Joy shot up in bed. "You're not planning on having the baby over here, are you?"
"Yes."
"But why?"
Sarah paused and lowered the hairbrush. "You don't see why?"
"No! I don't!" Joy sat up in bed. "What reason could you possibly have for staying here? You've got no family or friends here."
Sarah's face clouded. "I just couldn't go back," she whispered, and Joy saw that this newfound happiness, although real, was fragile. "Think about it, Joy. Just think about it for a moment. All the implications. Especially for my grandparents. Not to mention John and Susan, and Billy. Everybody knows everybody. It'd be a slap in the face to all of them."
"Bunch of hypocrites."
"I don't begrudge them their feelings, Joy. I was raised like they were, with the same kind of scorn for adultery. And it's more than just John. It's Will's death, and everything that happened to me before John... with Anthony. I came home in this state once before." She grew silent and started picking nervously at her hairbrush.
"I'm sorry, honey," Joy said gently. "I didn't mean to open old wounds."
"I just can't do it. The very thought of going back sends waves of darkness over me."
"Oh, honey..."
"It's not like I have any great affection for this place as opposed to any other place." She picked up her damp towel, draped it over the radiator, then turned again to look at Joy. "It's so different from what I know. I used to see trees as an eyesore," she said with a smile, and Joy could see the sadness lifting. "But I am growing to like it. I'm beginning to like it very much." She turned off the lamp next to her chair and came to bed.
"My feet are cold," she warned as she crawled in next to Joy.
"You keep them off me."
Sarah giggled and then they settled down.
The fire had burned low, and the room had fallen into darkness. A moment passed, and she turned to Joy and whispered, "It's just that I'm happy now, and I guess that's how we judge a place, isn't it? Not for what it is, but for what we are when we live there."
But Joy's breathing had slowed and deepened; she had fallen asleep.
Sarah smiled. "'Night, my friend," she whispered.
CHAPTER 42
Joy left at the end of the week, having tasted a good slice of both town and country. They saw the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame, strolled the Champs Elysées and shopped at the Galeries Lafayette, even took a Bateau-Mouche down the Seine and popped into the Louvre for a few hours so Joy could say she had seen the Mona Lisa and the Winged Victory. The rest of the time Joy puttered around the chateau, visiting the exotic gardens and the gift shop and the petting zoo, tagging along on tours of the public rooms, and generally delighting in her role as guest of Frederic and Victoria de Beauharnais. Mealtimes were strictly observed, and even though they ate with the children and the housekeeper, a certain formality reigned, and a rigorous etiquette was required of each of them, down to the smallest child. They ate well and drank the fruity Beaujolais from the family's small vineyard, and Joy took back to the Cassoday Cafe enough gossip to serve up for years to come. As for Sarah's pregnancy, she was sworn to secrecy, but she extracted from Sarah a promise that Sarah would keep her informed of all progress, for better or worse, and—regardless of cost or inconvenience—Joy would be at her side for the baby's birth.
Autumn brought the smell of burning leaves and wood smoke, and the crack of hunters' rifles in the nearby forest. The forest within the estate was a designated wildlife reserve, but poaching was common and Monsieur Cassat, the groundskeeper, spent many a sleepless night stalking trespassers and confiscating the kills they abandoned as they fled his searchlight. More than once Sarah had seen him coming out of the woods in the morning, scowling grimly, a wild boar slung over his shoulder and blood dripping onto his boots.
Very gradually the seasons passed, marked by the changing colors of the countryside and a forest mottled with crimson and gold. The winters here were green and mild compared to those in the Flint Hills, and even when the leaves had fallen and the forest stood brown and unclothed, there were still blue firs and pines and moss-covered rocks to gentle the eye, and the grasses sustained their greenness and did not die out. On the first of December, as she crossed a meadow on a walk with Justine, Sarah spied a lone yellow butterfly darting among a few spindly dandelions and tiny white daisies still in bloom, and she was amazed to see the azalea on her window ledge in full flower until mid-December when it was finally struck down by the first frost.
