by Sarah Jio
I sigh, thinking of the fight Victor and I had last night. He slept on the couch as a result, and we barely spoke at Alma’s party. Am I being too hard on him? No. I shake my head to myself. While I can appreciate all the travel we did before Alma was born, times are different now. We can’t up and move to Mexico, just because he has the bug to start a new restaurant there. Alma loves her school, and my art career is thriving here. I’ve had three new installations just this month. And besides, what’s wrong with Café Flora? The restaurant has been a hit since he opened it three years ago; it has even recently been written up in a local magazine as the best-kept secret in San Diego. Why can’t he just be satisfied with that? I look around at our beautiful home, the very one I grew up in, and wonder if any of it, or we, would ever be good enough for him.
When he walks out to the patio from the living room, I look away.
“Hi,” he says. “You did a great job with the party.”
“Thanks,” I say.
He walks closer, reaching for my hand, which I let him take. When he pulls me close, I melt in his embrace, the way I always have since the first time he held me, that night in Paris so many years ago.
“I’m sorry about last night,” he continues. “You’re right. It’s completely off base of me to suggest that we move to Mexico.”
I sigh. “Do you really mean that?”
He nods.
“Because, Vic, I don’t want you to resent me. I don’t want you to ever think that I held you back.” I look up into his big dark eyes. “I don’t want to have a boring life, either, but,” I glance back at Alma, splashing happily in the pool, “our life is here.”
He nods. “It is.”
“You know how rocky my childhood was.” I blink back tears. “I don’t want that for Alma.”
“You’re right,” he says, squeezing me tighter. “We’ll stay put. I’m sorry.”
I nod, pulling the towel around my body. “We can talk more about this later. I need to shower and head to the store.” Since Victor cooks so much at the restaurant, I try to do most of the cooking at home. “Can you keep an eye on Alma?”
“Sure,” he says.
“Daddy!” our little girl cries as he walks toward the pool, diving in beside her.
After I shower, I pull my hair into a quick bun and slip on a comfy cotton dress. “All right, you two,” I say, reaching for my keys. “Does salmon sound good?”
“Great,” Victor says.
I look for my purse in the living room, then remember I left it in my studio, where I find it lying next to a painting that’s still drying from this morning. I got up before sunrise to work on my latest, a commission from a couple in New Zealand.
Victor is drying off on a chair by the pool when I walk out to the patio again. “Don’t take your eyes off her, honey,” I whisper, kissing his cheek. We are both protective of Alma, but I can sometimes err on the side of being overly so. She’s taken swim lessons since infancy, and we have little to worry about.
“Don’t worry,” he says, leaning back in the lounge chair and reaching for his book. “I’ll stay right here.”
“Back in a flash.”
* * *
—
SALMON. CHARD. ONE lemon. A baguette. Some red potatoes. Oh, a pint of ice cream for Alma. Milk. Anything else? I survey my cart as I wave to one of the moms from school, whose name escapes me, then head up to check out. The lines are long. I should have known better than to go shopping right at the dinner hour.
On the drive home, I think of Victor’s apology and smile to myself. Every relationship has its bumps in the road, and I can be grateful that our journey hasn’t been a rocky one. Victor is nothing like my father. He’d always do what’s best for Alma and me. I know that in my heart, even if my vulnerabilities sneak in once in a while, like they did last night.
I take a shortcut past Alma’s school, recalling how I’d taught the second graders an art lesson earlier in the week. Alma had been so proud. Four more blocks, then I turn into our little neighborhood, but slow my car when I notice a strange sight: a crowd of people standing in the street. I recognize Alma’s piano teacher, Mrs. Wayfair, immediately, her red hair standing out in the crowd. As my car inches closer, I see that she’s crying; so is Greta, the older woman who lives on the corner and walks her dog, Muffie, three times a day. There are others I don’t recognize, and also three police cars, parked haphazardly along the road, one in the driveway of…our home, beside an ambulance. Sirens flash.
