by DeVa Gantt
The bleary mind was instantly sharp and attentive. “No,” he growled.
“But, John—”
“No!” he bellowed. “I don’t want him near the boy!”
“John, I’m not a physician. I’m not schooled in the remedies employed—”
“You are,” he stated vehemently, his rough voice growing earnest. “When we were young, never once did you fail us. No matter the illness, you always found the cure. Though you doubt your ability, I know you can help Pierre.”
“You expect too much of me. I’ve done everything within my ability.”
“If you can’t help him, then no one can.”
“You don’t know that, John. We have a physician on the island who—”
“I said ‘no,’ damn it! I won’t allow that incompetent ass to touch Pierre. My God, the man killed the boy’s mother. He killed my mother!”
“John, you’re wrong,” she whispered woefully.
“Think what you like,” he snarled, “but I swear, if Robert Blackford takes one step across that threshold, I’ll wring his neck with my bare hands. I swear I will.”
“Very well,” Rose soothed in resignation. “I’ll not press you on the matter. However, you will go downstairs and have something to eat. Fatima has prepared some broth, and after you’ve finished that, you must get some sleep.”
“No.”
“Charmaine and I will remain right here,” she persisted. “If there is any change in his condition, we will come and get you immediately.”
“No.”
“John, I won’t take no for an answer. You need nourishment and sleep.”
“No! I said ‘no’!” he barked. “I won’t allow you to sneak Blackford into this room by shooing me away!”
Rose gritted her teeth, unintimidated. “I wouldn’t do that, not to you or to anyone else to whom I’d given my word.”
The planes of the man’s face remained set, far from contrite.
Rose proceeded with care. “You’re working yourself into a state of collapse, and then I’ll have not one, but two patients to attend to.”
“I’ll be fine. Just minister to the boy and forget about me.”
“Rose is right,” Paul interjected, stepping forward. Though his words bordered on a command, they also rang with compassion. “John, please listen to her. You know she has Pierre’s best interest at heart. I’ll take up your vigil for a while.”
“You?”
“Yes, me,” Paul answered softly, impervious to the snide query.
“It would benefit me to stay. If I hadn’t wasted precious time arguing with Travis outside the chapel, if I had rushed to the lake right away, I might have gotten there before the boat capsized. I’d like to do something, know I’ve helped in some way.”
“You’re not at fault,” John refuted tightly. “I know who’s to blame.”
“John, please. I’ll not fail you this time. I swear I won’t.”
Paul awaited his brother’s response, unsure if his pledge had met its mark.
John pushed out of the chair, swayed, then cast imploring eyes to Charmaine. “Promise me you will not leave Pierre—you won’t permit Blackford access to this room.”
“I—I promise,” she stammered.
“Swear it.”
“I swear it.”
Satisfied, John stared down at Pierre, combed his fingers through the boy’s hair, and staggered from the chamber. Charmaine watched him go, disturbed by a sudden sense of desolation. Even in his incapacitated state, John had radiated an intensity of purpose that had guarded against the enemy. She feared his abandonment and turned worried eyes to Paul.
“No need to fret, Charmaine,” he said, “John will not hold you responsible.”
“Responsible? What do you mean?”
But he hadn’t heard her, for he’d already turned to Rose, who was speaking urgently to him. “You’d best leave immediately if you are to get Robert here before it’s too late.”
Charmaine reeled with the plot being hatched. “What are you talking about? You mean to bring Dr. Blackford to this room when you know how John feels about him?”
No answer, their muteness branding them guilty.
“I can’t believe it! You gave your word!”
“Charmaine—”
“Child,” Rose soothed. “There’s no time for explanation. Pierre is dying.”
“No!” Charmaine refuted fiercely. “You’re wrong, terribly wrong!”
“I wish I were. Like John, you deny in your heart what you know to be true. The boy is dying and if we don’t call on Dr. Blackford now, tomorrow John will blame himself for more than just this terrible accident.”