December announced itself not with brittle sunlight and numbing cold but with ever diminishing days and increasing rain, always rain. It seemed to Sarah she barely got the children home, their boots, book bags, and coats removed, before night fell, and they took their snacks and spread out their schoolwork on the long hardwood table in the vast hearth room, sequestered by the darkness and rain. Sarah would go around the room switching on all the lamps and piling logs onto the fire. More than once the housekeeper complained to Madame de Beauharnais about this useless waste of electricity, and Victoria, ever frugal, would reprimand Sarah. But light was Sarah's weapon against depression, and she stubbornly persisted in her habits, leaving a trail of lighted lamps wherever she most frequently passed in the evenings, so that from the outside the south wing of the chateau shone brightly in the darkness.
In December Sarah began to work into her daily schedule an hour's rest on the worn sofa in the huge hearth room, the one where the dogs and children camped on Friday evenings to watch videos—this being the only room where a fire burned all through the day. Even if Fatima was running the vacuum or Madame was on the telephone at her desk in the far corner, Sarah would stretch out, cover herself with a wool throw, and go to sleep. The room was so vast and sounds so muffled by the encumbrance of massive book-covered tables and chairs and sideboards and hanging tapestries, that conversations were rarely overheard; neither were Sarah's light snores.
If Sarah had a champion that winter, it was Dr. Faure. It was he who urged Victoria to relieve Sarah of some of her duties, who insisted, in the later months of her pregnancy, she use Frederic's private elevator instead of the stairs, and who suggested Victoria provide her with a cell phone for use in case of emergency. Victoria, always a little slow to respond to the needs of her employees, was nevertheless accommodating, for she truly liked Sarah, found her particularly good with the children (even ten-year-old Henri, who had given such grief to their previous au pairs) and hoped she would stay on after her baby was born.
But the true test of this arrangement came in late December, only five days before Christmas. Sarah had driven the children in to Saint-Germain-en-Laye to ride the carousel and do some last-minute shopping. The excitement of Christmas hung in the air like the smell of snow. A giant pine tree decorated with huge floppy bows and shiny red ornaments the size of basketballs had been raised in the small place at the end of the Rue de Pologne, and garlands of flocked greenery woven with gold-and-silver ribbons decorated the doorways of boucheries and boulangeries, wine merchants and the Monoprix, and the fishmonger with his squid and raw oysters and salmon on white beds of cracked ice.
Always at this time of day the streets were full of shoppers, but never so many as in this season, and now they overflowed the sidewalks and spilled into the streets with their strollers and dogs and shopping caddies. The local beggars had their corner, and the harpist his, and the chestnut vendor had staked out a space for his coal brazier. There was always a bottleneck at that corner, and the smell of roasting chestnuts wafted all the way down the street.
It was five in the afternoon, and darkness had already fallen. Henri was gawking at a wild boar suspended from a hook next to the entrance of a butcher shop. Sarah suspected he was fondling the long needlelike fur and inspecting the snout and huge ears just to annoy Justine, and so she took the younger children by the hand and herded them on down the street toward a chocolate shop. All of a sudden she felt a painless rush of warmth between her legs, and she looked down t
o see bright, fresh blood trickling down her knee, staining her pale stockings. She called back to Henri, but he stubbornly ignored her, and she had to rush back to get him. He was only ten but he could tell by the look in her eyes as she hurried toward him that something was wrong, and then he saw her legs and he went white. Someone jostled him, and he got pushed aside, though he caught a glimpse of her face before she slipped to the ground. He heard someone cry out and he shoved his way through the shoppers and found her sprawled on the wet pavement, her bulky body blocking the way and the children beside her, Antoine pale and Justine wailing. Henri grabbed Justine by the hand and shook it hard and told her to be quiet, and then a lady from the parfumerie came out and helped Sarah inside. She was conscious when they sat her on a chair and Henri reminded her she had a cell phone in her purse. He dug it out but she was too weak to hold it, so he took it away from her and called home.
