still trim, but it seemed middle age was coming to my waist.

  “He’s going to leave her,” she announced, tossing her short hair. Its red highlights glinted more overtly than I remembered.

  “What!”

  “Philippe loves me. He said so. As soon as his wife’s stronger and can take care of herself, he’s going to tell her, and we’re going to get married as we should have eleven years ago.”

  My cleaning brush clattered to the ground. “Lu-Lu, think what you’re saying! You know you weren’t supposed to marry Philippe; you’ve said so a million times. And what do you mean, breaking up his marriage? What about Danielle, his wife? What about his children? And he may have changed enough to ask for a blessing when there was nothing else left to do, but that doesn’t mean he’ll marry you in the temple. Lu-Lu, think!”

  She had bent to pick up the brush as I spoke, and now she fiddled with it in her hand. “I am thinking. And I love Philippe! I want to be with him. I do believe that we weren’t supposed to marry back then, but who knows why? Maybe I can’t have children, and that’s the only way those little spirits could come to earth.” Her look pleaded for understanding. “Oh, Ariana, I’m so tired of being alone. I know Philippe won’t be able to take me to the temple, but I can’t wait my whole life, can I? I’ve been given this chance with Philippe again, a second chance at love. Can you blame me if I take it?”