Home by Nightfall (32 page)

“Your wife is fine. Now off you go. Feed the sheep or something. I will bathe the child and take care of your wife. I will call you when you can come back.”

With growing resentment, he joined Chien outside and tossed a stick around with him for what seemed like hours. A son. Strangely enough, they had never discussed names. He had no idea what this child would be called.

At last, he heard his own name.

“Monsieur LaFontaine, come! Meet your son and greet your wife.”

He ran back into the house. Véronique was in a clean nightgown and a clean bed, propped up on pillows. In her arms lay the baby, wrapped tightly in the new quilt. She was tired and gave him a wan smile.

“Here is your son, Édouard. This is Christophe Édouard LaFontaine. I am sorry I chose the name without consulting you. I planned it from the beginning. But I want you to choose his baptismal name. Do you want to hold him?”

“Only for a moment, monsieur,” said Madame Durand. “They are both tired, and Christophe needs to suckle.”

Carefully, he took the baby into his arms. Such a small, perfect wonder—the tiny hands and fingers. Christophe studied him with a serious expression and then yawned. Édouard smiled and placed a light, careful kiss on the little forehead before handing him back to Véronique. Then he kissed her forehead as well.

After he was assured that they would be fine he drove Madame Durand back to the village. In just a few short months, he had gone from being a homeless, almost nameless soldier who was sometimes mistaken for an idiot, to a husband and father.

He flapped the reins on the donkey’s back and grinned. Life was beautiful.

• • •

Within two weeks following Christophe’s birth, Véronique was handling the baby like a woman who had always cared for children. Indoors, a line was strung from one wall, past the window, to an anchor next to the door. The weather was still rainy at times and she needed to be able to wash and dry diapers. Later, in May, when the sun was more dependable, she would again hang the wash on the clothesline outside.

Édouard embraced fatherhood. He was helpful because he had more experience than she did and some medical training. She considered herself lucky to have found a man like him, eager to help and more than willing to act as father to a child that was not really his.

One morning, Véronique woke up when Christophe demanded his breakfast. She found Édouard’s note on his side of the bed.

I am going to help the Armands dig their new well. I will try to be home by noon. Love and kisses to you both.

“Your father is a very fine man with a good heart. He will help you grow up to be one too.”

She lay against the pillows with one on her lap for the baby, resting in contentment as he nursed. Glancing out the window she could see it was going to be a clear, sparkling day. If the sun was warm enough, she would be able to hang the laundry outside to dry. One thing the baby created was a lot of washing.

With her eyes half-closed, the only sound was an occasional birdsong and the quiet sound of the baby suckling. Suddenly, from far away, she heard a noise that reminded her of distant shelling during the war. It was a single detonation and she hoped another farmer had not hit an unexploded shell in his field.

At last the baby had drunk his fill, and after burping him, she put him in his cradle so that she could wash and dress. An hour later, she was standing at the stove, cooking an omelet, when she heard someone call her name from outside.

“Madame LaFontaine?”

This was followed by knocking at the door. She opened the top half and saw Monsieur Armand standing there. Beyond, she recognized their own donkey and farm cart.

“Madame, oh, madame.” The older man scraped off his cap to reveal a balding head. He twisted the cap in his hands as if trying to wring the fibers out of it.

“Monsieur Armand, whatever is the matter? Madame Armand…?”

“No, she is…Madame, there has been a terrible accident.” Now he was sobbing. He pointed to the cart over his shoulder.

A rush of fear and dread so horrific rushed through her, she felt her scalp prickle and gooseflesh rise all over her body. She twisted the knob on the bottom half of the door, practically tearing it out of the wood, and ran outside to the cart. Lying there under an old quilt, she found Édouard. There was no injury on him that she could see, but dried blood ran from his nose and ears, and his color was gray.

Somewhere she heard screaming, a woman screaming as she had when she was giving birth to Christophe. But she was the only woman here and she knew it was her own voice she heard.

“What happened?” she demanded. “What happened to my husband?”

“He was helping to dig our new well, but he was not in the hole. Our son was using the shovel and hit a shell. The explosion killed our Pierre, and although Édouard was standing farther back, the concussion blew him across the field. We found him
like that, mostly unmarked but not alive. I feel responsible—he was digging a well for
us
.”

“It is not your fault, monsieur. Oh, my poor Édouard!” She took her handkerchief from her apron pocket, wiped the tears on her cheeks, and used the damp fabric to scrub the blood from his face. She glanced across the yard and caught sight of the rusted skeleton of the ambulance that had also been shelled, killing two people inside and wounding Christophe. “Those horrible devices of death are buried all over the Western Front.” Hysteria crept into her voice. “All over! Oh! Oh, may God forever damn every single person with their petty squabbles and power hunger who brought this war to us!” she swore viciously. “And your son, Monsieur Armand, they have killed him too!”

She dropped her head and sobbed on Édouard’s chest. Such a good man, a man who survived four miserable years of that stinking bloodbath only to be killed by it more than two years after armistice was declared.

“I will contact Monsieur le curé for us both, madame. I know that you have only recently welcomed a new child.”

“And he will never know his father.” She sobbed inconsolably. “Th-thank you for your help, and thank you for bringing my husband home. Please, Monsieur Armand, before you leave, may I ask one more thing?” Tears flowed down her face like a river. “Will you help me take him into the house and put him on the bed? I cannot leave him out here.”

