The French War Bride (44 page)

“Any passengers for Baton Rouge need to board right now,” the driver yelled. “Can't have the bus this close to a fire.”

“This little lady is getting on,” said the ticket agent. He put my suitcase in the bus's storage compartment.

“I need to take the baby carriage, too,” I said.

“It's too big,” the driver said. “It's against regulations.”

“She gets to take whatever she wants,” the ticket agent told him. “She just single-handedly saved four lives.”

I climbed up the steps onto the bus. It was half full of people, most of whom were gaping out the windows at the blazing gas station on their right. Several, I noticed, turned and also gawked at me.

The sirens were getting closer.

I sat with Elise in an empty row on the left side about three seats down. Elise reached for my face and touched it. When she pulled away her hand, her palm was black.

Oh, dear. I looked at my lap. My dress was splattered with mud, pocked with burn holes and singed at the hem. My hands were filthy. So, I noticed, were my arms—and apparently my face. I must look like I'd been rolling around in a bin of coal.

Well, I might be filthy on the outside, but I hadn't added to the sins of my soul. For once, the right course of action had been clear, and no lies had been required to justify it.

I rested my head on the back of the seat, thinking it was a good thing they had headrest covers to protect the fabric. In France, they were called antimacassars, to protect furniture from the macassar oil men used on their hair at the turn of the century.

If only, I thought, cradling Elise, there were antimacassars to protect those I loved from the consequences of my misdeeds.

1946

M
other and I saw the smoke as we were driving back from the hospital around four in the afternoon. It was billowing toward the sky, a huge malevolent cloud, boiling and churning and spreading.

“Merciful heavens—what's on fire?”

“I don't know,” Mother said. “I hope it's not our house.”

But the fire was too dark, too heavy to be a house. As we neared Wedding Tree, we began to guess that it was the filling station.

I wanted to drive down and see what was going on, but Mother wanted to get home and check the house.

“Why? It's fine. It's on the opposite side of town.”

“Yes, but I need to check. Whenever something bad happens, I have to make sure our life is unaffected.”

Interesting words, those. I didn't really ponder the significance until later. I walked in the house with Mother, crinkling my nose at the way the foul, oily smoke hung in the air. I fully intended to turn around and drive to the station to see what was going on, but the phone was ringing. I answered it.

“You'll never guess what happened!” It was Minxy, and her voice was breathless.

“Is the gas station on fire?”

“Yes. Yes! And I was in the ladies' room when it happened!”

“No! You were there? Are you all right?”

“I lost my brand-new car. It exploded!”

“No!”

“Yes. And my new shoes—the red high-heeled ones—they're ruined. And my burgundy dress—it has burn holes all over the skirt. But I walked through an inferno—an absolute inferno!—and I'm okay. And you'll never guess who saved me.”

“Who?”

“The war bride.”

I sat down on the floor, my back against the wall. “No.”

“Yes! She saved Ernie, and Mrs. Anderson and little Lukie, and then came back for me.”

“What was she doing at a filling station? I didn't even know she could drive.”

“She was waiting for a bus across the street.”

“A bus?” None of this was making sense. “To where? Where was she going?”

“She got on a bus to Baton Rouge.”

“Why?”

“I don't know. But she was sitting there with Mrs. Palinsky, and there was a big boom, and Ernie's clothes caught on fire. Quick as lightning, she handed her baby to Mrs. Palinsky and dashed over to help. She tackled Ernie and rolled him in a mud puddle. And then she ran into the building and got Mrs. Anderson and little Lukie. And Mrs. Anderson wanted to go to her car and drive away, but Amélie grabbed the child, and Mrs. Anderson had no choice but to follow, and then Amélie pushed them down and covered them with her body when their car exploded!”

I switched the phone to my other ear, unable to process what I was hearing. “Wait. Amélie did all this?”

“Yes! And then she came back in for me! I was in the bathroom. I'd heard some explosions, but I thought Ernie just had a radio program on too loud, and then I was mad when I heard someone pounding on the door, because I thought someone was being rude and trying to hurry me.”

I switched the phone back to my right ear.

“So she went and got the extra key and came in anyway and got me out. She threw her coat over my head—it was sopping wet and muddy and smelled all charred and awful, but thank goodness she did, because Daddy says that probably kept my hair from catching on fire. And she led me out through the garage and across the street, right before another car blew up. I don't really remember how we got out—it was all dark and smoky, and Daddy says I must have been in shock. And then . . . well, she just took her baby and her purse and her suitcase and the baby carriage, and got on the bus!”

My heart quickened. “She left town?” I rose to my feet. “Why?”

