Watching the little girl, I felt a terrible longing for my boys, imagining them tearing open gifts. The way Willie’s mood dropped by evening made me think he was feeling the same way. In the hall, awaiting his coat and thinking that no one was watching him, he leaned on his crutch, pressing his head to the paneled door in exhaustion.
I realized, belatedly, that the day’s celebration had been too much for him without liquor to take the edge off it. He shouldn’t have come. “You ought to see if a doctor can do something for your pain.”
“It’s just the grippe. This weather. After a few days’ rest, I’ll be good as new, and we can start planning our trip to Chavaniac.”
I couldn’t imagine him making the trip. If physical exertion didn’t kill him, the effort to be pleasant surely would! It seemed so strange, in a way, that after spending so much of our marriage apart, now he wanted to be together every day. He’s trying so hard, I thought.
Wanting to feel close to my boys, I turned my attentions to a newly arrived letter from New York. I settled in to find little drawings from my sons, and news from the governess that stopped my heart.
Your friend Captain Furlaud stopped by to reassure the boys you were safe. They were taken with this handsome man in uniform and peppered him with questions about the war, but he told them that you were doing all the important work. I cannot tell you what good it did them to hear of their mother’s heroism. Billy didn’t stutter in conversation even once. Afterward, your charming friend said we must call upon him if in need of anything while he’s in New York.
I clutched the pages, confounded. What the devil was Max Furlaud doing in New York? How could I be here, so far from home, and he be there? I would’ve known the answer, of course, if I’d opened his letter this morning.
I opened it now, slitting the envelope to find he’d been sent on a mission to the United States. He wrote that, while there, he’d take the liberty of checking on my children. He also wrote a few lines more.
I never had the opportunity to tell you that our short weeks of happiness saved my life. And that I love you. So never hesitate to call upon me for help, no matter how mad the scheme.
My hand fluttered to my throat, where I felt my heartbeat pound beneath my pearls. No, I warned myself. It couldn’t be true. My relationship with Max had been too fleeting to give rise to real love. And in any case, romance was a malady I must never allow myself to fall sick with again. It had been the ruin of Minnie, after all . . .
Perhaps if it were only honeyed words, I might’ve been able to keep that door closed, but he’d provided comfort to my children. That was a flame in the bleak winter landscape of my emotions that I couldn’t bear to stamp out. And so I burned.
I shouldn’t have gone to see Max in Amiens. Not even for a favor. Not even when that favor had turned out so well. I should’ve found some other way. Perhaps it was a blessing, then, that we were an ocean apart. Now I wanted to go even farther than that.
How desperately I wanted to see the birthplace of Lafayette—to bring all my grand plans for it to fruition. I would have taken a train that very night, but the weather would not allow it. And in any case, I had promised to stay with Emily through her ordeal.
“You mustn’t be unduly afraid of childbirth,” I said, sitting beside her one blustery evening. “If I got through it twice, anyone can.”
“I’m not afraid of giving birth,” Emily replied. “Only motherhood. Here I am, about to meet my child, wondering if I will be an unnatural mother . . .”
“You’re not unnatural!”
Voice suddenly quavering, she said, “I don’t know why I thought I could do this. Amaury is made so happy by the idea of fatherhood, but then he loves all children, whereas I am impatient with all but a chosen few. Your Ashley and Billy, I adore. But what if my own child doesn’t charm me? Will I simply—”
“Walk away like your mother did? You won’t. Put these disordered thoughts out of your head.”
“I fear a daughter because a boy would be better able to weather whatever comes.”
“Which tells you precisely how disordered your thoughts are. Little girls are stronger than little boys; they have to be.” I knew that better than anyone. “In case it is a girl, you must have a name picked. You don’t want to saddle a child with her grandmother’s name. Clémentine is far too old-fashioned.”
“I’ve always been partial to Anna,” she mused.
“Well, if Beatrice isn’t in the running, I suppose Anna will do.”