“No, he can’t be,” she whispered, her eyes sweeping to Paul, desperately seeking some ray of hope from him, finding only defeat. “You’re betraying John. You’ve deliberately deluded him—tricked him into leaving this room. And I won’t believe Pierre is dying. God wouldn’t claim the life of an innocent boy, not when there are so many praying for his recovery.”
Her words echoed off the walls, then died. No one spoke, though their minds raced, searching for solutions, finding none, aware only that there was no hope to be found in hopelessness, no miracle to be wrested from the firm hand of the Almighty. Charmaine studied Paul. He quickly diverted his distraught gaze. When Rose cast her eyes to the floor, taking on the yoke of the accused, Charmaine turned away, a tear trickling down her cheek.
Silence reigned. She slumped into John’s chair and took succor from the silence, reveling in its blanketing void. It was an unsullied silence, offering a peace she had not enjoyed for three long days. But suddenly, it seemed as if the room had become overwhelmingly silent, as a deeper, more intense silence enveloped her, severing itself from time and becoming an entity in and of itself. She concentrated on the silence, wondering what made it different. It was a silence that negated the gravity of the situation, a silence that lulled one into a false sense of security, a silence undisturbed. The wheezing had stopped.
Charmaine bolted to her feet and threw herself at the bed, grasping Pierre. “Rose! He can’t breathe! I don’t hear him breathing!” She tore away the suffocating blankets and shook him. “Pierre—breathe! Dear God—breathe!”
Her petition went unanswered, and slowly, painfully, the terrible truth took hold. Charmaine looked down at the feeble head that lolled against her arm, the long eyelashes fanning flushed cheeks. With an agonizing groan, she cradled the limp body to her chest, buried her lips in his matted hair, and sobbed.
“Charmaine…”
From far away, she discerned Paul’s voice, felt him loosen her hold on the boy, watched Rose restore the lifeless body back to the center of the bed, was cognizant of being drawn farther from it, her vision blurred, then farther still…
“Let me go!” she protested savagely, reclaiming her sanity, attempting to reach Pierre again.
“Charmaine! Don’t do this!” Paul commanded. “The boy is gone. You’ve held on long enough.”
With the strength of one possessed, she wrenched free, but came up short as she stormed the bed. Pierre lay so very still.
“He’s at peace now,” Rose murmured.
The statement was like a knife in her heart. Refusing to accept it, she fled.
“Charmaine—wait!”
“Let her go,” Rose advised, grabbing hold of Paul’s arm. “She needs to be alone, and I need you here.”
Charmaine reached the stairs and stumbled down them, for blinding tears distorted the shadows around her. More than once, she clutched the banister, catching herself before she fell to the landing below, still, she did not falter in her demonic pace, not even when she reached the foyer. Her legs carried her through the disused ballroom and toward the chapel doors. With muffled sobs, she closed her burning eyes, a fervent prayer racing through her mind, already on her lips: Dear Lord, help me to accept Your will and bereave the loss of my loved one. Please…give me the strength to go on…
She passed th
rough the vestibule’s archway before she saw him. Head bowed, John was half-sitting, half-kneeling in the pew nearest her. His elbows were propped on the bench in front of him, his forehead pressed into the white knuckles of his entwined fingers.
She rushed forward, and his head lifted. He jumped up and grabbed hold of her. “What is it?” he demanded. “Pierre—is he all right?”
She hesitated, until he shoved her aside and raced for the doorway.
“John—don’t go up there! You mustn’t go up there.” She put a hand to her mouth as another wave of tears erupted in her throat. “Pierre is dead. Oh God, John, he’s dead.”
He stared, unseeing, as her words amplified—laid siege to his heart and ravaged his soul. Then silence reigned, carrying with it a cross and nails. He threw back his head and laughed pitifully. “And I came here to beg mercy from a God who has none!”
“You mustn’t say that!”
“Why?” he growled. “Because I’ll provoke His wrath?”
