The French War Bride (42 page)

“Yeah.” The closet door banged shut. “Well, again, sorry to interrupt.” I heard what sounded like a backslap and a chortle. “Gotta say, you're a lucky man, bud. Most women won't do anything unless it's dark and the lights are all out!”

I headed to the bathroom so Jack wouldn't catch me eavesdropping. When I came out, Elise was awake from her afternoon nap, and Jack was gone.

2016

H
earing Amélie talk about lovemaking with Jack makes my stomach hurt, even though I'd told her I wanted the details. I hadn't counted on being able to fit her stories into the context of my memories.

“I think I saw Jack at the hospital that night,” I say. “You'd been in town for about two weeks?”

“Yes,” Amélie says.

I sink back in the chair, and my mind sinks back, as well.

1946

It was a wonder I hadn't run into Jack more often, because it seemed like I was at the hospital all the time that winter. I wasn't, of course—not nearly as much as Mother. Not nearly as much as I should have been, actually, because the truth of the matter is, I hate sick people and I can't stand hospitals.

Oh, I don't really hate sick people; I just hate being around them. My great-grandmother was very old when I was a child, and I remember how she scared me. Her eyes were milky and they would get crusty in the corners, and she would spill food when she ate. My mother always fluttered around and fussed over her, but Gran-Gran was grouchy, and
it made Mother anxious to be around her, and well, I guess sick people have always had that effect on me. They make me feel anxious and uneasy and a little sick myself.

So. I hadn't run into Jack that week, but I had reports of “Jack sightings” from all of my friends—they kept me abreast, it seemed, of his every move.

Unfortunately, I also knew every move of that French whore and her bastard. I knew it wasn't Christian to call them that, but I couldn't seem to help it. That was how I thought of them. I couldn't believe that Jack—the wonderful Jack whom I'd known and loved with all my girlish heart—had so blatantly, so thoroughly, so publicly thrown me over! I was heartbroken. I was stunned. I was humiliated.

That Frenchwoman had gotten her claws into him and tricked him somehow. My hopes, my dreams, my plans to be the wife of the hometown doctor—why, that trollop had stolen my entire future right out from under me!

I hated to hear about her, and yet I became obsessed with learning all I could. From my friends, who were also friends with Jack's sister, I knew that Amélie had worked for the Resistance during the war. I knew, of course, that she had forged documents and supposedly smuggled papers and had worked as a maid at a hotel, spying in Nazis' rooms.

“Oh, I just bet she worked at a hotel!” I'd told Minxy. “On her back, no doubt.”

According to Caroline (who apparently just thought Amélie was wonderful; that chafed, because she'd never thought
I
was wonderful), Amélie had had a close call when a house was bombed, and she'd lost both parents and two brothers in the war. Even her ocean crossing was dramatic.

I found it all hard to believe. She was really quite ordinary—she looked like a little brown mouse if you saw her sitting still across a room. But then, she never seemed to sit completely still, and when she moved, she was as graceful as Ginger Rogers. She had something invisible—an energy or vitality or something. I figured she must be like Wallis Simpson, who looked rather plain in photographs but was so captivating that the future king of England had given up his throne to marry her.

Anyway, I heard that she and Jack had been on a picnic to the
Wedding Tree that day. Thank God they hadn't gone out and about as a couple in town—that would have rubbed salt in the wound. Mother had told Daddy to warn Jack not to humiliate me any more than he had, and he'd promised to talk to him about it. I don't know if he ever did.

I knew Daddy was just sick about the way things had turned out with Jack. I also knew that he wanted to go to Dallas for therapy—there was a special doctor there who worked with stroke patients and was getting remarkable results. Jack, of course, had found the doctor. How convenient for him and his war bride!

“Oh, Mother—how can you fall for that?” I'd asked when she told me this. “Jack just wants to run us out of town!”

“I spoke with the doctors at the hospital, and it's true. There's a live-in rehabilitation facility where they're doing therapy for stroke patients, and they're having very exciting results. Daddy will stay there for several months, and they say they can help him regain function of at least his hands and maybe even his legs.”

“What will we do while he's there?”

“We'll go with him, of course. There's lodging for families next door.”

“Will we ever come back?”

“Of course. We'd still have the house here.” Mother had reached out and smoothed my hair, as she used to when I was a child. I hated it when she did that, because I always fixed my hair just so. “It will be good for you, too, dear, to get away for a little while. Daddy says Jack plans to move; he's trying to find another doctor to practice in Wedding Tree. If he can, life will be so much easier for you.”

I didn't want to go to Dallas. I told Mother it was because I didn't want to leave my friends, but the truth was, I hated to leave Jack.

It was illogical, and I knew it, but the heart is not a logical organ.

