She picked up her mail and strode confidently back to her classroom, smiling and wishing everyone she passed a good morning.
It was Friday, after all, she reasoned, when a few of her fellow teachers looked at her as though she'd lost her mind.
Throughout the school, maintenance workers and teachers were busy putting up holiday decorations. Shiny silver garland entwined with huge green bunches of holly were gracefully draped from classroom to classroom.
Emilie smiled when she saw them. Nothing terrible could happen during the Christmas season. Everything was going to be all right. She opened the door to her classroom. Nick stood up from the desk he'd occupied and her heart sank like a stone.
"Hi." He looked as uncomfortable as she felt.
"Good morning." She tried to keep her equilibrium after a long night of soul searching that had supposedly led to this morning's calm.
"Adam got on the bus this morning without his flute." He held the battered case out in front of him like a shield. "I wasn’t sure if he’d need it or not."
"I'll be sure he gets it," she answered, not looking at him.
"Emilie," he started, moving toward her after putting the flute case down on her desk. "I'm sorry about last night."
She smiled. "I'm sorry too. I was tired and I wasn’t thinking. I’m sure it was stress. Sometimes life gets the better of me."
Nick looked down at the flute case in front of him. "I didn't want you to think I was trying to use the situation with Adam. I know I kissed you . . ."
"I know." She rushed into the thought. "And I appreciated your honesty, Nick. Really.”
She smiled and held out her hand to him as a gesture of friendship. She wanted to let him know that she didn't have any hard feelings. He didn't need to explain that it was only a kiss. She was a big girl. She’d been kissed before. The thought made her cringe.
He looked at her manicured hand, dumbfounded, wondering how he'd managed to make such a mess of a simple thing. He'd thought about it all night and realized that he couldn’t leave it alone. He wished he could, for so many reasons. The powerful attraction he felt toward her made it almost impossible.
There were compelling reasons why he shouldn't get to know her any better—the kids, for one, and the sharp difference in the lives they’d led. None of the reasons that he wanted to see her made that kind of sense. It didn’t seem to matter. Here he was anyway.
"I was wondering if you'd go out with me, Emilie." He smiled at the silly rhyme. "Dinner? Nothing fancy. I thought maybe we could get to know each other a little better."
She smiled in return and carefully slid her hand from his grasp. "I appreciate the offer, Nick. But I'm Adam's teacher and I don't think that's a good idea. I know last night, I might have led you to believe that, well, there could be something between us, but while I appreciate your sympathy, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”"
"Sympathy? Is that what this is? You think I feel sorry for you?”
Emilie cringed inwardly. She didn’t want to talk about how inadequate she was that no man could love her. She’d already heard that from her first husband. She’d known the truth and somehow, thought Nick might be different. She was such a fool.
There was terrible pain in the depths of her gaze, pain and loss. It reminded him of looking into Adam's eyes when he'd realized that both of his parents were gone forever.
"I'm sorry," she finished softly.
"So am I," he murmured, wishing he understood, knowing he should back off now.
"I'll-uh-give this to Adam."
"Thanks for all your help, Emilie. I believe Adam has a chance to heal now."
"I hope so."
"I'll see you around then," he said as the first bell rang.
She shrugged. "It's a small town."
"Yeah. I noticed. Goodbye, Emilie."
"Goodbye, Nick."
A handful of children ran into the room and Emilie reacted instinctively, telling them not to run and to take their seats. Nick was gone when she looked back.
Had she done the right thing? She wished she hadn't looked into his eyes and seen the endless night there, wanting to lose herself in those dark stars. She wished she wasn’t so cowardly and was willing to risk the hurt again.
She'd done the only thing she could. She forced herself to recall her past experience with her husband. She couldn't,
wouldn't
, let herself feel that way again about a man. She was glad she caught on so soon this time.
She turned her gaze towards her class of thirty yawning, restless, nine and ten year olds and smiled, putting aside everything else to survive the day.