He stepped back and shouted at the crucifix suspended above the altar. “Must you punish me forever? Will I never see an end to it?”
“John! Stop it! Please stop!”
“He’s taken everything from me—everyone I’ve ever loved.”
“No, John, it wasn’t the Lord’s doing. He has no reason to persecute you, and you need Him now—the solace only He can offer.”
“I don’t want His damned solace!” he exploded. “I want my son! Can’t you understand that? I want my son!”
“Merciful God,” she murmured. I was right!
Unconsciously, she stepped back, her reaction catching his eye.
“Poor Charmaine Ryan,” he snarled diabolically, “subjected to evil and decadence. See, you were right about me all along! I fathered that child you loved. He was nothing more than a bastard.” His voice cracked, the anger failing him, though he strove to hold it, command it. “I require no audience, my dear, so why don’t you run along, back to your pristine world of morality and self-righteousness? I’m capable of dealing with this on my own, have been for quite some time now.”
His cruel remarks did not affect her; no words remained to chase her away.
John damned her for holding fast to the macabre sanctuary, for gawking at him. He’d make a fool of himself soon; invading visions of Pierre assaulted him with such clarity he could feel the boy’s hand in his, the brush of his pursed lips on his cheek—a swift, piercing embrace.
“Dear God,” he groaned, “I loved him. Why did you take him away? Why?”
He drove a trembling hand through his matted locks and swallowed hard, as ineffectual at dislodging the lump in his throat as he was at barricading his grief. The tears gathered, so he tilted his head back to catch them, but they spilled over, trickling into his hairline. He was losing the battle and, with a moan, the fortress caved in.
“Oh God, Colette!” he implored, his head still thrown back as if he could see through the stone ceiling to the heavens, as if she could hear him. “Why did you abandon me? For what? What did you gain—but misery and death? I loved you and I needed you, but you sent me away. Why didn’t you turn your back on this evil place when I begged you to? You would still be alive—our son would still be alive! Why did you think this—this was for the best?”
“John, don’t do this! Please, don’t do this to yourself!”
Someone was beseeching him, tugging on his arm. Suddenly, that someone was in his arms, and he was clinging to her for dear life, unable to let go, certain he’d be submerged in a cauldron of fire if he let go. His world was crumbling; the lofty summit upon which he was perched was quaking precariously, and the jaws of madness waited hungrily below.
Charmaine returned his fierce embrace and caressed his broad back, her yearning to be held just as desperate. His head was buried between her shoulder and cheek, and she could feel his tears on her neck, the desolate phrases he uttered, incoherent at times, painfully clear at others.
“Colette…Hold me! Please, hold me!”
Her arms tightened around him, pulling him closer. Then she turned her face into his chest and wept bitterly. She didn’t know for whom she cried: Pierre, the tender lad, Colette, the melancholy woman, or John, the brooding man, full of life, laughter, tears, hatred, and love. A man she had yet to understand. Her heart ached for them all. And she cried for herself, the immeasurable loss she was just now beginning to experience; would have to live with the rest of her days.
“I killed him! Dear God—I killed him!”
“No!” Charmaine countered, pulling away. “No, you mustn’t blame yourself! It was an accident, a terrible accident.”
“Accident? No, Charmaine, it wasn’t an accident. Accidents happen when people have no control over a situation. When I learned of Pierre’s conception, he became my responsibility. I should never have abandoned him, but I did. I set everything on course to this end. The sins of the father were laid upon the son. He’s dead because of me.”
“No, John,” she disputed fervently. “You are wrong. God wouldn’t hurt Pierre to punish you. He was a dear little boy, whom God loved as much as you did. As for your past transgressions, they are in the past. Pierre had nothing to do with them.”
“He was at the center of them!”
His voice was heavy with guilt. What was she to say to a man who had taken his father’s wife and witnessed that woman bear his child?
