Pamela Morsi (28 page)

She should never have become involved with
him. That was what she told herself a dozen times a day. If she'd
kept her wits and her morals about her, she'd never have gotten
herself in such an unhappy position. But in truth, even in her
most self-critical moments she could not wish away the happiness of
the last three years. Not for herself and not for her children.

Laron had been a father for them as Helmut
had never been. He loved them wholly and unconditionally with a
naturalness that even Helga could envy. It was the way that he had
been loved by his parents and in honesty, Helga thought it a
wonderful legacy. Something that she could not help but want for
her own children.

And they missed him, too. She'd told herself
that they would be fine, that he would slip from their young
memories as easily as their father had. But she knew it was not
true. The day that he'd shown up at their dock had been the best
since he'd left. Jakob had been laughing and happy all the way up
to bedtime. And Elsa had not been compelled to argue with her older
brother over anything. Only Karl had been silent. But then, only
Karl was torn by the knowledge that the two people he loved most,
the two people whom he had begun to think of as his parents, were
joined in an alliance that was condemned by the church, by the
community, and by the very rules that they themselves had taught
him to respect and honor.

Karl had begun to feign staggering once more
under the tremendous weight of little Jakob. Elsa pretended that
she was trying to help, and the three-year-old so high on his
brother's shoulders giggled with enthusiasm. Finally Karl gently
and conveniently "fell" into a soft patch of grass. The two
immediately began to wrestle, Karl pretending that he was furiously
angry at losing his balance. He allowed the little fellow to get
him in a stranglehold while Elsa cheered them on.

They would be all right, Helga assured
herself. They would go on, grow up, and live their lives. They
would see Laron from time to time, that was unavoidable, but they
would get used to not having him around. Children could get used to
anything. She wondered if she would be so lucky.

The excitement of the wrestling match was
waning. Helga gave a calculating glance at the location of the sun
and decided it was time for luncheon.

"Could I interest anyone in food?" she
asked.

Whoops of approval erupted from the three of
them and they abandoned their rough-and-tumble play for the food
hamper. "Don't let me see one dirty hand sneaking into that
basket," she told them.

As one they hurried to the small coulee at
the edge of the grove to wash up. Helga finished transferring
persimmons from the gathering bins to the carrying baskets before
she headed in the same direction. Elsa and Jakob met her coming
back.

"Spread out the cloth in that sunny spot,"
she told Elsa. "And not one bite for either of you until we've said
grace."

Jakob moaned and grabbed his belly,
pretending that he was near to fainting from hunger. Helga smiled
at him, remembering that because of Laron, her youngest had never
once known that feeling.

She hurried on to the water to wash up
herself. Karl was hesitating there, his mind obviously on neither
food nor fun. Helga suffered a momentary twinge of cowardice and
wanted to turn and walk the other direction. With her thoughts so
much on Laron, the last thing that she was ready for today was a
confrontation with her oldest son.

Deliberately she plastered a smile upon her
face. "It's a wonderful day for gathering persimmons," she told
him.

Karl nodded, but his brow was still furrowed.
He looked so German when he worried, Helga thought. He looked so
much like her brother, lost to her so long ago.

"Mama," he said. "There is something that I
think that I should tell you."

Helga almost sighed aloud in exasperation.
She wanted to pretend everything was all right, if only for the
children's sake and if only for one day. Apparently Karl was not
going to let her do that.

She squatted before the coulee and began to
wash her hands. "What must you tell me, Karl?" she asked, purposely
keeping her eyes averted.

"It may be of no importance," the boy said.
"It may be something that I should keep to myself." He hesitated
thoughtfully a moment before continuing. "But I told him that I
would tell you, so I suppose I must keep my word."

I told him that I would tell you. The words
echoed in her head. It had to be Laron. The other day when he'd
been there on the dock, he'd talked to Karl. There had been some
message for her? Her son had said nothing. In some part of her
heart, she wished that his silence would continue.

