Chapter Thirteen

Before visiting Marc on Saturday morning, Rebekka stopped at the hospital to see André, who had spent the night there with Claire. He met her in the ICU waiting room after a nurse went to get him from Claire’s room. There were deep circles under his eyes and his dark brown hair was mussed like a small boy’s.

She hugged him, ignoring the pain it brought to her abdomen. “I’m so sorry, André.” She felt guilty, too. Everything was finally going well for her and Marc. Poor André! And if there was any woman in the world who deserved an uncomplicated life, Claire did. She was a sweet, wonderful woman, whom Rebekka already considered a dear friend.

“Thank you for coming,” André said.

“Can I see her?”

He shook his head. “No. Her condition is critical now. They’re only letting in immediate family. I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“She’ll be okay,” André said. “She has to be.”

“Of course she will. We’re all praying.”

“How’s Marc?”

“Good, so far.” She forced a smile. “As long as you don’t make him laugh.”

André grinned, although the expression lack his usual exuberance. “Well, you seem to be getting along all right for only being a week out of surgery.”

“Nine days to be exact, counting the day of,” she corrected. “I feel fairly good.”

“Good enough to get married?”

She uttered a short laugh, only to clutch her side. “Yeah. At least, I think.”

André became serious. “For what it’s worth, I want you to know how happy I am for you and Marc. I couldn’t ask for a better sister-in-law.”

Rebekka’s eyes filled with tears. “Thanks. It hasn’t been easy waiting all these years.”

“I know,” he said with a snort. “Marc was so blind. I used to get mad at him for not seeing what was right in front of him. The best thing you ever did was leave France. It certainly woke him up.”

“Yes, but it might not have.” She frowned. “When I left here, I thought I’d lost him for certain. It was the hardest thing I had to do.”

“Well it worked out—for both of you.”

She smiled and touched his arm briefly. “Speaking of Marc, I’d better get going. I promised I’d stay with him again today. He’s going crazy in there.”

“And I’d better get back to Claire.”

She took a step away, and then paused. “André, let me know if there’s anything I can do. Please.”

“I will. But you have your hands pretty full with Marc.”

“Marc’s biggest problem is boredom, but he has a hoard of nurses to look after him when I’m not around. I’d like to help you if you need me. What about taking the girls?”

“They’re with Mom.”

“Let her know that I can watch them any time. I’m not even employed yet.”

“Thanks. I will.” He gave her a weak wave and turned back through the double doors into the ICU wing.

At the transplant hospital, Rebekka found Marc in high spirits. “How goes it?” She bent her head for a quick kiss. She began to rise, but Marc reached up and pulled her back for another long kiss. A delicious shiver ran up her spine.

“Ahhhh, heaven,” he murmured against her lips.

“Can you go home yet?” Rebekka asked, loving the way his eyes locked onto hers.

“They still won’t let me go home, but they said I can take a walk around the grounds for as long as I can bear it, and then they’ll let you roll me around in a wheelchair—if you’re feeling well enough.” His brow furrowed. “You are up to it, aren’t you?”

She smiled, curbing the laughter that would shoot pain through her abdomen if she let it loose. “Yes, for a while, anyway. And they have some nice benches outside where we can rest.”

“At least it’s somewhere besides this room.”

Within a few minutes they were outside in the small park that was part of the transplant center. The early October day was warm and beautiful, not too hot or cold. “This is wonderful,” Marc said, stretching gingerly as he stepped out of his wheelchair.

Rebekka’s eyes tracked several other patients, walking or being pushed by a family member or a nurse.

“It is nice,” she agreed.

Marc took a few steps. “I can’t wait to get back to work. André mentioned yesterday morning that they have their hands full. I’m thinking I might be able to do some work from here.”

Rebekka realized that no one had told Marc about Claire. Of course they haven’t, she thought. Ariana had called and left a message for Rebekka at her parents’ late last night, and no one besides herself had come to see Marc this morning. Rebekka had assumed that Ariana had telephoned Marc as well, but apparently she had thought it better to talk to him in person. Or perhaps she had hoped that the morning would bring better news.

“Marc, there’s something I have to tell you.” Rebekka looked down at the empty chair she was pushing—actually half leaning on as she already felt rather tired.

He immediately sensed the graveness of what she was about to tell him and stopped in midstride. “What is it?”

She met his searching gaze. “It’s Claire. She took ill last night and André rushed her to the emergency room. She was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis. I’m not sure what that is exactly, but according to your mom, she was supposed to be significantly better today. Only she’s not. I stopped by there this morning on my way here and they wouldn’t let me see her. I did talk to André, though, and he said her condition is critical.”