They were able to avert a miscarriage, but just barely. Two days later Sarah returned home. The children were out of school for the holidays and there was much excitement and much to do, but Sarah was confined to her bed. Only Justine was allowed up to her room, and Sarah read her Christmas stories and let her play with her watercolors. The housekeeper complained bitterly about the extra work, suggested Mademoiselle Bryden should be kept in the hospital where she could be tended to properly, or better yet, that she should return to her own country, that it did no good to hire someone to care for the children if she could not get out of bed, and that Madame de Beauharnais was being terribly inconvenienced by this turn of events. But Victoria had a soft spot for Sarah, so she turned a deaf ear to Madame Fleury and instructed the household to tend to Sarah's needs.
Their inconvenience was short-lived, however, for Joy arrived the day before Christmas with a suitcase full of macaroni and cheese, Oreos, two tins of Libby's canned pumpkin and evaporated milk to make pumpkin pies, candy canes and American videos for the children, two bottles of Sarah's favorite shampoo, and hastily wrapped presents from her grandfather and grandmother, all of which did Sarah a world of good.
Christmas dinner was a formal affair served in the grand dining room, but it was reserved for the immediate family. The employees had their own dinner service at the long table in the sprawling kitchen, and Sarah and Joy were invited to this, but Sarah could not leave her bed. So Joy carried up trays of food to her room, filled their plates full of foie gras and smoked salmon, took a little of the fish course and a lot of the turkey and chestnut dressing. She came back down later for the cheese and the traditional bûche de Noël, and of course two good-sized pieces of her own pumpkin pie.
Joy laid out their feast on a small drop-leaf table covered with a white tablecloth and lit with a single red taper. They sat before the fire in Sarah's room and were happy like this, just the two of them.
"I can't believe they didn't invite you to eat with them," Joy said.
Sarah shrugged, cut off a bite of turkey. "I told you, that's the way she is."
"What if I hadn't been here? What would you have done?"
"They would have brought me something."
"Not that old Madame Fleury. She's got it in for you. She'd see you starve before she'd lift a finger."
Sarah shrugged again. "Really, I understand. They have so many people they entertain all year-round."
"Still, it's not very charitable. And that's what Christmas is all about."
Sarah set down her wineglass and smiled. "You're the best Christmas ever, Joy."
"Are you sure you should be drinking?"
"Absolutely. Just wine. The doctor prefers it to medication. 'A stitch in the cervix, bed rest, and wine,'" she mimicked lightheartedly. "That's what he said." But Joy could see from her eyes she was taking none of it lightly.
Later that evening she and Joy exchanged presents. Sarah watched from her bed while Joy unwrapped her gift—framed watercolors, one of the chateau and another of a spray of pink dog rose.
"Oh, Sarah." Joy sighed, her eyes wide with delight. She set the paintings on the mantelpiece where she could admire them. "These are beautiful. And to think that all those years, you never let anybody see anything you painted."
"John saw them."
Joy crossed the room and sat down at the foot of Sarah's bed.
"Did you ever write him?" she asked.
Sarah gave a light laugh and threw her hands up in the air. "What would I say to him?"
"That you need him."
"Do I?"
"Very much so."
"Your presence does me a lot more good than his would."
"That's different."
The mock cheer on Sarah's face gave way to a worried look. She reached for Joy's hand. "Oh, Joy, how could I possibly draw him back into my life again just to share this?"
Suddenly Joy could find no more words of reassurance; tears stung her eyes and she blinked wide and looked down at Sarah's hand in her own, hoping Sarah had not noticed.
Sarah hoisted herself up on an elbow and turned to Joy. "I don't know if I'm doing the right thing, I really don't, but I know this much: If I lose this baby, I'll be losing more than John's child. I'll be losing the person I most want to be."
There was a solemnness in Sarah's eyes that Joy had never seen, a kind of heartfelt confession of her own frailness.
"Oh, Sarah honey..."
"Without this child," her voice lowered to a pained whisper, "I'll be nothing. My life will be worthless."
"That's not true. Look at what you're doing now. Look at your beautiful paintings."
