The Ariana Trilogy

by Rachel Ann Nunes

I shook my head. “You can see him when we get back.” The girls watched us with frightened eyes as we left the apartment. Louise’s face was sad.

  “Tell me what happened,” I said in the van.

  “Apparently, André and some other boys were on the Champs-Elysées when a group of tourists nearby came up missing some money. The boys were seen taking it. The police caught up to them shortly after someone in the group tried to buy drugs from a police plant.”

  “André couldn’t be involved in that!”

  “I didn’t think so, either. The policemen have determined that André had nothing to do with the buying part at least, so they aren’t holding him. The boys also had a hefty amount of alcohol and cigarettes on them, presumably purchased with the stolen money.”

  “André stealing?” I felt like crying.

  “Let’s wait and see what he says.”

  We drove the rest of the way in dark silence. I tapped my foot restlessly, wishing I had driven so that I had something to occupy my mind. When we arrived, Jean-Marc made no move to get out of the van. I shut my door again and faced him. “What?”

  “I’m not too sure what to say to him. I think we should pray.”

  “Good idea.” For myself, I was torn between beating André to a mushy pulp and hugging him in relief that he was all right. As the shock lessened, I began to lean more and more toward the beating idea.

  We prayed good and long. I felt my anger and fear lessen. “Okay,” Jean-Marc said. “I think I can go in now.” His face was more relaxed.

  Inside the police station, a tired-looking man in his fifties was at the front desk. A few long-haired youths stood talking with uniformed officers. An elderly couple sat near the door, waiting. Jean-Marc went up to the desk. “Someone called about my son.” I could hear the embarrassment in his voice. “I’m here to pick him up.”

  The man’s eyes were kind. “His name?”

  “André Perrault.”

  “But of course. I was the one who called you.” A hint of a smile flickered on his lips. “I did what you asked on the phone. We just happened to have one of our undercover cops here, and we put him in your son’s cell for awhile. That helped, I think.”

  “What’s this?” I asked, indignant.

  “I asked them to give him a good scare,” Jean-Marc explained. “If he has to have this experience, I want it to be his last.”

  “But he’s only twelve, not a hardened criminal!”

  The man at the desk held up a hand. “Oh, we didn’t hurt him, Madame. We only showed him the truth of what being in jail is like. A little bit, anyway. I’ve talked with him. Your son is a good boy. He’s not like the others. Now, if one of you will sign here, we’ll turn him over to you.”

  “Thank you. We appreciate your help.” Jean-Marc pulled the paper closer and signed it with a flourish.

  While we waited for André, a policeman came out of a side door with an older boy. He had a handsome grin and a hardened expression that reminded me of Jacques when he was younger. The old couple by the door stood to greet him, their shoulders drooping in resignation. I assumed they were his grandparents.

  “Mom! Dad!”

  I turned to see our son emerging from the same door the other boy had come from. His face showed stark relief at seeing us. I held out my arms and hugged him. When we separated, Jean-Marc put his arm around André’s shoulders and gently propelled him to the door.

  Once in the van, Jean-Marc didn’t start the engine. He turned in his seat to face André. “I want an explanation.”

  André frowned, and tears welled up in his eyes. “I’m sorry. I really am. I didn’t know they stole the money. I didn’t! I promise!”

  “You also promised me you wouldn’t smoke,” I said.

  “I didn’t. Honest. I just held it in my hand so they wouldn’t think I was a sissy or something.”

  “And how do you feel now?” Jean-Marc asked.

  André stared at the ground and said nothing.

  “Being with those boys is not a good thing,” I said. “They were buying drugs. And you know where that can lead. Remember your sister?”

  “I didn’t know,” he protested.

  “Don’t you see how wrong they are?” Jean-Marc said. “You can’t be with people like that.”

  “But I can help them,” André said. “I can. I could even introduce them to the Church or something.”

  “By pretending to smoke yourself?” I asked. “If you don’t live your religion by obeying God’s commandments, you can’t possibly share it with others.”

  He was silent for a long moment. “I won’t do it anymore. I don’t want to go back to jail. It was horrible!” He shuddered.