“Nobody knows. I've been trying to reach Caroline, but I don't get any answer.”

1946

I
had to change buses in Baton Rouge, so when they took my suitcase and the baby carriage out of the bus's storage bay, I put Elise in the carriage and rolled her to the restroom so I could clean up and change clothes. My face and hands were filthy, and I had burns on my hands, arms, feet, and legs. The bottom of my hair was singed on one side. I used manicure scissors and cut it into a layer, then cut a layer in the other side to match. I thought it came out surprisingly well. I was grateful, right then, to have curly hair, because curls can hide a multitude of irregularities. Could a person have a curly soul? I certainly was in need of one.

I washed my hair in the bathroom sink, using bar soap and cupping my hands to pour water over my head. I received strange looks from women coming in and out of the restroom, but I didn't care. I didn't mind disdain directed at me as long as it didn't reflect badly on someone I loved.

It was dark when we boarded the bus for El Paso, where I was to change buses again. We rode and rode and rode. It took all night and all the next day, with stops at what seemed like a thousand little towns along the way. Elise was so cranky I feared she was getting sick again. She wanted to crawl, and there was no safe place for a baby to crawl on a bus. I stood her in the seat beside me, sang softly to her, played patty-cake, and read to her from the three picture books I had packed in her diaper
bag. I fed her little bits of sandwiches and snacks I bought at the little towns along the way. A woman with a thick Texas twang sat beside us for a couple of hours, and she helped occupy Elise. Elise finally drifted off into a sound sleep as evening fell for the second night. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, as well.

Sleep wouldn't come, even though I was so very, very tired. I couldn't get comfortable. My back hurt, my arms hurt, my legs hurt. I had pulled muscles in places I didn't even know I had muscles.

But worst of all, my heart hurt. I was heartsick over what I had done to Jack—heartsick I had hurt him, heartsick I had soiled his reputation, heartsick that, like a dab of arsenic in a well, I had poisoned his life.

He would have been better off if he'd never met me. There was no question in my mind of that.

And yet—God help me!—I could not entirely regret our time together, because with him, I had discovered depths of the heart I never knew existed. He had shown me that despite all I had lived through, all I had lost, and all the sins I had committed, there was still compassion and kindness and selflessness in the world. He had helped me regain my faith in God.

The glow of streetlamps filtered through my closed eyelids. I blinked and sat up; we were driving through a city. The bus lurched to a halt at several stoplights, made a couple of turns, then pulled into a brightly lit bus station.

The bus shuddered to a stop. The driver killed the engine, and opened the door.

“El Paso,” he announced.

He climbed out and opened the storage bay on the side of the bus. Out the window, I watched two men in Greyhound uniforms hoist out suitcases and set them on the pavement. I gathered up the baby's bag and my purse, and gently lifted Elise. She was sleeping soundly now, so soundly she felt as limp as soft rags in my arms.

Not wanting to awaken her, I waited until everyone else had disembarked, then carefully made my way up the aisle and down the steps.

My eyes were on the baby carriage. I gently set Elise inside it, being
careful not to wake her. Without lifting my head, I bent to pick up my suitcase. As I reached out, a masculine hand beat me to the handle.

Something about that hand registered with my heart. I lifted my gaze to the arm, then the chest, then the face connected to it.

My pulse stopped, my breath hitched, and I thought I was hallucinating. Perhaps I had inhaled a damaging amount of smoke, after all. “Jack?” My voice did not sound like my own.

“Amélie.” He grinned at me.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came for you.”

Oh, dear. Had I messed up again? Because of me, he was missing his symposium in New Orleans. He had left his patients in Wedding Tree. He'd left his sister and mother and Dr. Thompson. My brow knitted in a frown. “Have I created another problem for you?”

“I'll say you have.”

My heart sank further. “Jack, I'm so . . .”

“If you're going to say you're sorry again, I'm going to turn you over my knee and spank you.”

“What?”

“It's an expression.”

“Oh.” I looked at him, feeling uncertain and a little dizzy. He was smiling. It sounded a little . . . naughty. “What does it mean?”

“It means . . .” He shook his head. “I'll tell you later. We have more important things to discuss.” He peered in the carriage. “Elise is all right?”

“Yes. She's fine. She's been terribly fussy and she just fell asleep.”

“Well, let's go inside and try not to wake her.”

He put his hand on the small of my back. It was a small touch, but I felt it in my bones. I shivered.

“You don't have your coat.”

“No.”

“I heard what happened to it.” He held open the door to the terminal, and I pushed the carriage inside. He led me to a quiet corner, away from the ticket desk and waiting passengers.

“Why don't you have a seat?”

