Page 48

He gave her a wan smile, too old for his years.

She made coffee, more habit than desire, and was still sipping it when a knock came at the door—two raps, a pause, then three.

The knock Oncle Georges had said to expect from anyone he sent.

She motioned for Felix to keep eating, though he froze at the noise.

“It is either the doctor or my priest. Nothing to worry about.”

Father Serres stood there when she opened it, serenity on his face but worry in his eyes. “Good morning, Mademoiselle Bastien. Your uncle sent me to...?”

She motioned him inside, locking the door behind him, and led him toward Maman’s bedroom. Only barely did she keep herself from leaping into the room, rushing to feel his breath on her fingers, his heartbeat under her palm.

Still there. For now, still there.

Rest-ez a-vec moi. Bleib...bei...mir.

But oh, how little he looked like her Christian.

His eyeglasses were folded on the bedside table beside him, wire frames glinting in the lamplight.

No color in his cheeks. His long-fingered hands, usually moving while he talked, were not only still but connected to the IV dangling from its pole via a slithering tube, tape holding it secure on his hand.

No hated uniform, the stark white collar of his shirt peeking out.

Instead, a white bandage wrapped round and round his chest, not quite covered by the sheet and blanket.

“He doesn’t like his shoulders covered,” Felix had said yesterday, frantic as he tugged them back down when the doctor had raised them to his chin. “He says it strangles him. Don’t strangle him!”

Corinne let the priest take whatever chair he wanted—he chose the wooden folding chair Georges had been making use of—and steadied herself with a hand on the wall. “His name is Christian.”

Father Serres nodded, sat—and then sucked in a breath. “I know him.”

“You...do?”

He reached for Christian’s encumbered hand, mindful of the needle and tubing. “He has come to reconciliation. I was leaving, last time, when he came in. He asked if I had time to hear him—the first I saw his face, though I knew his voice by then.”

She didn’t ask what Christian had told him, because she knew well the priest would never say. But his gaze shot to her, eyes wide. “His little boy? Is he all right? Georges told me only that a friend was shot and possibly dying—”

“Felix is in the kitchen.” He knew of him—Christian had told him. Which meant that Father Serres already knew their biggest secrets. “Josef was arrested.”

Father Serres sketched the sign of the cross and muttered a prayer, kissing his fingertips on the amen . “Will Felix be staying here then, now? With you?”

“Yes.” There would be details to sort out. What to do with him during the days, how to perhaps claim him legally, as that cousin’s boy she’d been saying he was, so they could get more rations. Enroll him in school.

Problems for another day. A day when Christian wasn’t so still. Wasn’t so pale.

Little fingers, sticky from raisins, slipped into her palm. “Good morning, Father,” Felix said in his little-mouse voice.

Father Serres gave him the same warm smile he’d always given Corinne. “Hello, Felix. Would you like to come hold your papa’s other hand while I pray for him?”

He squeezed hers instead. “Don’t do the dying prayers. He isn’t going to die. Do the living prayers. The ones to make him better.”

The priest’s gaze shifted to her.

She squeezed Felix’s hand. “Anointing of the sick. That’s all he needs.” He’d hear it in her voice—the fear that she was lying. The desperation to be telling the truth. The need to stand as one with Felix.

He nodded, smiled. “Of course. The anointing of the sick—I brought my oil. But I will still give him the eucharist, all right? So the Body of Christ can do its work in him. And he has been recently to confession anyway.”

She pressed her lips together. Confession and the Eucharist were what differentiated the last rites from the anointing of the sick.

But agreeing didn’t mean she was agreeing he was dying—look at Papa.

The rites had worked healing in his body, not just in his soul.

Given him years with them. Years to love and to restore and to make life worth living.

She dipped her head once, in a nod too tired to lift upward again.

She took her hand from Felix’s and pressed it to his back. “Go on. Hold Vati’s hand.”

He scrambled onto the bed, sat cross-legged beside Christian, and took his hand into his lap.