I slam on my brakes and jump out of the car, running through the crowd to my front door and inside, where the scene before me makes me fall to my knees.
Alma lies limp on the living room floor. A team of paramedics are administering CPR, alternately compressing her chest and blowing air into her mouth. Unable to stand, I crawl to my little girl, gasping for air. Screaming for answers. “What happened? Will she be okay? What can we do?”
She’s dripping wet. Water pools on the floor beneath her body. A chunk of her hair has been cut or ripped from her scalp. I scream, and a police officer touches my arm. “Ma’am,” he says, “please. Let the paramedics do their work.”
I nod, shaking from head to toe. Where is Victor?
“Ma’am,” the police officer continues. “Your daughter’s hair appears to have gotten caught in the pool’s filtration system.”
I shake my head. “No, no. I, I, I just had it cleaned last week.”
“I’m afraid that cleaning doesn’t make a difference. It’s just these old pools. Their suction—they can be very dangerous.”
And then my eyes meet Victor’s. He’s weeping, just as I am. He runs to me, and together we fall to the floor, holding each other in our grief.
We remain suspended in a numb place, waiting for our little girl to sit up, cough, and take a deep breath. But she doesn’t. Her face is blue. The lead paramedic finally stops the chest compressions, then lowers his head.
“I’m so very sorry,” he says. “We couldn’t save her.”
“No!” I cry, running to Alma’s side and pressing my cheek against hers. “Can’t you do something? Can’t you…” I am hysterical.
“Ma’am,” the officer says, touching my arm. “There’s nothing more anyone can do. Please, let her go.”
“No!” I scream. “No!” Victor tucks his arm around me, pulling me up to a stand as the medical team lifts Alma’s limp body onto a stretcher. “Don’t let them take her, Vic.” I pound on his chest as he pulls me to him. How could this happen? “You promised to keep her safe,” I say, sobbing.
Victor is crying, too, in as deep a state of shock as I am. He shakes his head, as if trying to make sense of the horror that has just happened. “I, I only looked down at my book for a moment, and she was…gone. I dove in. She was under the water, in the deep end. I’d never seen anything like it. Her hair was caught in the filter.” He falls to his knees. “I got her out. I called 911. But…”
“But you were too late,” I say, shaking my head, through more tears. “I’ll never forgive you!” I scream. “Ever, as long as I live.”
If he’s speaking, I don’t hear him. There’s nothing he can say, anyway. The paramedics cover my sweet daughter with a sheet and wheel her away, forever.
CHAPTER 20
CÉLINE
The next morning, I awake to Cosi’s face peering over me. My back aches, and I groan as I turn over on the hard floor. “Hi, Mama,” she says cheerfully. The baby in my belly shifts as I yawn, then open my eyes. “I’m not sick anymore.”
I place my hand on her cool head. Thank God. Her fever must have broken in the night. Keeping her with me was dangerous, yes, but I couldn’t bear to send her below, not when she was so ill. But we survived, and Cosi is well again. That’s all that matters. We crawl out from under the bed and I quickly get her some water and yesterday’s pastry, which sh
e takes an eager bite of. I study the pain aux raisins, which remains on the desk in pieces, and I think of the message inside. Am I foolish to believe that Nic could actually mobilize a plan to rescue us? What if Luc hasn’t returned? What if Nic couldn’t find Esther? I scold myself for not writing her address on the note I’d given him. He’d never been to our home, though Papa and I had talked about having him to dinner many times. How would he know where to find her? There could be hundreds, thousands, of women with the same name in Paris, let alone in our neighborhood. And even so, how could Esther, a nurse, mobilize a rescue mission? I sigh.
Cosi turns to me after she’s finished her pastry. “I’m ready to fly, Mama.”
I smile. “I know you are, love. But not quite yet.”
She nods. “Luc will come.”
“Yes,” I say, smiling back at my daughter and willing myself to embody her resolve. “Yes, he will.”
