The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender(6)

As they made their way through the borough, Satin holding an umbrella over their heads and the lip of Emilienne’s cloche hat periodically hitting Satin’s right ear, the lovers were unaware of the worsening weather. They didn’t notice how the clouds gathered and the rain fell in such torrents that the rats of the city flipped the cockroaches onto their backs, stepped aboard, and floated down the streets on tiny arthropod rafts.

That night Emilienne introduced Satin to her family as her betrothed, and he spent the evening praising the half-moons of Emilienne’s fingernails. Satin quickly became a favorite in the Roux apartment. Emilienne would often return home from work to find Maman and Satin locked deep in discussion, a fast procession of vivid French spilling from their lips. And when René disappeared for three days, it was Satin who knew where to find him. The two returned, René with a chip in one of his front teeth and Satin missing his right earlobe. When asked, the only response given was a vague You shoulda seen the other guy and a look between men when one has a secret the other is willing to protect.

The strangest development during this time, however, was the remarkable transformation of unlovely Margaux. After months of living in strained denial, the Roux family could no longer hide from the fact that sixteen-year-old Margaux was pregnant.

This was a particularly confusing time for Emilienne. Until then each of the two sisters had stuck to her predestined role — Emilienne was beautiful, mysterious. A tad strange at times, yes. But Margaux? Margaux was only a pale shadow of the art form that was Emilienne. There was a time when it was Emilienne with the secrets and Margaux who ached to learn the reason behind the devilish smile and lovely arched eyebrow. But, now, now it was Emilienne who ached. And how she did! Especially when it was no longer Emilienne but Margaux — what with that glowing complexion, those rosy cheeks, that effervescent twinkle in her eyes — that everyone considered the beauty of the family.

Margaux never spoke the father’s name. Only once, in a moment of weakness — after a particularly grueling interrogation by her older sister — Margaux ran a finger over her own lovely arched eyebrow and said, “Love can make us such fools,” sending a chill up Emilienne’s neck. She left the room to fetch a sweater. That was the last time anyone asked Margaux about the father of her child. Instead, her siblings took to playing the “Is that the rat fink?” game while watching men pass by on the street.

The day the child was born, Emilienne was walking home from some errand no one remembered in the end, Pierette perched on her collarbone. The thing remembered was Emilienne’s cloche hat — the one painted with red poppies — blowing into the street and being retrieved by an exuberant boy of ten. Emilienne dug a penny out of her purse to reward the boy. As she placed the shiny coin in the child’s outstretched hand, she looked up into his dirt-smudged face and noticed his eyes were different colors. One was green, the other blue. On impulse, Emilienne asked the child who his father was, to which the boy answered with a shrug and ran off, holding his penny to the light.

Making their way through the street, Emilienne paid closer attention to the children in their path and came across another child with mismatched eyes, another child who didn’t know his father. On the next block over, they came across another one. And another. Racing from one block to the next, Emilienne counted seventeen such children in twelve blocks.

By the time they made their way back to the family apartment, Pierette was in such a twitter that Emilienne had to stuff her poor sister-bird into the pocket of her jacket. In her haste to get inside, Emilienne knocked over Mrs. Barnaby Callahoo, who, after she’d been helped back onto her feet, announced that Margaux had given birth.

“It’s a boy,” Notre Petit Poulet said, her tiny fingers fluttering with excitement, “with black hair. But his eyes! One’s blue, and the other? The other’s green!”

Emilienne walked into the apartment and found Satin Lush, the man she would never call her betrothed again, sitting on the sill of an open window, smoking a cigarette. He shrugged when he saw her. “You know how it goes,” he said.

In disgust, Emilienne charged toward him and, with an angry shove, pushed him out the window as she screamed, “Eighteen children!”

Satin Lush bounced off the pavement, sprang to his feet, and ran away, never to be seen again.

Whether it was the arrival of Margaux’s child or Satin Lush’s betrayal that led to the downfall of the Roux family remains unresolved. But it was only a few hours later that young Margaux was found in the community bathroom down the hall. She’d carved out her own heart using a silver knife and laid it with care on the floor by the bathtub. Below the red mass of sinew and blood was a note addressed to Emilienne:

Mon c?ur entier pendant ma vie entière.

My whole heart for my entire life.

The child died soon after. Margaux was a mother for approximately six hours. The date was March 1, 1923.

Love, as most know, follows its own timeline, disregarding our intentions or well-rehearsed plans. Soon after his sister’s demise, René fell in love with an older married man. William Peyton wept the day he met René Roux. It was in a rather compromising embrace that William’s wife caught René and her husband in the bed where she herself had been turned away night after night for two decades. In his haste to flee the unpleasant scene, René ran out into the street, forgetting to take his clothes with him.