But Sarah only shook her head. "They don't mean anything."
"Sarah honey," Joy murmured, smoothing down her hair.
Sarah laid her head back on the pillow and slid her hand down her belly. "You know what I do? I keep track of every movement he makes and I write it down in that notebook." She gestured to the bedside table. "I write down the exact hour and minute. Every time he squirms or kicks. I do it even at night. That's why I don't sleep."
They were silent for a moment, and then Joy said, "Sarah, you need that man. You need him here, with you, now."
"Joy, have you forgotten he's married?"
"Well, maybe he won't be able to come. But you need to give him the chance."
Joy straightened, and a look of firm resolve spread over her face. She patted Sarah's hand. "You just let me take over from here."
The next day Joy called Clay and woke him up at three in the morning to tell him she'd be staying on in France for a while. Joy's sister had agreed to come in and run the cafe for her, but she'd need Amy to put in extra hours, and she wanted Clay to drop around whenever possible to keep an eye on things. Clay was bad-tempered about being awakened in the middle of the night by his ex-wife, was particularly annoyed by her inability to explain herself, but he was downright baffled by her refusal to say exactly when she would be home. He couldn't get back to sleep after that, just lay in bed until dawn, listened to the wind rise and watched the morning light creep in between the slats of the blinds. Then he got up and put on some coffee and sat in the kitchen wondering what could have prompted such foolhardy behavior in that woman. When he told Amy over breakfast, his daughter's head shot up from her bowl of cereal. She stared at him wide-eyed, milk dripping from her spoon, and breathed, "Oh my God, Mom's fallen in love."
And so it was that word got around that Joy was staying in Paris, and within a week the tale was embroidered with all kinds of colorful twists and turns, and folks were saying the Cassoday Cafe would soon be up for sale, and Joy was to marry a count.
CHAPTER 43
Joy exercised more courtesy and self-restraint than usual when it came to calling Jack Bryden. She didn't want to jar the old man out of sleep in the middle of the night, particularly given the kind of news she had for him. It was tough to break it over the phone, but she didn't want to wait for a letter to reach him. She knew Jack would be terribly wounded that Sarah had hidden all this from him. But he surprised her by saying he had suspected there was somet
hing wrong, had suspected it for months now, was dead sure of it when she didn't come home for Christmas. Jack had hoped that whatever it was, Sarah'd share it with him in good time, and now he was just relieved that she was not ill, or in danger. He asked why Sarah herself hadn't called, and Joy explained that Sarah didn't know she was calling him, said she was using her own judgment in this matter and needed his help. She wanted him to find John Wilde.
Ruth had gone to the store that morning, and Jack was on his second pot of coffee, checking the newspaper ads for after-Christmas sales with a mind to picking up some new tires for his truck, when Joy called. After he had hung up he sat at the table picking at a callus on his palm and thinking it was silly for an old man to cry like this. The tears just slid down his cheeks and dripped onto the table, and he sat and stared at them as if they weren't his own.
He didn't really spend a lot of time pondering the thing, knew what he had to do, what he should have done all along. Tediously, he hobbled up the stairs to Sarah's room and opened her top dresser drawer. At the back was a small manila envelope. He took it downstairs and sat back down at the kitchen table. He tore open the flap, then dumped the letters onto the table.
There were only three, and they were still sealed. He had shown that much respect for the man that he had not opened the letters. He turned them over and read the return address. The first two had been written from Greece. He instantly recognized the postmarks, remembered Sarah's mother writing from places in Greece, remembered the strange alphabet. He remembered how he had felt sitting here at this same table talking to a man at the embassy who was trying to tell him his daughter had drowned but Jack hadn't been able to understand him. He knew where Greece was. He'd been there. Only place he'd ever been in his life outside of Kansas. He'd stood on a pristine white beach among a bunch of sunbathing tourists and looked out to sea where his daughter had last been seen. He'd stood there in the new shoes Ruth had bought for him with sweat trickling down his back underneath his shirt, with children running into the water and laughing, and he'd cried then, too.
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