“If you don't mind, I'd rather stand.” As the Resistance had taught me, if you're in a threatening situation, it's always better to be on your feet. “How did you get here before me?”

“I flew.”

I was so stunned to see him that for a moment I pictured him flapping his arms like a bird. “You took a plane?”

He nodded. “Caroline called me in New Orleans. I was at the front desk of the hotel, just checking in. She told me what happened at the filling station.”

“She knows about that?”

“Are you kidding? The whole state knows about it. Heck, probably the whole country.”

“Really?”

“Amélie, when she first told me about the fire, and that you were there, I thought you'd been . . . I thought you were . . .” He looked down and cleared his throat. “I thought she was calling to tell me I'd lost you. She was telling me of all your heroics, but all I could do was think, ‘Thank God she's safe, Elise is safe, they're safe.' And then she read me your note.”

“The one I left on the kitchen table.”

He nodded. “I immediately told her you were lying, that Elise is definitely my child—that you were trying to give me an excuse, an out from the marriage, and that she was not to repeat a word of what you'd written to anyone.” He frowned at me ferociously. “You are not to ever tell another soul that Elise is not my child. Is that clear?”

I bobbed my head.

“Swear it.”

“I—I swear.”

“Good. Anyway, next I asked Caroline to go look under the pillow on our bed.” His mouth curved in that slight, sidewise grin. “She read me that letter, too.”

I frowned. “But it was in French.”

“She speaks French as well as I do. We had the same nanny.”

“Oh—bien sûr!” I hadn't thought of that. I'd only thought I wanted
the first letter to be for public consumption, and the letter under the pillow for Jack's eyes only. I tried to remember what I'd written in it.

“You signed it
Je t'aime toujours
.”

“Yes, well . . . it's an expression. Like you saying you wanted to take me for a spank on your knee.”

He grinned. “Is it true?”

“Is what true?”

“What you wrote . . . is it true?”

He was an impossible man. What did he want to do? Humiliate me? Make me say what I had no right to feel? Or try to make me lie again? I wouldn't lie to him anymore, damn it! “Well, of course I love you. Why else would I be leaving you?”

He laughed. Threw back his head and laughed! “That's just about the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.”

I bristled. I was tired, burned, sore, and heartsick. And now I had to be insulted? “It's ridiculous for me to want you to have a happy life, a good life, the life you deserve with your friends and family in your hometown? It's ridiculous to not want people to think less of you because of me?”

“It's ridiculous to care what other people think.”

“Jack, I heard people talking at the dinner party. They think I trapped you. They feel sorry for you. They think you deserve better. And you do.”

“I get to decide who is best for me.”

“No. I gave you no choice. I lied to you and bent the truth to my own purposes.”

“You were not alone in bending the truth, Amélie.” He moved closer to me. His eyes were somber. “I bent it to fit my boyish ideal of how life is supposed to be. I proposed to Kat because she was so very beautiful and we'd been dating a long time, and it seemed like the next logical step, especially since I planned to go into practice with her father.”

His hands settled on my arms. “I told myself that since we didn't argue, we'd have a good life together. I didn't stop to think that maybe we didn't argue because we didn't have much to say to each other—that maybe the lack of conflict was really a lack of connection. Not fighting is not a good enough reason to get married.”

“You didn't love her?”

“I thought I did. But then you showed me what love really is. I didn't understand love until you and Elise came into my life.”

He took my hands. “Amélie, I have been stubborn and unforgiving. I looked only at the lies, and not at the truth behind them. I focused on how you wronged me, and refused to see the kind intentions and brave heart and love for Elise that spurred your actions. I am so sorry.”

My heart pounded hard against my ribs. I tried not to let the wings of hope unfurling inside me take flight.

“Amélie, it doesn't matter where we live. Wedding Tree isn't home. You are. Elise is. And what you did in that fire . . . Jesus, Amélie! You risked your life for strangers and a woman who treated you badly!”

“I only did what needed to be done.”

“Not everyone would see it that way. Very few people would put everything on the line just because it was the right thing to do. But Amélie—that's all you've ever done. For your country. For Yvette. For Elise.” He stepped closer. “And for me. And if you think I'm going to let you get away, well, you don't know me very well.”

“What are you saying, Jack?”

“I'm saying I love you. I want to live with you and have babies with you and grow old with you. Will you stay married to me and be my wife, for real and for true?”

I looked at him. He was suddenly blurry because my eyes had filled with tears.

“Only if you will be my forever husband.”

“I already am.” He drew me into an embrace and kissed me. When we pulled away, he looked at me with the kind of love my heart had never thought it would find. “Let's get out of here and go home.”