“I should never have come back,” he bit out. “He would have been spared if I had never entered his life. I should have remained a distant brother, a name occasionally mentioned, a name without a face. But Colette insisted I come, and once I’d seen him—he was such a fine boy—I couldn’t turn away, I just couldn’t. I knew I was making it harder on myself—on him—but I thought if I gathered enough memories, I’d be able to make the final break. I never meant to hurt him.”
He turned aimlessly to the pews again, slumped onto the bench, and buried his head in his hands.
“I know you didn’t, John,” Charmaine soothed, joining him there.
“I didn’t deserve him,” he ground out. “He was too fine a boy to have a father the likes of me.”
“That’s not true!”
“It is true! If I were any kind of a father, would I have left him alone?”
“John, you had no way of knowing Pierre would leave the room!”
“Didn’t I? He was determined to go to his boat only the eve before! I knew he didn’t want me to leave, knew he wanted to come with me. And what did I do? I refused him, and I hurt him. I broke his heart. I saw the pain on his face—saw him choke on his tears, and then, because I couldn’t stand to see him cry, I turned my own misery on him and threatened to desert him without a final farewell. God forgive me,” he sobbed, “that was the gravest sin of all! Is it any wonder when he awoke he’d assumed I’d left and ran to the lake to follow me?”
“You didn’t know. How could you know?”
“No, I didn’t know, but I could have prevented it! I could have told him what he wanted to hear. I could have taken him with me. Or I could have stayed. But my father was right,” he sneered. “I wasn’t man enough to claim what was mine. I abandoned him—not once, but twice. All these years I’ve hated my father for the very same thing. What a hypocrite I am, and my, how he must be laughing!”
“He’s not laughing, John,” she averred. “I know he’s not laughing.”
“Oh God, Charmaine, I did love him,” he cried. “I swear I did. The only reason I didn’t take him from this god-forsaken place was because I didn’t want to hurt him, or his sisters. How could I tear them apart? Let the girls believe I had chosen him over them? How could I even dream of taking him away from you? I knew eventually he’d despise me if I did. But I was growing too attached to stay any longer. That’s why I thought it best to leave, before it became impossible to live the lie.”
Charmaine dabbed at her own tears and put a hand on his shoulder. “John, it serves no purpose to torment yourself.”
He was quiet for a time, head buried on his arms. “Why couldn’t God have taken me instead? He could have prevented me from hurting anyone else.”
“Don’t say that, John!”
“But I have. First Colette—I loved her more than I’ll ever love anyone. She was never really mine, and still I took her, and I hurt her…”
“John, please—you’re turning in circles. The past cannot be changed, but you have your entire future to look to.”
“Future?” he snorted dismally. “My future will always be shadowed by the sins of the past.”
“Those sins were pardoned long ago,” she replied with fierce determination. “They no longer exist. If you continue to dwell on them, they will destroy you. It is far better to remember your love for Pierre and pray for him.” She cleared her throat. “Pray he has joined his mother in heaven.”
“Heaven,” he murmured, comforted by her forgiving heart. “If only I could believe such a realm exists, that they share it. Perhaps I could find some peace then.”
“It does exist, John,” she promised, “and I know they are there, together, praying for you.”
He was quiet again, as if weighing her sincere words. “Sweet Charmaine,” he whispered, “I know you grieve, too. I shouldn’t have burdened you with this, forced you to become my confessor. You should be appalled, and yet, you are compassionate. You haven’t condemned me. Why?”
“Because I know you loved Pierre. I do not think you are wicked.”
“Then what?”
“Lonely.”
“Aye,” he nodded, “lonely and alone.”
“Again, you are wrong,” she argued softly. “You have your sisters. You have Rose and George, even Paul. And you have me. If you ever need a friend, I will always be here for you.”
“Aren’t you afraid I might tarnish that friendship?”
She chuckled plaintively. “If you didn’t succeed in tarnishing it in the beginning, then it certainly won’t happen now.”
Her response brought a doleful smile to his face, but it swiftly took wing.
“If you’d prefer to be alone, I’ll retire.”