"If you promised to tell me," she said, "then
you must. A man always keeps his word, Karl."

She turned to look at him then and her son
nodded.

"It wasn't that I was trying to keep anything
from you, Mama," he said.

Helga nodded.

"I just hate to see you cry," the boy
admitted.

"I haven't been crying," Helga insisted.

Karl looked at her and shook his head. "Not
in front of us, Mama," he agreed. "But don't you think we know why
you go off by yourself so much and why your eyes look so red and
sad?"

Helga's eyes welled at that very moment. She
bit down on her lip to control the emotion.

"I'm getting better," she said. "Please try
not to worry about me. I'll be fine, my darling."

"I do worry," her son said. "I know it's all
my fault that he went away."

"No, it was not," Helga said. "You know that
we . . . we were living in sin.. We were wrong to do that and once
you were old enough to understand, we could not continue."

Karl looked down at the ground and then up at
her. His own eyes were glistening with moisture. "I like him so
much, Mama. And he likes me, too. It's not pretend with him, he
really likes me."

"Monsieur Boudreau loves you, Karl," she
said. "And he always will. Nothing that has happened between him
and me will change how he feels about you and the children."

Her son nodded, acknowledging the truth.

"What he told me to tell you," he continued.
"Mama, I want to believe it, but I just don't know how."

"What did he tell you?"

"He said that he was going to make it all
right," Karl said. "He said for once and all time he was going to
make it all right."

Helga's brow furrowed as she stared at her
son, trying to comprehend his words. How could Laron make it right?
How could he make it right for them to be together for all
time?

In memory she saw once more the group of
people drinking coffee. The old woman with two little children
beside her in the pirogue. The shortish young man who was, she
knew, Laron's best friend, stood poling the craft from shore. And
the lovely woman

who had been his intended called out to her
where Laron had gone.

The German coast.

Helga's eyes widened in horror.

"Oh my God!"

"What Mama?" Karl's tone reflected the terror
in her own.

"Get the children," she ordered. "We must get
help to stop him."

Aida didn't know whether to scream or cry.
She lay in Armand's arms but the true distance between them yawned
like an unbridgeable chasm. She had retrieved her blouse to cover
herself, but had yet to bother with the lacings of her corset vest.
Modesty seemed a little enough concern at this point.

He desired her. That she knew at least. With
the help of a love charm and every feminine wile she possessed, he
desired her. It was a start, she argued to herself. At least it was
a start. But she was not sure that the young man's honor would even
allow him to pursue the direction.

His honor. That was what a judge was called.
And with Armand it was an apt description. If only they'd gone just
a little further. If only they'd managed to get past the point of
no return. His honor would have compelled him to marry her. And
dishonorably, she wanted nothing else more.

"Are you all right, Aida?" he whispered close
to her ear.

She nodded, not quite trusting her voice to
speak.

"I cannot . . . cannot begin to apologize
enough for what I've done to you," he said. "I can only be grateful
that some last shred of sanity we possessed prevented us from going
further."

He hesitated as if waiting for her to agree
with him. Aida couldn't find her voice to do so.

"I can promise you," he continued finally.
"That no word of this will ever be spoken."

She believed him. He would never say a word.
He would probably forget the incident completely. But she, Aida
knew, would remember him for her whole life long.

"We both were out of our heads," he went on.
"The charm made us behave as we never would have. It made us say
and do things that we would never otherwise."

That was true, Aida realized. For him at
least, it must have been true. In fact, she had not felt any
strange effects of the charm. She had wanted him, certainly. But
she knew that there was always a strange weightiness of the effects
of drug and herb. There had been none of that for her. He must have
gotten all the charm and she none. Because she knew that what she
felt for him was real and true and from the heart.

"Speak to me, Aida," Armand pleaded. "Are you
truly all right?"