  Jean-Marc turned back to the front. With a deft twist, he brought the engine to life. “This isn’t over yet. We’ll have to think of a punishment. This is very serious, and it may take us a while to decide. Until then, you will stay with one of us unless you are at school.”

  André bent forward and stared at the floor resentfully. I saw a tear drop to the ground. Whatever treatment he had experienced in the jail had made an impression on him, but it hadn’t changed everything. I reached over the seat and touched his head. “I love you,” I murmured. “We both do. It won’t be easy, but you can earn our trust again.”

  He didn’t reply.

  When we got home, the older girls were full of questions. André answered them tersely. Pauline didn’t look at her brother or speak to him but whirled and stomped into the kitchen. After seeing Louise to the door, Jean-Marc and I checked on Marc, who was sleeping in his room. Then we went to the kitchen to start dinner. Serious voices stopped us in the hall. “What’s wrong, Dolly?” André was saying.

  “You think you’re so smart!” Pauline taunted.

  “What did I do? What’s wrong with you?”

  “I’m sad, that’s what. And it’s your fault.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you don’t want to be with me.”

  “Of course I want to be with you! I’m here, aren’t I? Didn’t I just ask you to play a game with me?”

  “Why should I?”

  André’s voice showed his confusion. “Well, you don’t have to, if you don’t want.”

  “How come you don’t stay with me all the time like you used to?” Pauline challenged. “You don’t care about me anymore, is that it? You used to do everything with me, but now you stay at school or hang out with bad boys. And now you’ve been in jail. What are you doing? Why aren’t we friends anymore?”

  Along with Pauline, I waited for an answer. Our lives had been so hectic lately that I hadn’t been able to pay attention to how André’s change was affecting our youngest daughter. Jean-Marc and I stared worriedly at each other when André’s voice came, rough and full of tears.

  “I just don’t want you to die,” he said.

  “But I’m not going to,” Pauline replied. “I’m better than ever. I haven’t been sick since we had that fire.” That was true. The new protease inhibitors had done better than I had dared hope.

  “It’s only a matter of time,” André said sullenly.

  “No, it’s not. Danielle got better, and Marc got a new kidney.”

  “No one ever gets better from HIV.”

  There was silence, and Jean-Marc motioned me into the kitchen. We arrived in time to see little Pauline shrug. “You just never understand,” she said. “Even if I go early to live with my parents and Jesus, I’ll be happy.” She frowned suddenly, and tears gathered in her eyes. “But you will make me sad, because I’ll wait for you there, and you’ll never come because you don’t believe.” Pauline started to cry, and André looked stricken.

  “But I—I—”

  “Do you believe?” Jean-Marc asked gently, grasping his shoulder as I took Pauline into my arms.

  André fought his emotions bravely, but there was no denying his strong feelings for his sister. “I do believe, Pauline! I do. I just get so scared.” He came closer, and Pauline turned from
me to face him.

  “You don’t have to be afraid. Jesus will take care of us.”

  “That’s right,” Jean-Marc said. “We can’t live in fear. That’s too big a burden for anyone. Let the Lord have it.”

  Tears glistened on André’s eyelashes. “I don’t know how.”

  “But we can show you.” I hadn’t realized until then that André’s rebellion stemmed from fear. It seemed he wanted to distance himself from his sister and all those he cared about so as not to feel any more pain. Pauline and I pulled André into our circle, hugging him tightly.

  “I’ll always love you,” Pauline whispered. “Just please be my brother again.”

  “I will, Dolly,” André said, remorse evident in his eyes. “I’ll never leave you again.”

  “Well, you’ll have to go to school,” I said lightly. So much emotion threatened to overcome us all.

  A smile flickered on André’s lips. “You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  He hugged me again. “I’m sorry.”

  I squeezed his shoulder. “I love you.”

  Jean-Marc grabbed André in a bear hug. André pretended nonchalance, but I saw the gladness in his eyes and the way his arms tightened about his father. Gratitude to the Lord filled my heart until I almost felt dizzy. The Lord loves us, I thought.