Marc’s expression turned from disbelief to dismay. “Oh, no. Poor Claire! And poor André! He doesn’t deserve this—neither of them do.” He put his hand on hers where it lay on the handle of the wheelchair, and they walked slowly in thoughtful silence.

“Is this related to how sick she was before?” he finally asked. “You know, in the years after she had the girls.”

“No. Your mom told mine that it’s apparently not related except maybe because Claire has a weak immune system. But with how healthy she’s been lately, the doctor doubts it’s related.” Rebekka heaved a great sigh. “Apparently anyone can get this disease. In fact, he said college students have a particular risk of complications related to the disease because no one’s around to take them in to the doctor.”

“I wish I could be there for him, as he’s always been for me.”

“Then get better,” she said it half-jokingly, but there was fear in her voice too. The possibility of rejection grew more real to her each day.

“I’ll do just that,” he promised with a smile. “But meanwhile, will you keep checking on him for me?”

“Of course I will. Your whole family will.”

Marc’s gaze was luminous. “That’s right. We Perraults are good at rallying around. I just hope . . . let’s get back to the room. With André out of commission, I’ll bet your brother could use some help at the company. I can do some of that from my bed.”

“You’d better not work too hard.”

“Just a few phone calls,” he assured her. “Believe me, I feel much better already. I think all this walking they force me to do is actually helping.”

Rebekka left him before noon, happily talking to Raoul on the phone. To her surprise, she felt envious. Working had always been one of her greatest pleasures. Maybe she should call Damon and Jesse in America and see if she could do some work for them from home while she waited for Marc to recover.

* * *

Claire’s eyelids flickered as though she were dreaming, but her face remained expressionless. André hoped she wasn’t in any pain. At least while she slept, she didn’t throw up or moan.

A succession of visitors had come and gone—his parents and his daughters, Josette and Zack, Marie-Thérèse and Mathieu. Even André’s grandparents had stopped by. No one had been let in to see Claire except for the little girls, and then only briefly. Claire hadn’t been aware of their presence. The girls weren’t overly concerned, as they were accustomed to Claire’s illnesses, and André didn’t have the heart to tell them of the seriousness. He sent his family home and prayed that her illness would pass.

His hopes continued despite the increasingly depressing prognosis. The optimism in doctors’ and nurses’ faces had been replaced by a subtle grimness that frightened André more than any of the monitors they had hooked to Claire’s body. No one quite met his eyes either, but rather stared at the air a few centimeters from his face.

“André?”

His eyes rushed from the floor to the thin shell of his wife, lying so insubstantially on the hospital bed. “Claire? Are you awake?”

Her turquoise eyes rolled back in her head for a moment before returning to rest on his face. “Where am I?”

“At the hospital,” he said, gently restraining her hand from pulling the oxygen tube from her nose.

“Why?”

“You’re sick. But don’t worry. You’ll be okay.”

“Where’s Daddy?”

André was confused. “Do you mean your father?”

“Why won’t you tell me?” A tear escaped one of her glazed eyes.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” She began to sob softly. “I didn’t get to say good-bye.”

They had told him to expect odd behavior because both the disease and the treatment might affect her conscious state, but he had figured that meant she would sleep until she was better. He hadn’t expected this retreat into childhood.

He encircled her gently in his arms, careful of the IV. “Oh, Claire, your daddy’s in heaven and he knows exactly how you feel. Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be all right.”

She clung to him as though her life depended on his touch. Gradually she relaxed, and he thought she had fallen to sleep again, but when he looked at her face her eyes were open, bright with unshed tears.

“Are you awake, Claire?” he asked.

She attempted to focus on him, but the medication they had given her for the pain and vomiting made it difficult.

“Will you find my brother?” she finally managed. “I always wondered what happened to Basil. I can’t help but think he’s out there needing me somehow.”

“Sure. We’ll do it together.” They had discussed trying to find her older brother before, but over the years had been too occupied with their young family and his business to pursue the idea. Now he wished they had.

“I love you, André,” Claire said faintly. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too.”

He held her for a long time, positive that her return to reality was a good sign. “We’ll beat this thing yet,” he told her. She smiled at him and slept.

Some time after lunch he had nearly dozed off when a shrill alarm engulfed the room. André felt terror leap to the forefront of his emotions. In seconds, three nurses and a doctor rushed in, and he watched them with horrified detachment as they crowded around Claire’s unmoving body. They gave her a shot. Nothing. They tried shocking her heart. Nothing. They tried everything again. Still no reaction. After a long time, they stopped their efforts and looked at him helplessly, almost guiltily. A steady scream still emitted from the EKG, and a flat line inched across the screen.

