Nineteen Seventy-Four

by Sarah M. Cradit

  Because, they were at bay. She hadn’t had anything more than weak, fuzzy outlooks since she’d started that day with Connor.

  Connor. He’d be there soon. Elizabeth checked her eyes in the mirror. She’d allowed herself to come all the way down for his visit today, but in doing so, she had a nasty case of the shakes, like she sometimes did in the dead of winter when she was silly enough to jump into the pool. She hoped that didn’t mean she was coming down with an addiction.

  Her bedroom door opened. Elizabeth nearly jumped back, startled, but he didn’t notice. He’d rolled his body forward and then, affecting an oddly good British accent, said, “My lady, would you accompany me on a walk in the park? Unchaperoned, I’m afraid, but let’s give the aristocracy something to talk about, eh?”

  Elizabeth’s heart swelled. The shakes stopped, for now.

  “Good sir!” she declared with a laugh, and for a moment she’d forgotten the months of drug use, and she wasn’t that girl anymore, but his girl.

  His lady.

  Connor offered a stiffly bent arm and she took it.

  * * *

  They walked through Armstrong Park, arm in arm. Despite the sweltering humidity of the late summer, Elizabeth alternated between bouts of shivering cold and sweating bullets.

  They wound down through the path, and Connor chattered on about some trouble his twin brother, Thomas, had gotten himself into. She listened at the surface, while focusing as hard as she could on forcing herself to stop reacting to these rude shifts in body temperature. If she could will herself to be okay, then she would be.

  When they came upon Congo Square, a new chill, unrelated, ripped through her. A vision seized her, though this wasn’t a new one, but a very old one. One she’d never shared with anyone, because once she realized Madeline was the one who would die, she couldn’t do that to the others. It was hard, deciding whether knowing or not knowing was worse, but knowing was nearly killing her, so she opted for not.

  Madeline had been here. For a protest, it seemed, from the police and National Guard in riot gear and all the signs. Madeline didn’t have a sign. While everyone else swayed to the chants and songs of the protests, she was lost to her own agony. She never outright said that these rallies helped heal her fractured soul, but it was clear that the closer she came to being part of solving the world’s problems, the less tortured she was.

  And then Madeline had lifted her arms to the sky and rained down fire upon all of it.

  No one knew she could do that. Not one of them.

  Elizabeth knew. But then what good was that knowledge when Madeline was dead?

  “Lizzy?”

  “Sorry. I was remembering how I saw Maddy here once.” Elizabeth let the truth roll off her tongue. She’d never liked deception, but the amount of it pouring off of her these past months made her almost leap for opportunities to be honest.

  He pulled her close in a half-hug. “Was it a good vision?”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “It was the beginning of the end.”

  “Those last months, you mean?”

  “No one knew why Augustus got cold on her for a while. This was why.” Elizabeth gestured around at the branches still scorched black. “She set the park on fire, and Augustus used his persuasion to keep her out of jail. He’d never had to do that for her, and she’d never asked, but this situation was impossible. He would have done anything for her, but then when tested, he was…”

  “Tainted,” Connor finished. “He thought his relationship with Madeline was protected from the things he had to do that made him hate himself.”

  Elizabeth turned to him. “I suppose that’s probably the truth.” Her blood cooled again, and she had to clench her jaw to stop the teeth chattering.

  He shrugged. “I like Augustus. He loves pretty hard, but he also holds grudges just as hard.”

  “I don’t think he holds grudges so much,” she said thoughtfully. “He just doesn’t forget. He never forgets.”

  Connor stopped walking. “I know you’d like to forget.”

  She turned her head toward him. “Not everything.”

  He kissed her. When he pulled back, she saw in his eyes how serious he felt in that moment, and the next kiss was something else entirely.

  “I don’t know what we are, Lizzy, and I guess that was okay before, but I don’t know if that’s still true.”

  “You’re my best friend,” she said.

  “I am, but isn’t it more than that?”

  She paused before nodding. “Yeah, it’s more than that.”

  He pivoted and took both her hands in his. He rolled them over, and she felt the light tremor in them and realized he’d been practicing this for some time. This wasn’t as spontaneous as she initially thought.

  “I love you, Elizabeth,” Connor said. His hair fell over his brow and he blew it away. His dark eyes had trouble meeting hers, but he found the courage and locked their gaze. “I just want to be able to say that to you sometimes.”

  Elizabeth initiated the kiss this time. “I love you, too,” she said, when she eased herself back. And how, how she did love him. How she’d loved him from the very first.

  But she was afraid of letting him in even closer than he’d already been. She had secrets, ones that would break his heart more than her standing here and rejecting him. If he ever found out… no, she couldn’t think it.

  “I was thinking that, I don’t know, maybe we could be more. If you want that, too.”

  “More?”

  Connor wound his arms around her and pressed his forehead to hers. “Yeah, you know. More.”

  “Sex?”

  He laughed and dropped his eyes. “Felt weird to say it.”