She turned in his arms then and looked
straight at him. Those wonderful blue eyes, so precious and
familiar to her, were dark with worry. In a few moments they would
sit up and then stand up and then walk away from this place. And
she knew that once they did so, she would never be this close to
him again. If only they had not been able to stop. If only—

A wave of sheer slyness settled over her and
gave her voice at last.

"You must marry me," she said.

"What?"

He sat up immediately and brought her with
him.

"You must marry me," she insisted once
more.

He gave her a long look and then glanced
away, clearly ill-at-ease.

"There is no need for that," he said.

"You have compromised me and you must make it
right."

Armand ran a nervous hand through his hair
and chose his words carefully. "Mademoiselle Gaudet, you are
obviously very innocent of the ways of ... of human procreation,"
he said. "What we did here, though unarguably sinful, was not, in
total, the marriage act. You are in no danger of producing a child.
I can assure you, mamselle, that there is no need to wed."

Aida hardened her resolve and raised her
chin. "So you are now back to calling me mamselle," she said
sarcastically. "You used my given name, monsieur, when you touched
me as no man but a husband has a right."

Armand's mouth dropped open in shock. Aida
couldn't look him in the eyes. She feared he would see the
deception in her own.

"I think you must marry me, monsieur," she
continued. "And I am certain that if I described what happened this
afternoon to my father, he would most likely insist on the
same."

"He would most likely kill me outright."

"And even if I were to try to keep the truth
from him," she said, sighing. "I will certainly not be able to keep
it from my confession. Father Denis will not be pleased to hear
this at all."

"You would tell Father Denis?"

"Certainly. I will have to. As will you also,
monsieur."

He looked horrified. Coming to his feet he
offered his hand to help her up and then turned away. He walked
around the small clearing. Finding his hat, discarded, he picked it
up and began dusting and shaping it as if it were the most
important thing on earth.

Aida concentrated on doing the lacings on her
corset vest. She wanted to scream, she wanted to cry. It was
strange to think that love could be so closely allied with
humiliation. She was having to beg, actually beg him to wed
her.

Perhaps it was a kind of justice, she
thought. For years men had sighed after her so longingly and she
had so casually rejected them. Now, at last, she had fallen in love
herself. Would she be as casually discarded as her former swains?
But none of them had ever loved her. She knew that as surely as she
knew anything. They had loved her beauty, but no one had ever loved
her. She glanced again toward Armand, still turned from her. Maybe
no one could.

She was not very bright; she was only pretty.
That was the truth and everyone including her knew it. But, she
declared to herself stubbornly, bright or pretty were not the only
choices. A woman might be hardworking, like Felicite Sonnier, or
she might be humorous, like Yvonne Hebert. She might have Estelle
LeBlanc's tremendous pride. Perhaps she heard voices, like Orva
Landry, or was a resourceful and exemplary mother like the German
widow. Ruby Babin was only herself and that was sufficient. Aida
was no longer willing to live with self-aspersion.

Armand turned back to face her once more. She
stiffened her back to face him.

"Mademoiselle Gaudet, my . . . dear Aida," he
said, hesitating. "I do not know what to say to you."

She knew exactly what he should say and
raised her chin, glaring at him decisively.

"I believe I have indicated, monsieur, that a
marriage proposal is in order."

She was now completely dressed. She found her
discarded sunbonnet on the ground and picked it up as she began
walking away.

"Where are you going?"

"To the church," she answered. "If you will
not marry me, then I must ... I must be a nun or ... or Father
Denis will know what I must do. I am compromised. I must go to the
church."

"Aida wait!" he called out.

She kept walking.

He ran after her. "Wait," he called
again.

She did not.

When he reached her side he grabbed her hand.
He hesitated only a moment before dropping to his knees. His held
his hat in his right hand and used both to cover his heart as he
gazed up at her. He appeared more worried and anxious than ardent
and lovestruck. But the words he spoke at least sounded
sincere.