Adam had his first band lesson, though Mr. Foster called it an evaluation. The boy was better with the flute than he'd expected, though he never relented enough to come right out and say it. He assigned him a place in the band and that was enough for Emilie.
Adam was still uninterested in his schoolwork. Emilie was willing to give that some time. She could keep Mr. Howard at bay for a while until the boy had an opportunity to respond to her threefold plan. With any luck, he'd be making progress before anyone had to question her methods.
The day dragged on interminably. Then it was suddenly over, and the classroom was empty. Emilie looked around at the deserted desks and took a deep breath in the silence left behind.
She stayed late helping with the decorations and setting up the games for the annual winter festival the next day. Julie Johnson, the second grade teacher, chattered about her husband and her children and their mortgage payments as they tied lights to strings and wrapped prizes.
"My husband says we may have to quit our jobs teaching," she explained as they worked together putting up posters on the walls. Her husband was a middle school teacher in the county.
"Why?" Emilie wondered. "He loves that school."
"Money." Julie shrugged. "We can barely make it on what the state pays. Both of us have our Masters degrees and it still isn't enough."
"I'm sure it's hard to have enough with three children," Emilie answered.
"That's why I took the second job teaching at the college at night," Julie explained. "It's a college prep class, you know? For people who finished high school, but didn't get enough credits or didn't understand the classes. Bill hates me doing it. What can I say, it makes the car payments."
"I'll bet the kids hate you being gone at night, too," Emilie sympathized.
"I don't know." Julie sighed. "Sometimes I think I'm spinning my wheels. Sometimes I wonder why I had kids!"
Emilie stared at her. "You don't realize how blessed you are! I would give anything—" She paused and snapped two more staples into the poster Julie held up on the wall.
Julie looked at her friend. "You'll find a child, Emilie. Then you can suffer like the rest of us!"
She laughed and Emilie lightened up as well. It was going to be Christmas break in a week. Maybe a miracle would happen and she would find a child to share Christmas with that year. Sometimes, adoptions came up quickly. Sometimes, it was a phone call in the middle of the night and the next day, you were a mother.
That was her Christmas wish, she considered, as she finished stapling about a hundred posters that lined the walls of the school corridors in preparation for the festival. Someone to share Christmas with that year.
Last year, she and Joda hadn't even bothered to put up a tree in the foyer, as her parents had always done. They had shared a quiet supper on Christmas Eve, exchanged their few presents, and gone to bed.
She looked for the first star she could find when she stepped out into the dark parking lot. Maybe things would be different this year. She made her wish on the evening star, as her father had taught her when she was a child. Then she drove home and got Joda. They went out for dinner and drank too much wine, at least Joda did. Emilie had to drive.
They stopped by the high school to watch a production of
As You Like It
. Joda raved about the sets and the actors. She went backstage after it was over and pressed a thousand dollars into the drama teacher's hand.
The teacher, Mrs. Dilworth, looked stunned when the tall woman dressed in red velvet, her long white hair flowing around her like a cape, told her that the play had been magnificent and gave her the cash.
"My aunt is a little eccentric." Emilie followed Joda's stunning act with a smile and a sane presence. "She means well and she does want you to have the money for the kids."
"Thank you," Mrs. Dilworth exclaimed. "What's her favorite play?"
Emilie shrugged. "Probably
A Midsummer's Night's Dream
."
"We'll do it next semester," the teacher promised. "Maybe she'll want to see it too."
Emilie smiled and waved knowing she couldn't promise what Joda's mood would be next semester. She might as easily drop that thousand dollars into a waiter's hand for his tip.
"That was wonderful," Joda breathed on the frosty night air as they walked back to the car.
"It was," Emilie agreed. "The drama teacher said they'd do a
Midsummer's Night's Dream
if you'll come back next semester."
Joda looked at her pointedly. "When is the next semester, Emilie,
petite
?"
"Probably February or March."
Her aunt nodded, satisfied. "Then we shall return."