* * *
—
WHEN I CATCH Madame Huet’s gaze at dinner, I smile. “Thank you,” I say. “What you did last night…it was incredibly—”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, frowning, returning her gaze to her plate.
I nod. “I’m sorry.” Whatever kindness was shown would remain unspoken.
* * *
—
WHILE THE WAR rages on, Reinhardt’s absence brings some calm to our lives, but it hasn’t persuaded Madame Huet to aid in our escape. She continues to keep the door locked and treat me, more or less, like a prisoner she merely tolerates, perhaps for reasons of self-preservation—Reinhardt could come home at any moment, and then what?—but I like to think that somewhere beneath that icy exterior of hers lies a tiny wedge of kindness; I got a rare glimpse of it the night Cosi took ill, which is why I let my guard down from time to time, allowing Cosi to linger for longer stretches in bed in the morning, or in the bathtub when she begs me to let her play with the bubbles just a few moments more. One afternoon when Madame Huet is napping, I even let her go into the living room. She touches the sofa’s upholstery and runs her fingers along the coffee table as if they are rare artifacts from a Greek archeological dig. To her, after all these months, leaving the confines of the bedroom feels like stepping out onto another planet or feeling the rush of cold water in your throat after days crawling through a desert.
* * *
—
PARIS IS GLORIOUS in June, and I’m not sure who is more miserable to be confined indoors, Cosi or me.
“I wish I could run through the park like I used to,” Cosi says.
“You will, soon,” I reply.
“Will I?” she asks. “Or are you just saying that?”
I swallow hard. “Of course you will, love.”
“Then why don’t we get out of here? Right now. We can get that mean old housekeeper to give us the keys.”
“Honey,” I say, “it’s not that easy.” I touch my belly. “And not in my state.”
She nods. “I just keep thinking.” She looks to the window. “What if this is all the life I am going to get? Just here in this room.”
I shake my head. “No, love. This is not all the life you’re going to get.”
She nods. “Well, I’ve decided that it will be okay if that’s what happens.” She sighs. “I will always miss Papa, and I suppose I’ll be sad that I never got to kiss Nic,” she pauses with a grin, “but I get to be with you, Mama.”
I clench my teeth, trying to keep the tears from coming. “And I get to be with you, love.”
“Then I guess we’re lucky, right?”
I nod, thinking of the little boy in knickers who was pulled from his mother across the street from our apartment.
Cosi squeezes her teddy bear. “And I have Monsieur Dubois, too.” Her smile quickly fades as she turns back to me. “Mama, if…anything happens to me, will you make sure Monsieur Dubois is safe? Will you always look out for him?”
I shake my head, unsuccessfully trying to blink back the rogue tears that spill out onto my cheeks. “Oh love, nothing is going to happen to you.”
Her eyes are steadfast, determined. “Just promise.”
I nod, clutching Cosi’s sweet teddy bear to my chest. “I promise.”
* * *
—
MADAME HUET ANNOUNCES at breakfast that Reinhardt will be detained longer. More important business in the south, again, she explains. She knows I’m pleased, and I suspect she is, too, but we each keep our cards close to our vests, until a week later, when I mistake the tray of sweets and glass of milk (for Cosi, of course) for kindness. That evening at dinner, I smile and say, “Madame Huet, will you please let us go?” I pause and place my hand on my belly, “Before he returns. Please?”
“What do you take me for, a fool?” she says, clutching the key around her neck. I’m reminded of how Reinhardt has warned me he’s equipped his housekeeper with a gun.
As time passes, I begin to wonder if Reinhardt has been killed—shot by the Allies, or better, taken to prison, where he will rot in a cell for the rest of his miserable life.
But then, on a particularly sweltering Thursday, the seventeenth of August, I hear the front door open and heavy footsteps on the wood floors.