Mother tried to talk sense into me. “You can't possibly want him back, Kat. Even if he divorced her, he'd always be tied to her through that baby. And you'd be marrying a divorced man! Worse than that, you'd be marrying a man who had thrown you over for someone else. You can't want that. Why, the rest of your life, you'd be looking over your shoulder to see if he was about to do it again!”

On one level, she was right. My pride revolted at the thought of being second best. On another level . . . oh, if he had asked, I would have taken him back in a flash. I would have left Wedding Tree with him and started over somewhere else, and . . .

These were the thoughts stirring in my mind as I walked toward my father's room in that dinky parish hospital, back when hospitals smelled like antiseptic and alcohol and sickness.

Jack was coming out the door just as I neared it, and we almost crashed into each other. “Kat,” he said, putting his hands on my arms to steady me.

I wanted to give him the cold shoulder—to walk right by without acknowledging him—but I couldn't. I wanted—I needed—something more.

So I stood tall and faced him down. His ears were red, and his eyes held a depth of misery that almost moved me. Maybe it did move me, a little, but my own misery was so all-consuming that any pain he felt was only a fraction of what he deserved.

“I want to know why.” My voice was shrill, and I didn't like the way it sounded.

“I can't explain it.”

“Try. I think you owe me that.”

“It was one of those things. There's really no excuse to give.”

“You won't even make an effort?”

“I . . . fell for her.”

“You love her?”

“Do you really want to hear me say it?”

No. What I want to hear you say is that you love me.
I wanted to crumple to the floor. Instead I asked, “Are you sure that baby is yours?”

“Her name is Elise. And yes, she's my child.”

I didn't want to look weak, and yet, I couldn't help it. Tears sprang to my eyes. “What of me? You have left me in a terrible position. What am I to do, Jack?”

“You'll find someone else, a fine man who is worthy of you, a man who will love you as you deserve to be loved.”

“Doesn't that bother you at all—the thought of me with another man?”

“I try not to think about it.”

All I can think about is you with her.
The thought fairly screamed in my head. My blood started to heat and boil. “I just don't understand what you see in her! She's so foreign, so small, so . . . so . . . strange!”

“I won't listen to this.”

“And all that espionage rubbish—I don't believe any of it is true.”

“It doesn't matter what you believe.”

“She trapped you, didn't she?”

He got that flat, tight-lipped look I knew all too well. When Jack got his mule face on, there was no changing his mind. “All I can say is I'm sorry for how I treated you.”

“This town isn't big enough for both of us.” I realized that was a line from a movie, that it sounded ridiculous, but it was true. I lifted my chin. “I understand you'll be leaving?”

“Yes. As soon as I can find a doctor to take over your father's practice, I'll get out of your way.”

“You do that, Jack. You and your foreign wife and your little feral child—you get out of my way, and you stay out of my way.”

I flounced down the hall, right past my father's room, like a car going too fast to brake. I couldn't have stood to see my father right then. I was angry at him for having a stroke—although I knew, logically, that it wasn't his fault and certainly wasn't his choice. I was angry all the same—angry at him for keeping Jack in Wedding Tree, angry that he wanted to have anything to do with Jack. At that moment, my feelings for Jack turned a corner. They were still there, still just as intense, but what had been love and longing transformed into fury and hellfire.

Over the next few months, that anger would be my saving grace, because it held me together until I could meet another man.

1946

J
ack and I turned a corner, too, after our angry lovemaking.

I waited up for him that night and turned on the light when he entered the bedroom. I had taken the advice from Rose and Wilbur on the train, and had tucked a little note under Jack's pillow:
J'ai aimé faire l'amour avec toi
. I loved making love with you.

He wore the look of a man returning from combat.

“What is wrong?” I asked, scooting up on the pillows. “What has happened? Is it Dr. Thompson?”

“No. Although I did have a run-in with Kat earlier this evening.” He loosened his tie.

My stomach made a sick little dip. “She must have really upset you.”

He shook his head. “I'm upset because a patient died.”

“Oh, Jack! From the flu?”

“No. He was eighty-nine and had multiple health problems. He had been bedbound for a while.”

“I am so sorry.”

“I believe he's now in heaven and free of pain. But still—it was heartbreaking for his wife and children.” He took off his jacket and hung it in the closet.

“Heartbreaking for you, as well.”

“It's never easy to lose a patient.” He pulled off his tie. “Although I
have to say, it's easier to say good-bye to someone who has lived a long and useful life than it was to lose soldiers younger than me.”

“I am sure. It must have been extremely difficult.”

“It weighs on me still.”

“I know you did your best to save them.”

He blew out a long sigh. “When I couldn't, I didn't have time to mourn them—I had to turn to the next patient, and the next, and the one after that. There was always a line of injured. I still have nightmares about needing to hurry, about someone dying because I took too much time caring for the one before.” He sank onto the bed beside me. “The only thing that would be worse than losing a patient because I didn't treat him fast enough would be losing one because I didn't treat him carefully enough. I wonder, sometimes, if any soldiers died because of me.”