They drank the rest of the bottle of wine together when they reached the house, sitting in the dark in her mother's music room. The dim light from the hallway glazed the surface of the grand piano that dominated the room.
"Your mother's presence is in this room," Joda told her after they'd sat in the silence for a long time.
Emilie sipped at her wine. "Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and think I hear her playing down here."
"Sometimes, maybe you do.”
"Where would Daddy be then?" Emilie looked up at the mural painted on the ceiling high above them.
"Your father is comfortable in his rest," Joda told her. "He doesn't wait, restlessly, as your Mamma does, for the laughter of a child in this house."
"She knew I couldn't have children." Emilie pointed out to her aunt.
"Yes, but she knew you would do the right thing, the necessary thing, to ensure the Ferrier line would continue."
Emilie stood, a little uncertainly since they'd shared a considerable amount of wine. She traced her finger along the dustless surface of the piano.
"Sometimes I wish I could leave here," she whispered fiercely. "Sometimes, this house, with its ghosts and expectations, weighs on me like a stone."
"Responsibility is rarely light,
petite
." Joda shrugged, lying back on the heavy, velvet sofa. "It is your heart that is heavy, not this house. When you bring a little one home, it will be lighter."
"Do you realize what you're saying?" Emilie rounded on her. "That we should raise a child alone here, in this house full of ghosts and empty rooms? That both of us should live out loveless lives for the sake of the Ferrier name?"
"We must both do what we must do,
ma petite belle
," Joda mused, only half sober herself.
"Which is that I should raise a child alone here while you run wild with your friends in the garden."
"You are only alone because you choose to be alone!"
"I didn't choose to be alone," Emilie argued. "Any more than I chose to be the last barren child of a dying family!"
"We all make our choices.”
"Then I choose to leave this house and I choose not to raise a child alone because I think a child needs a mother and a father! I choose to be happy for once. And I choose to be in love!"
"
Bien
!" Joda applauded her. "Now you only have to make your life this way!"
Emilie felt suddenly tired and dispirited. "I don't know how to make my life any different than it is. I guess you didn't either. Goodnight, Aunt Joda. I'll see you tomorrow."
"Things will work out, Emilie," her aunt's thin voice called out to her from the darkness. "Everything will be fine."
Chapter Five
Alain Jackson pulled his black Jaguar into the Ferrier drive promptly at eight am the following morning. The weather was still clear, but the temperatures had dropped again, making him hunch down into his heavy wool coat as he walked from the garage to the big house.
It was always a mystery to him why the family hadn't had the walk enclosed, protecting them from the weather. They could certainly afford it. The Ferriers were a strange lot.
Joda met him at the door, looking at him with keen eyes that unnerved him.
"Good morning," he said cheerfully, looking around the kitchen for Emilie.
"I was wrong," she told him bluntly. "She shouldn't marry you. Even for the sake of a child."
"What?"
"I counseled the girl to marry you if it meant that she could adopt the child. Now I see that I was wrong. You might as well go."
She turned and opened the door for him, standing and glaring at him while the cold air crept into the house.
Alain looked frantically for some avenue of escape from the crazy old woman. Finally, gratefully, Emilie walked into the kitchen.
"Emilie!"
"Shut the door, Joda, please! It's freezing in here!"
"He can go," her aunt told her. "He isn't right for you."
"We're spending the day together." Emilie glanced at Alain to see how he was handling her aunt's outrageous behavior.
"There's no reason," Joda repeated. "He's wrong." She turned to Alain. "Goodbye!"
Emilie buttoned her coat and took Alain by the arm, leading him to the door. "We're going out. Don't forget to close the door."
"He's not right," Joda yelled after her as they walked to the garage.
"Sorry," Emilie apologized when the door was closed behind them. "She doesn't really mean it. Tomorrow she might love you."
Alain smiled. "As long as you don't mind what she says, I can handle it. She's been this way as long as I can remember."
Emilie shrugged, not wanting to discuss her aunt. Her head hurt from too much wine last night and she’d awakened to dreams about Nick.