The Paris Library(53)
* * *
AFTER SCHOOL, I liked coming home to see Eleanor and Odile having tea at the table, because Eleanor never pestered me when we had company. Today, with Joe slobbering in the bassinet beside them, they talked about faraway things: someday Eleanor would go back to college, someday Odile would visit Lucienne, her war bride friend in Chicago. When Odile held out a plate of grapes, Eleanor patted her stomach and said, “I’m trying to slim down.”
I smirked. Like a grape would make her fat.
“You won’t lose weight for several months,” Odile said.
Eleanor frowned. “Why would you say that?”
“You’re pregnant.”
Another baby? I quit smirking.
“But I just had Joe five months ago,” Eleanor protested.
“I’ve seen enough women to know the symptoms.”
“James told me it would be safe.”
“How old are you, and you believe what a man tells you?”
Eleanor laughed, kind of. A joke? And there was… something in Odile’s voice. Something tart. Something that made me wonder what a man had told her.
* * *
ELEANOR GOT AS big as a chateau with a belly so huge it made her head seem small. Her maternity clothes fit funny; her bosom and bottom rebelled against the tight cotton. She stopped dyeing her hair, and dark roots took hold. Only trashy women let that happen.
“It wasn’t like this with Joe.” She sounded dazed.
Pasty and swollen, like her whole body was pregnant, not just her stomach, she felt dizzy the second she stood. When she stayed in bed all day like Mom, I remained at Eleanor’s side. I remembered a line from Bridge to Terabithia: “Life was as delicate as a dandelion. One little puff from any direction, and it was blown to bits.” As a kid, I thought only old people died. Now I knew differently. Why hadn’t I been nicer to Eleanor? I felt awful about the sick satisfaction I’d taken in hurting her. She wasn’t so bad. She’d even convinced Dad to give me an allowance, telling him, “A banker’s daughter should learn how to budget.” Please don’t die, I prayed.
Odile came over. I liked that she didn’t knock, she just walked right in, like family.
“You’re as lovely as a Madonna,” she told Eleanor.
“Really?”
Honestly? More like Jabba the Hutt. I knew the truth wouldn’t help, so I nodded.
“But let’s call Dr. Stanchfield to be on the safe side,” Odile said.
He took Eleanor’s blood pressure twice and said she had to go in for testing, the same thing he’d said about Mom.
“Is she going to be okay?” I asked.
“Your stepmom has high blood pressure, which isn’t healthy for her or the baby.”
While Joe and Eleanor dozed, Odile tried to take my mind from my worries by teaching me bébé vocabulary—bassinet, couffin; diapers, couches—but with Eleanor stuck in bed, I didn’t give a caca about all that.
“How do you say ‘high blood pressure’?” I asked.
“La tension.”
Tension. That word said it all.
“Shall we go for a stroll?” Odile said.
She was a big believer in fresh air. The cruel north wind whipped around us as we walked down Main Street, past the church, past the pygmy pines, ending up in the graveyard. Like the other ladies, Odile was a cemetery person. Not me. Seeing Brenda Jacobsen, Beloved Wife and Mother etched in granite made me ache. Mom had been gone more than two years. Chrysanthemums lay at the foot of her headstone, like the ones on Odile’s son’s and husband’s graves. I knew I should bow my head and pray, but I peered over at Odile. Her head was bowed, her expression bleak. It dawned on me that she missed her family, Buck and Marc, but also her parents and twin. I longed to know what had happened to them.
CHAPTER 22
Odile
PARIS, AUGUST 1940
PERHAPS I SHOULDN’T have called you home,” Papa said, “but I assumed you’d want to know as soon as possible…”
“Monsieur?” Bitsi prompted.
“Rémy’s alive,” Papa said.
I exhaled sharply.
“Where is he?” Bitsi asked. “Is he on his way home?”
“He’s been taken prisoner,” Papa replied.
“Prisoner?” Bitsi repeated.
“He’s in what they call a Stalag,” Papa said, “a prisoner of war camp.”
Maman wept, and I put my arm around her.
“He’s alive,” I told her.
“We know where he is,” Papa said. “Try to let that be a comfort.”
He was right. Poor Bitsi hadn’t had a letter from her brother in months.
“I wish we had news of Julien,” Papa told her, his voice tender.
She bit her lip, and I could see that she was trying not to burst into tears.
Papa drew a card from his blazer. I pried the paper from his hand and read the faint type, Je suis prisonnier. I’m a prisoner. Below, there were two lines:
I’m in perfect health.
I’m injured.
The second had been circled. Rémy was alone and hurting.
Blanching when she read the card, Bitsi said she should let her mother know. Papa and I saw her to the door. She kissed his cheek, which brought a shadow of a smile to his face.