I put my hand on his back. “Dr. Thompson told you physicians aren't God. Well, none of us are, Jack. We are all only human, and sometimes humans grope in the dark.” It occurred to me that Joshua had said something very similar to me, long ago, and it had given me strength. “When we can't see any light, we must move forward in the direction that seems the least black. We must trust we are being guided to do the next right thing.”

“I prayed that I was.”

“Then you must have faith that it was so.”

He looked at me, really looked at me, in a way he had not since we had arrived in Wedding Tree. It was a look that reached beyond our eyes. I felt a connection to him that went all the way through the skin, into our innermost being. The air between us sweetened and softened. “Thank you, Amélie,” he whispered. I thought, for a moment, that he might embrace me.

Instead, he rose. He opened the closet door and pulled out the blanket to spread it on the floor.

“Don't, Jack,” I said softly. “There is plenty of room in the bed.”

I saw him swallow. “Amélie—I am sorry for what happened earlier.”

“Why?”

“Because lovemaking shouldn't be like that. It should be tender.”

“I think it can be all kinds of ways. Didn't it feel good?”

“Oh, my God.” His gaze warmed my skin. “I have thought of little else.”

“So . . .” I flipped back the covers and patted the bed.

He shook his head. “I have hurt so many people. It seems wrong for me to enjoy the pleasures of married life.”

“I see.” Was he in love with Kat after all? Hadn't he said he'd had a run-in with her earlier? I felt as if a boulder had been rolled on top of my chest. “Well, Jack, do you want to divorce?”

“No.”

I swallowed hard, my mouth dry. “If we divorced, you could marry Kat.”

“No. She would never marry me now. I knew that when I brought you here. That bridge is crossed and burned. And even it if weren't, I don't believe that I could . . . that I would want . . .”

He broke off talking.

“What?”

He sank onto the edge of the bed, leaning his forearms on his thighs. He shook his head. “So many things are not as I thought they would be. I wanted to be an honest man, an upright man, to do what was right.”

“You are, and you have.”

“I have hurt many people I love.”

“You did it out of the generosity of your spirit. You are the one who has been hurt most of all, and it is my fault.” I put my hand on his back again. “I want to make it right for you. You are a wonderful man, and I want to give you what you want. Please, Jack. Just tell me what that is.”

He twisted around to look at me. His eyes burned into mine, clear and bright. “You. Amélie, I want you.”

I reached out for him, and just like that, he was in my arms—kissing me and loving me, his hands and mouth burning trails all over my body. I did the same to him, exploring his body with my fingertips and lips. He covered me with his body, his weight a welcome warmth.

When we joined together, we knew just what to do—how to move, how to read each other's sighs and moans, what to do next. He rolled me over so that I was on top, and the transition was seamless. He used his
hand again to caress that small sweet spot as he filled me, and pleasure spun tighter, spiraling me higher and higher until I started to cry out. He gave a soft moan and finished with me. I lay on his chest, still joined to him, and felt a sense of joy and belonging that I had never known.

When we pulled apart, there was blood on the sheets.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes. I think I . . .” I felt acutely embarrassed. “I have gotten my menses.”

“Oh.” His face looked drawn.

Disappointment keened through me, along with surprise at the reaction. Had I wanted to be pregnant? Yes; now that I thought about it, of course. It would have tied me to Jack. I loved him. Oh, my God—I loved him!

I tried for a far lighter tone than I felt. “So . . . I guess I'm not pregnant.”

He gave a wry smile. “I gathered it didn't mean you're a virgin again.”

I didn't know how to respond to that. His face had a funny, tight look. Was he disappointed, or relieved? Was he angry all over again, thinking about the lies I had told? Was he upset that he had brought me to Wedding Tree for no purpose?

Because . . . oh, God. If I wasn't pregnant, I could have stayed in Reno and gotten an annulment. Jack could have quietly explained things to Kat, and no one else in town, aside from probably her parents, would need know he had ever married me.

But that is not the way things unfolded. I wondered if he regretted it.

But of course he regretted it, I thought. He must. He was only human!

I pulled on my bathrobe, and grabbed a Kotex from my baggage—thank God I still had a few left!—and the Kotex belt with the girdle straps that would hold it between my legs. I picked up my pajamas and padded quietly down the hall to the bathroom. I washed up, and brought a washcloth back to the bedroom to try to get the stains out of the sheets. Jack headed down the hall as I returned.

He crawled into bed with me instead of sleeping on the floor, but he stayed firmly on his side of the bed, not forming the spoons in a drawer
as I had hoped. Disappointment lay on me like bedclothes. On his side, I imagined, regret lay just as heavy on him. We did not move, and we did not talk, but we both stayed awake for a long, long time.

I did not know that he'd found my note. But in the morning, I smiled when I found one under my pillow:
Moi aussi.
Me, too.