“Where is everyone?” he shouts into the apartment. “When a man comes home, he expects to be greeted properly.” Even through walls, his deep voice reverberates. Cosi and I exchange a worried look as I quickly tuck her into the room below the floor, straightening my hair a bit before taking a deep breath and opening the door. What will he think of me now, a woman pregnant to full term, with swollen ankles?
Madame Huet stands at attention beside Reinhardt. He looks larger than I remember, and I steady myself as his gaze falls on me.
“Look at you,” he says. “Practically the size of a horse.”
I lower my head and place a protective hand on my swollen belly as he tosses his coat at Madame Huet. “I’m starving. When’s dinner?”
“As soon as you like, monsieur,” Madame Huet says dutifully.
He nods.
“I trust your business in the south was successful?” the housekeeper says.
“Indeed so,” Reinhardt replies, looking only at me. He walks closer and scours every inch of me with his eyes. “I have a present for you, Céline.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small pouch, tossing it at me. It hits the floor before I can catch it, making a loud clink on the ground. I bend to pick it up, carefully opening the little sack.
Inside is a man’s watch. At first I don’t understand. Nothing makes sense to me anymore. But then I recognize the worn leather band, the shape of the hour and minute hands, the inscription on the back, from my…mother. Papa’s watch.
I fall to my knees. “Where did you…get this?” I cry. “What does this mean?”
Reinhardt smiles smugly, brushing past me toward his bedroom. “Is that all I get? Not even a thank-you?” He shakes his head. “I should have just tossed it in the pile of junk with all the others.” He slams the door behind him.
I don’t tell Cosi. Instead, I tuck Papa’s watch under the mattress and dry my tears before I hoist her up from her little room beneath the floor. The news would break her, just as it has broken me, and I can’t do that to her. In her little journal, she keeps lists of all the things she wants to do with Papa once we’re rescued, including visiting Normandy, just as I promised her we would.
That night we both go hungry because I am too grief-stricken to go to dinner, where I’d have to face him, but Cosi doesn’t complain, nor does she protest when I tell her she must sleep in the darkness of her little room instead of in bed with me, as she’s grown accustomed to doing while Reinhardt has been away. She simply kisses me good night, tucks Monsieur Dubois under her little arm, and climbs down to the dark space below. The flashlight has long since run down its batteries, and with t
hat, we’ve lost almost all our remaining rays of hope. Luc and Esther have not found us. Papa is gone, and inside me, a strange child stirs, readying itself to be born into a world far crueler than I’ve ever known, a world, I fear, that even a lotus flower wouldn’t survive in.
CHAPTER 21
CAROLINE
I glance at the clock, shocked that it’s already after ten A.M. I’ve been so embedded in my returning memories that I’ve completely lost track of time. I promised Inès I’d drop into the studio and help her set up for the art show. I stand up, quickly, then sink back into my sofa again with an exhausted sigh. Dr. Leroy said this might happen: rapid-onset remembering. It feels a little like waking from a dream, that strange, ethereal sense of being neither here nor there, nor anywhere, and yet all the while having a deep and all-consuming notion that nothing will ever be the same.
My eyes are heavy again, and when I rest my head on a blue velvet throw pillow at my right, I can hear the palm trees rustling, and I give in to the newest memory flooding my mind.
There I am, in the house in San Diego, with boxes everywhere. From the living room window, I see a moving truck backing out of the driveway and heading away. The renovation took longer than expected, but after nine long months, we have a brand-new kitchen, hardwood floors, and a master bathroom. The apartment we rented was fine, but it’s so good to finally be home.
There’s a man in the distance, the same one from before. His back is turned to me, and I am overcome with an emotion I can’t place at first. A moment later, I recognize its shrill, hot edges. Anger.
We are fighting. He promised to be home this weekend, to help me unpack and set up the house, but instead, he’s driving to LA for some food industry event, and I am furious. I rub my swollen belly—I’ll be twenty-two weeks pregnant on Monday—and head out to the patio, where I sink into a chaise longue and sulk.