  Elizabeth had often wondered if she was even more messed up than she’d always thought, for she was not a normal girl when it came to hormones and sex drive. She rarely fantasized and didn’t notice cute boys when they walked by.

  But then, maybe it was because her heart had been Connor’s since long before she’d cared about these things, and so she couldn’t possibly imagine herself doing anything intimate with another boy.

  “I want it, too,” Elizabeth said, and she had the fear she was playing with even more fire than tangling with the drugs. “With you.”

  She’d seen this future. Connor, grieving over the tomb holding his wife and child. Elizabeth had long avoided putting these puzzle pieces together too tightly, but it was almost impossible to do so now that he’d laid out a future that involved so much more than what they’d had all these years.

  But if the future could not be changed, then what was the point of fighting any of it? Even the horrible parts.

  Maybe all the good years would make the end worth it.

  She had to find a way to bring him into what she was doing with the drugs, instead of hiding it. If she could make him see that moderation was everything, and that they could do this, together, as he said he wanted to do something just as intimate.

  “So, we’re dating,” Connor said, and a broad, boyish smile spread across his soft face.

  “We’re dating,” Elizabeth agreed and kissed him once more.

  * * *

  Six weeks and two days. Augustus tried not to count, but he couldn’t fathom leaving his business alone that long. He had competent employees, and he trusted Evangeline to sniff out any issues, but he knew now, had always known, that the only way to do something the way you want it done is to do it yourself.

  He was only twenty-three, and already he’d taken on the habits of an old man.

  And now there was a problem with not one, but both of the printing presses. Evangeline insisted she was all over it, and his office manager had been in regular communication with the technicians, but they had the fall issue due in two weeks, and he wouldn’t risk the reputation of the company or the magazine on the hope his office manager both appreciated and was capable of conveying the severity of the situation.

  Still, he’d put off the news to Ekatherina for days. H
ow could he tell her they were returning, when she’d been glowing for weeks? Every day, she moved about their provincial life on the small island like a nymph, full of joy and hope. Augustus found his own joy in hers, and he even stopped minding the flirting between his wife and the mayor. They hadn’t signed up for a marriage where they put unreasonable expectations on one another. As long as it never went further, Augustus could abide it.

  And besides, she’d come to his bed every single night since that first. He was embarrassed, that he didn’t know more, have more experience, but they learned the motions together, and some nights they went well into the morning with such experiments. Most days, he had trouble rising before ten.

  For a man who had never had much in the way of sexual desires, he simply could not get enough of his wife.

  Wife. Sometimes he struggled to accept that he’d married this beautiful, strange creature sharing a bed with him. He was the least likely to want such a thing, but was the first of the seven to make it happen, and that wasn’t ever lost on him.

  He’d told her, both when he asked her to marry him, and later, after their vows: I won’t ever ask anything of you that I can’t give back. You’re safe with me, Ekatherina. I don’t ever want you to live in fear.

  And now they had to leave, and his deepest fear was that she might never be this free and loving with him again. That the very thing he’d told her she didn’t have to do was now what he wished for most in the world.

  Ekatherina’s fingers traced symbols on his bare chest. The chill this produced filled him with fresh desire, but he’d already had her twice that night, and he always felt better when it was her who initiated the lovemaking. It helped him to know she was choosing the act, not performing it from duty.

  “Something is troubling your mind, husband,” she said. “Is it me?”

  Augustus brushed his lips against her soft forehead. “Never you.”

  “What, then?”

  “There are problems back in the office,” he said with a long sigh. He hoped she couldn’t see there was a deeper truth behind it… that he was almost relieved they had problems, so he had a legitimate reason to return to a place where he was most himself.

  “What kind of problem?”

  “Problems plural, I’m afraid. Both printing presses took a dive. We’re at risk of not meeting the fall deadline.”

  “Oh, no!” she cried. “It is good, this edition. It must not be delayed.”

  “No, it mustn’t,” he agreed. His face rested against the top of her head. “But I worry it might, if I’m not there to solve it.”

  “Patricia cannot?”

  “Patricia works very hard, but she’s too nice.”

  “And Evangeline?”

  “She’s the opposite, too aggressive. This issue requires a certain level of finesse, a balance.”

  “I see.”

  “I know you’re happy here…”

  Ekatherina buried her face in his chest and said nothing.

  “But we have to go back.”

  She was quiet.

  “I’m happy here, too,” Augustus went on. “I don’t think I’ve ever been happier in my life than I have these weeks here with you, Ekatherina. And you know, we can come back. We should come back. The house is ours.”

  “Come back when?”

  “Maybe for the winter.” He laughed. “Most people probably try to leave here in the winter, but I would guess… I mean, I would think… that the winter here would feel really familiar to you.”

  “Yes.”

  “So, we’ll come back. And we can keep coming back, if you want. But right now, we have to go home.”

  “I stay,” Ekatherina said. “And wait for you to come in winter.”

  “What?”

  “I stay,” she said, more firmly. She pulled herself up onto an elbow, the sheet draped modestly over her breasts. “I stay until winter when you come back.”

  “Ekatherina…”

  Tears glistened in her eyes. “I stay.”