One of the nurses had tears running down her cheeks. She stared at André, begging him to understand.

“No,” André said, suddenly realizing what it all meant.

“We’re so sorry,” another nurse said kindly. She turned off the monitor, while the others began to pack up the equipment. The nurse whose face was wet with tears turned off the IV.

“No! You can’t leave!” André rushed to the bed, sure they were mistaken. Claire wasn’t moving. He grabbed something—he wasn’t sure what—from the small rolling cart they had brought in with them. He shoved it at the doctor. “Use this! Hurry!”

The man shook his head, sorrow etched on his face. “I’m sorry. But there’s nothing more we can do. We tried everything—you saw that. I would do anything to bring her back, but sometimes it’s not meant to be. I really am sorry.” He put a hand on André’s back.

They left one by one, and André stared after them in a daze. When the door shut, he turned his attention to the bed. Claire looked as though she were sleeping. The only sound in the room was the oxygen hissing from the tube still attached to her nose.

“Ah, Claire,” he whimpered like a small child. “Don’t leave me. Please.” He took her limp hand in his, willing it to move, to grip his own shaking hand. He touched her face. The skin was warm and pliable, soft. “Father, please!” he prayed aloud, his voice sounding empty in the small private room.

He clutched her to his chest, crying, pleading, aching. Though he had survived a loved one’s death before, Claire was his beloved wife, his eternal partner, and he had never expected the complete emptiness that now assaulted him.

“This can’t be happening,” he moaned.

They hadn’t shared a final scene together, besides the drug-induced murmurings earlier. There had been no opportunity to tell her what a difference she had made in his life and how grateful he had been for her love and companionship. Of how afraid he was of going on without her. She hadn’t been able to promise to watch over him from above, or to remind him that their union was eternal. They hadn’t discussed what he would do with the girls during his work hours, or brought them to say their final good-byes. There hadn’t been time for any of it, especially because he hadn’t believed for a minute that she would really die. Now he desperately mourned the loss of those unspoken words.

“Claire, Claire, I need you!” The plea went unheard.

The hissing air seemed to grow louder. André gently pulled it away from Claire’s nose and threw it from her. With a slow deliberation, he lifted her eyelids to peek at the turquoise eyes that had fascinated him from the moment he had first met her, looking so young and frail and yet so beautiful in that ward house in Strasbourg. But they weren’t the same. The life and love that had filled those incredible eyes had gone. Unspeakable agony pervaded his entire being.

Claire really was dead.

Better it was him.

He released her, slowly, as more tears wet his cheeks, and laid her gently on the white sheet. Her eyes were closed again, and for that he was thankful. Carefully, he arranged her hands over her breast. Time passed as he watched her, the incredible pain in his heart relentless. The tears dried on his cheeks, making his skin feel tight and dry.

At last he moved away from the bed and walked toward the door. Once there, he couldn’t bear to leave her. A few steps brought him back to her side, where he let his rough hand trail the soft flesh of her cheek and down to her neck where she had so loved to be kissed. He lowered his face and kissed her once, softly. Then, resolutely, he left her and strode toward the door.

He hadn’t planned on looking back, but he did, and the sight of her alone on the bed, chest unmoving, broke through his daze and once again released his formidable grief. He fled the room. Blindly and on shaky legs, he ran down the hall, stumbling slightly, and burst through the doors leading to the waiting room. No one tried to stop him.

I should call someone, he thought. But what could he say, “Hi Mom, Claire’s dead. Will you tell the girls?” Or “Josette, it’s over. Please tell me I’m having a nightmare.” Or maybe, “Marie-Thérèse, I think you better help me before I walk off a bridge.”

André felt the walls of the hospital pressing down upon him, squishing out his very life. While he would have liked nothing better than to join Claire in death, he couldn’t tolerate the horrible pressure. Struggling to breathe normally, he headed for the elevator, plowing directly into someone. Unseeing, he tried to step out of the way.

“André!” the woman said.

He saw Rebekka through tearful eyes but didn’t know what to tell her.

“André, you’re so pale. What’s wrong? Is it? . . .” She glanced over his shoulder as two people emerged from behind her.

He didn’t answer, but pushed past her into the elevator. “Gotta get out of here.”

Dimly, he was aware of her following. “Oh, André!” There was a hurt in her voice that made him look at her. She launched herself into his arms. “I’m so sorry! I never thought—I can’t believe . . . oh, André!”