He nodded, his tears falling like hers. They put Édouard on the bed in his bedroom and she covered him with a sheet. At least he was spared a hideous, gruesome death that blew off limbs or tore gaping wounds in his body.

Monsieur Armand left then, to walk back to his farm and to his own grief. She went back inside to sit with hers through the long hours of the night.

• • •

“Eternal rest, grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.” Père Michel made the sign of the cross over Édouard’s casket, which had already been lowered into the ground.

“Amen,” the mourners intoned.

Somewhere in a tree nearby, Véronique heard a lone bird twitter a sweet song, as if in response as well. In her arms, the baby slept. Each person threw in a handful of dirt in turn.

She no longer owned a black dress and had had to borrow this one from a neighbor along with a black veil that whipped around her in the strong spring breeze. The dress did not fit very well but it was unimportant to her. This was not a fashion parade. It was a tragedy.

They had buried Pierre Armand yesterday and she had attended that funeral as well.

As the mourners drifted away, Véronique found herself alone with Édouard’s grave and the baby. She was vaguely surprised there was room left in this church cemetery to bury anyone else. So many had been lost during the war, and those who could afford to bring home a loved one lost in battle did so. Where her brothers lay, she had no idea.

Père Michel approached her. “Madame LaFontaine, I am so sorry for your loss.”

She did not look up. “I had not wanted to marry him when you suggested it.”

“No, you were quite adamant about that.”

Now she met his gaze. “You were right and I was wrong, mon père. But I am not sure that even you were aware of the fine and generous heart that beat within him.”

“I am glad you discovered it yourself.”

“I do not know if it was a kindness or a curse that he was taken from me so soon. I did not have the chance to fall in love with him, but I suspect that I would have. A year from now would have made his loss more painful, but I also would have had that extra year. So now I have lost two men and my family thanks to that accursed war.” She looked at the rows of headstones surrounding them. “I will not ask you why God permits such things to happen to the simple mortals it is claimed He loves. I would not accept any answer you gave me.”

She turned and walked out of the graveyard. She forced herself not to look back when she heard shovels of dirt falling on Édouard’s casket.

When she passed the post office, a clerk came running out. “Madame LaFontaine, I have a letter here for you. It arrived last week.”

Dully, she took it in her hand without looking at it. “Thank you.”

“My condolences, madame.”

Véronique kept walking.

• • •

Home again, she removed the pin from the veil and pulled it from her head to drape over a kitchen chair. When she had planned to raise the child alone, she had not feared the future. Now she did.

“Christophe, what will we do now?” The baby gurgled in his sleep but did not stir. Véronique put him in his cradle.

Glancing at the table, she saw the envelope the postal clerk had given her and she roused herself to look at it.

When she saw the return address, her fog of grief lifted a bit. So Christophe had finally decided to answer her letter.

She tore open the flap and unfolded the single page.

February 17, 1921

Dear Véronique,

Please excuse me because I am not good in French writing. I hope are you able to understand what is here. I have a big mistake when I come to America. I am sorry then for Croix Rouge to find me. Now I am big sorry. I am miss you and France. I have very more to tell but not way is this.

I am come back home to there.

Love for you,

Christophe

Véronique stared at the page, first to decipher what was written there, and then to absorb its meaning. My God, she thought, Christophe was coming back? She turned the paper over as if to find a better explanation on the back, but of course, it was blank.

The letter was dated three months earlier. She had never expected to see him again.

She glanced at the cradle. He did not know he had a son. He did not know that she was now a widow.

But apparently, the life she had been certain would be waiting for him had not worked out. There were any number of reasons and he could not write enough to explain.

In her sadness over Édouard, though, a candle had been lit. And it was carried by a man named Christophe.

“If you would please sign here, Mr. Grenfell?”

The desk clerk at the Powell Springs Hotel turned the register to face Tanner. He signed it
Mr. & Mrs. T. Grenfell
on the line the clerk pointed to. Beside him, Susannah stood wearing the pale-blue dress and matching cloche that she’d worn on her wedding day. So much had happened since that afternoon last summer. Tanner looked handsome in his own dark suit, and she felt her heart swell with love every time she looked at him.

The clerk handed Tanner a key with a big brass fob. “I think you’ll find everything to your liking, and I hope you enjoy your stay with us. Please let us know if you need anything. Your luggage is already in your room.”

“Thanks.” He turned toward her and held out his arm. “Come on, Mrs. Grenfell,” Tanner said. Susannah grinned and tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow. He led them up the carpeted staircase, up two flights, and down a long hall. When they reached the last door she looked at the small brass plate affixed just below the room number.

“‘Bridal Suite?’” she read. “Tanner, really? Can we afford this?”

He chuckled and unlocked the door. “When we made that deal with the Braddocks, I held back some money for a special occasion. I think this qualifies.”

It was a lovely corner room with a view of two streets, lace curtains at the windows, stylish furniture, and a big bed draped with beautiful linens.

“I don’t feel like I deserve this,” she admitted in a small voice. “I didn’t mean to be hard on you when Riley came back, but I was. Just trying to figure out what was best, I—”

He put a finger to her lips. “Shhh. We’ve been all over this and it’s behind us. He’s gone back to the life he wants and that’s what we’re doing, too.”

Taking her by the hand, he sat beside her on the tapestry sofa. “When we got married last summer, I got your wedding band from Friedman’s. I got your locket there too.”

“Yes, and I love it,” she said, touching the pendant she wore.

“But all I got you was a wedding band.”

She shrugged. “And it’s—”