  Augustus’ stomach was a pit of hard stones. What could he say? He had questions he was afraid to ask… and answers he only thought he wanted. That she was happy here was clear, but did this happiness truly not include him? Was he only an accidental passenger on this journey of hers?

  He tried not to imagine her sitting on top of him, swaying to the rhythm of their lovemaking. Tried not to think that it meant so much more to him than to her, or that it was, worse, just something she felt it her duty to do.

  “I love you,” she said quickly. “I love you, husband, but I stay. You go and come back to me in winter.”

  It was ludicrous, leaving her here. It was absolutely out of the question! It was…

  Not his decision, he realized. It was hers, and she’d already made it, long before he’d ever told her the news about going back.

  But what was here?

  This strange island.

  Their strange parades.

  The strange people.

  The… mayor.

  No… stop this, stop it right now. His suspicions did not change who his wife was, and that was a loyal, moral woman who would never do such a thing. Never. She might enjoy his attentions, but never that.

  “Please do not be angry with me, husband,” she said, just before she erupted in sobs.

  Augustus held her close to him and insisted he wasn’t angry, he could never be angry with her.

  For what else could he do?

  FALL 1974

  * * *

  VACHERIE, LOUISIANA

  NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

  EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND

  Eleven

  Celebrate and Protect

  Maureen had chewed her thumbnails right down to the quick.

  She’d left the doctor’s office an hour ago, and mercifully, she found the house empty when she got home. At least for the time being. Mama had left a note to say she was out shopping with Elizabeth, and to expect her back in time to make dinner.

  If she could find even a single miracle to celebrate in this horrifying situation, it was that her eighteenth birthday a couple weeks ago meant she could visit the doctor on her own. She could not bring Irish Colleen into this. The trauma from the last time was still so fresh and sharp, and no matter how this would change her life, she would never, ever go through that again.

  Not that she had a choice, if she wanted children in the future, her doctor said. He tried to be gentle during the exam and tests, but it was mortifying and painful anyway. But she was shocked when he passed no judgment, only concern.

  Whoever did this to you last time, Miss Deschanel, did not do it well. I know this is a hard time for a young woman who finds herself in an impossible situation, and that there aren’t many options available. Hopefully with the passing of Roe vs. Wade, we will see less examples of young women butchered by inexperienced surgeons.

  I never wanted the procedure, Doctor. My mother made me, and now that she has no legal authority over me, I’ll never make that decision again.

  I see. Well, I’m glad to hear you say that, because if you should choose to have another abortion, I fear the damage done from the first time, combined with a second procedure, would render your future chances of carrying a child to term close to nil.

  Maureen had touched her stomach as the tears fell. And when will she be here?

  We don’t know whether you’ve having a girl or a boy, yet, but April.

  Oh, she’s a girl. I just know it.

  Being firm in having her child this time didn’t mean Maureen was any less conflicted about it. She would be shunned, as an unwed mother. Her family would disown her. She’d never be welcomed into polite society again. There was no future that did not involve disgrace.

  What she needed was someone on her side.

  She couldn’t turn to Edouard. A day after the encounter in his office, his office manager had called and let her know her services would no longer be required. Not that she’d needed a call to confirm what she’d known the
moment she fled his office. The whole room stank with his desire to see her gone; the feeling that whatever he’d gotten from having her around was at an end.

  Maureen thought Charles would understand. He probably had little bastards running around all over New Orleans, and he’d been her one and only real ally in the family. But when she called him, his awful wife, Cordelia said he was indisposed and, no, she would not leave a message, not after that bullshit Maureen and Charles pulled with her father.

  If Cordelia hadn’t hung up the phone so swiftly, Maureen might have added, get pregnant already so my brother doesn’t have to debase himself in your bed.

  Well, thought Maureen, Cordelia’s father would off himself soon, and maybe she wouldn’t be so damn smug about everything then.

  Augustus was out of the question. He’d want to fix the situation, the same way he fixed everything for the family, and she wasn’t looking for a fix. She needed moral support, and that also eliminated Evangeline. Elizabeth was too young, and wasn’t it Maureen’s job to be a good role model for her?

  That left Colleen. Maureen’s mind, as she rolled through her siblings, kept hitching back to Colleen, despite the deep burn in her belly at the thought of telling her anything at all. Colleen was the picture next to “sanctimonious” in the dictionary. Maureen was so wiped out from the last six weeks, starting with that horrible night at Mr. Blanchard’s office, that she couldn’t even fathom listening to a lecture about it, especially not from someone as good at it as Colleen.

  But Maureen remembered something Evangeline told her one night, as she helped Maureen pack her things at Ophélie in preparation for the move back to New Orleans. Maureen couldn’t even recall how they’d come upon the subject of their oldest sister, but she never forgot what Evangeline said. I know you think Colleen is impossible, but it comes from a good, if really twisted, place. When I really needed her, and she wasn’t there… well, I don’t think Colleen will ever get over that. I think it changed her. And where I think she used to believe she had to be our mom, I think now she understands better how she can be there for us.