  “What’s going on?” Josette asked. She and Marie-Thérèse came into the kitchen. “Did we miss something again?”

  The rest of us laughed. Yes, something had happened, but it wasn’t anything I could explain. Once I had scoffed at the idea of Pauline believing love could solve the world’s problems, but now I knew better. Pauline’s love could cure anything. And maybe other love could, too. Lu-Lu loved Philippe and Danielle enough to give up Philippe a second time; and Charlotte’s love—and the Lord’s—might just cure Jacques. We had come full circle, all of us, to a new beginning. Or almost, anyway. Oh, I knew the change of heart I had prayed for wouldn’t come to André in one conversation, but he had taken the first step. More often than not, that was the hardest step to take.

  Jean-Marc and the children retired to the TV room, where Marc rested on the couch. Jean-Marc sat in the armchair with Pauline on his lap and the others at his feet, their scriptures open. Since the twins were four, Jean-Marc had read scriptures each night to the children near dinnertime. He had always made it fun, and now I hoped this relationship would pay off with André.

  I made dinner, enjoying the precious silence, my thoughts turning to Lu-Lu. She had been at Danielle’s side during Relief Society but disappeared before Philippe returned from priesthood with the missionaries. I wondered what she would do next. Seeing Philippe every day wouldn’t be easy for her, for either of them. Before long, something would have to change.

  I didn’t have long to wait. On Monday morning, Philippe visited the café. Jean-Marc was in the apartments, but I called and asked him to come down.

  “Thanks for seeing me,” Philippe said. “I’m here because Lu-Lu resigned this morning. I know she’s quitting because of me, to protect Danielle. But that isn’t right. I should be the one to go. It’s my family.”

  “So what are you going to do?” Jean-Marc asked.

  “I’m changing jobs,” Philippe said. “I’ve been offered a position by another banking firm, and I’m going to take it.”

  “What does this have to do with us?” I asked.

  Philippe smiled ruefully. “Well, I feel some obligation to the company I’m working for. As the manager of several of the Paris branches, I’m leaving them in something of a bind, unless I can find a replacement. I thought of Jean-Marc.” He paused before adding hastily, “You gave me my first job at your bank. I’ll be forever grateful.”

  “I did it because of my sister,” Jean-Marc said.

  “I know. But it gave me the chance I needed. Who knows where I would have ended up if not for you?”

  “How does your company feel about this?” Jean-Marc asked. We both knew the firm was larger than ours had been and that Philippe’s job entailed as much responsibility as Jean-Marc had shouldered as the president of our bank. “I’m not exactly on the banking profession’s good list right now,” he added.

  Philippe snorted. “The failure wasn’t your fault, and anybody worth anything knows that. I talked to the board of directors this morning, and they are willing to give you a chance. I won’t lie to you and say there was no opposition. A couple of old men said they had inside information that you were no good, but I stood up for you. The job is yours, if you want it.”

  “I’ll take it. And thank you.”

  Philippe shook his head. “Don’t thank me. I’m doing it for the same reason you gave me a chance. For Lu-Lu. And for what you and your son did for my wife.”

  They shook hands, and Philippe walked out the front door of the café, looking for all the world like a man who’d had a great burden lifted from his shoulders.

  Jean-Marc grinned at me, his green-brown eyes twinkling with a trace of their former light. “What do you think of that?”

  “I would never have believed it. It’s a miracle.”

  “They won’t regret it. I’ll show them how good I am.”

  I smiled. Already his confidence was returning.

  “What about Lu-Lu?” he asked. “Do you think she’ll be okay?”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  On a Saturday in mid-March, two weeks after Marc came home from the hospital, I celebrated my fortieth birthday. Jean-Marc planned to take me out to dinner, but as I readied myself in the bathroom, I felt a wave of queasiness and wondered if I hadn’t picked up a bug from the extra hours I was putting in at the café. Jean-Marc had started work at the bank two weeks earlier, and we had both put in extra hours to take care of the apartments. Only yesterday we had found someone to take over maintenance, though I still hadn’t decided what to do about the café. Now that Jean-Marc was working again, my small income wasn’t necessary. The novelty of being in the café had faded, and I found myself longing to be home with my family.