He began to cry with her, wrapping his arms around her as though she were a life jacket and he lost in the ocean. Rebekka smelled like fresh flowers, and she was vibrantly alive, unlike Claire’s lifeless form lying so absolutely motionless in that tiny, silent room. He wanted to scream out his anguish, but he couldn’t find words for his voice.

Rebekka held his trembling body for a long moment. When they arrived on the bottom floor, she quickly urged him into the lobby and from there to the street.

“I should go back,” he said, though the pressure in his heart had lessened with the sight of the blue sky.

“Later.” Her voice was firm. “Let’s walk first.”

He knew she was supposed to be taking it easy, not traipsing around the streets, but the endless torment in his mind wouldn’t let him dwell on what was best for her; instead he greedily accepted any comfort she could give him.

She held his hand as they strolled, like brother and sister, into the Saturday afternoon. Without her support, André knew he would fall down and die right there in the middle of the sidewalk. They walked until they came to a more crowded area where the smell of fresh bread and coffee permeated the streets. André finally noticed Rebekka holding her side and breathing heavily, and he stopped near an outdoor table at a café.

She lowered herself gingerly into a chair, casting him a grateful glance. “I’m supposed to walk every day, but Marc and I did already . . .” Tears glittered in her gray eyes, like rain falling from dark clouds. “I’m so sorry, André.”

He slumped beside her, a part of him thankful that the lunch rush was over and that no other customers were within hearing range of their table. The other part contended that it didn’t matter how close people were because he was separated from them by an impassable gulf of grief. He was untouchable.

He stared at his hands folded together on the tablecloth, particularly at the thin band circling the fourth finger of his left hand. Though a welcome numbness was spreading to his heart, the grief was still overwhelming. It’s a part of me now, he thought. Never to leave. Nothing will ever be the same. Claire. Oh, Claire.

He couldn’t feel her at all now. Even when he was at work he had been able to feel their connection, intangible to his flesh but real nonetheless. Now that connection was completely and utterly absent. “This is all a nightmare,” he muttered. He looked up at Rebekka, eyes pleading. “Please, tell me to wake up.”

“I wish I could.” Rebekka hand on his felt soft and cool to his touch.

“I didn’t get to say good-bye.” His voice broke and he struggled for control. He had cried for so long in the room with Claire—how could there be any tears left? “I didn’t tell her how much I love her.”

Rebekka rubbed his fingers. “She knows. Of course she knows. She’s probably here right now.”

He shook his head emphatically. “I would feel her.”

“Feel her?”

“I’ve always been able to feel her. I can’t now.”

Rebekka seemed to understand. “She’s on a different sphere now. It might take time to find her again.”

“I would feel her,” he repeated dully, but he didn’t really believe it.

Rebekka’s shoulders lifted in a delicate shrug. “Maybe she’s a little busy with her parents and her sister. It’s been a long while since she’s seen them.”

He hadn’t thought of that, only of his own devastation and despair. For a brief, clear moment, he pictured Claire’s happy face as she embraced those she had lost. Would she even think of him and the girls?

Of course . . . and yet he knew time was different in the afterlife, and that things mortals considered important might be low on a long list of priorities for those beyond the veil. Claire likely had duties to accomplish.

Duties he wanted to share with her.

In his peripheral vision, André saw a waiter approach. The absurdity of sitting at a café as though nothing in his life had changed drove him to his feet. “I have to get back to her.” He sprinted a few steps away from the café.

Rebekka caught up to him, grimacing with the effort. André slowed to her pace and they walked in silence. “You were a wonderful husband to her,” she said softly. “And Claire loved you so much.” She paused, searching for words. “I can’t pretend to know how you feel, but I know how I would feel about losing Marc. I’m so sorry, André. I’m here for you, no matter what. Please let me help.”

Strangely, Rebekka’s words brought him comfort. André believed with all his heart that he and Claire would be together eternally, but the thought of living the rest of his earthly life without her was frightening. With the support of Rebekka and his family, it would be much easier.

“Thank you,” he replied simply. How could he ever tell her how much it had meant to have her appear at the hospital precisely when he had been so alone? Perhaps someday he would be able to convey his gratitude.

Rebekka put an arm around him. “You’re welcome.”

André let her lead him back to the hospital. His father and sisters had arrived, notified by caring nurses. André fell into their arms and wept. Later he would talk to the girls. Later he would have to deal with everyday life. For now, he would grieve with those who loved Claire almost as much as he did.