  “Forty years old,” I murmured to the bathroom mirror. On my face was a myriad of small wrinkles I had never noticed before, but inside I felt the same.

  “Hello, beautiful!” Jean-Marc appeared behind me, wrapping an arm around my waist and kissing my neck. “Surprise!” He brought his other hand around to present me with a large bouquet of the purest white roses. “Happy birthday!”

  I turned, kissing him. “Thank you!” Burying my nose in the flowers, I breathed in their sweet fragrance.

  “Mom, you look beautiful,” Pauline said from the door. André was at her side.

  “Doesn’t she though?” Jean-Marc whistled appreciatively.

  “Not yet,” I said. “I have to finish my hair and makeup.”

  “No, you don’t,” my husband insisted. “You’re always beautiful.”

  I snorted. “Right.” I turned to André. “Learn well from your father. When your wife looks lousy, you tell her how wonderful she looks. Flattery goes a long way.”

  Jean-Marc shook his head. “No, André. It’s not like that at all. When you look at the woman you love, she will always be beautiful to you.”

  I opened my mouth and then closed it again without saying anything. Jean-Marc smiled, and our eyes met in the mirror above the white roses. Oh, how I love that man!

  “Aunt Lu-Lu’s here,” Marc said, calling from the hall. “Come on, André. Let’s play a game of chess.”

  “Why’s Lu-Lu here?” I asked.

  “Don’t know,” Marc said. The children scattered.

  I laid the flowers on the edge of the sink and added a touch of blush to my cheeks. The skirt part of my dress was tighter than I remembered, but Jean-Marc’s loving gaze didn’t seem to notice the middle-age spread I was so conscious of. I felt beautiful.

  “Tell Lu-Lu I’ll be right there,” I told Jean-Marc.

  In the kitchen I found Lu-Lu on he
r knees, scrubbing the white tiles on the floor with gloved hands. “I told you I’d do it for you, and I never did. If you went with me to Danielle’s. Remember?”

  “Yes. But I wasn’t going to hold you to it, not really.”

  “I have nothing else to do.”

  “I’m sorry.” I tried unsuccessfully to hide my pity, but she waved it aside.

  “Consider it part of your birthday present.” She pointed to a package on the table. “I did bring you one. It’s a book. I didn’t know what else to get you, and I figured you’d be having a lot of time on your hands once you quit managing the café.”

  I smiled. Lu-Lu obviously had no idea how much work a family with five children took or how far behind I was in my housework—or maybe she did, since she had dressed in her old sweatsuit and even now scrubbed diligently at the stains on my floor.

  “Thanks,” I said. “But we were planning on having a family party tomorrow after church. You’re invited.”

  “I must have forgotten.” Lu-Lu’s eyes seemed far away.

  “How are you holding up?”

  She sniffed. “Well. It’s easier not seeing Philippe every day, and I’m glad I kept my job. I enjoy it, and working with Jean-Marc is like old times.” She paused in her work, her eyes glued to the ground. “Danielle and I are becoming good friends. She comes to see me sometimes at work, and we have lunch together. She’s been seeing the missionaries, and she told me yesterday that she wants to be baptized—and the children, too, when they’re older.”

  “But that’s wonderful!” I exclaimed.

  Lu-Lu’s smile finally reached her eyes. “It is, isn’t it? You know, I love Danielle like a sister, and that somehow makes up for losing Philippe. I lost him, but I gained her.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. It sounds silly when I say it that way. But I’m glad I didn’t hurt Danielle.”

  My sister-in-law, the martyr, I thought with a trace of pride. Then aloud, “Will Philippe let her be baptized?” I knew he hadn’t come to church again since that day Lu-Lu had rejected him.

  Lu-Lu nodded. “Danielle says so. I guess we’ll wait and see.”

  The buzzer in the hallway rang. Pauline ran to answer it, pushing the button without asking who was there. Jean-Marc frowned. “You really should ask, Pauline,” he said. “You never know who might be there.”