Somehow, as Father prayed, she ended up in Maman’s chair again.

She felt her hand lift in the right places, laying claim to the sign of the cross.

The blessing. The protection. The covenant.

Forehead— Lord, rule my thoughts. Heart— Lord, rule my heart.

Left arm, right— Lord, guide my actions.

In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

All other words, however, were a blur. Echoes. Cadences. Rhythms. Tic-a-tac-a-tic-a-tac.

Rest-ez a-vec moi. Bleib...bei...mir. Pa-tris, Fil-i, Spr’tus Sanc-ti.

She jolted when another knock came at the door, sucking in a long breath and blinking gritty eyes. Asleep—she’d fallen asleep! Panic choked her, then abated as her eyes focused.

Felix still sat on the bed but facing the other direction now. Smiling as Father Serres showed him his rosary—he wouldn’t be smiling, wouldn’t be sitting there so calmly if Christian weren’t still breathing.

The priest had moved the folding chair to the opposite side of the bed, had clearly settled in to keep watch while she slept, and to entertain the little one.

His kind eyes were on her now. “It will be the doctor. I can let him in—”

“No, no. I’ll get it.” She pushed up, head going light as she stood, limbs going heavy. The doctor, already? She had to stare at her watch for a long moment as she stumbled from the room, not quite believing its hands.

It was eleven. She’d slept in that chair for more than two hours while Father Serres kept Felix company.

The doctor bustled in with a simple nod when she opened the door for him, heading straight for Maman’s room. He’d come with them yesterday to get him situated. Make him comfortable. Set up the IV on its pole by the bed and instruct them in how to put a new bag on when the first ran out.

Oncle Georges had been the one to do it, so that she wouldn’t have to disturb Felix.

She trailed the doctor in, not daring to sink onto Maman’s chair again, not given how close sleep still felt. She stood at the foot of the bed instead, arms folded over her stomach to try to hold herself erect. Tell me he’s improving, she willed the physician’s way. Tell me he’ll pull through.

The doctor said nothing. He checked something on the IV, pulled down the bandages and checked the wound. Took his pulse, eyes tracking the second hand on his watch while his fingers rested on Christian’s neck.

She blinked away the rhythm before it could lull her again.

At last, he set down a vial of something, along with a syringe, on the bedside table and stood, gaze cutting straight to her. Through her. “If he gets agitated, seems to be in pain, administer some of the morphine.”

Morphine? Morphine was what they gave Papa when he was dying. She forced a swallow. “Is that just pain management or...?”

The doctor sighed. He looked tired, shadows circling his eyes. “I don’t have answers for you, mademoiselle . If he doesn’t wake soon, the chances that he ever will go down dramatically. And yet rest is also the best healer. He is in God’s hands now.”

He always had been. Always would be. As would they all. She forced herself to step toward the medicine, the syringe. “Show me. Show me how much, and how often.”

She saw the doctor out shortly after, and Father Serres not long after that.

She sat beside Christian, she held his hand.

She read a bit of the storybook Felix pressed into her hands.

They nibbled at a lunch that neither of them wanted and then finally, finally a key turned in the lock and Oncle Georges stepped inside, and she sprang from her chair.

He had packages in his arms, some of which he deposited in the living room, others he brought with him into the kitchen. He barely glanced at her, just started filling her cupboards and drawers. “Josef is gone.”

Her hands gripped the back of her chair like it could right the rocking world. “What do you mean, gone ?”

“Not in Paris. They sent him...somewhere. A prison camp, most likely.”

Her knees buckled. “He was still sick. Will they...treat him?”

Silence was her uncle’s answer. Silence, and the sliding of provisions onto shelves. She frowned when she saw the things he’d brought her. Not the expensive, ration-breaking items he usually tried to slip her. Dried pasta. Flour. A small packet of sugar. A few tins of vegetables and potted meat.

“They’d searched his flat, probably looking for Bauer, but they didn’t take anything. So I brought it all here. His books, his clothes—he and Bauer look about the same size, you’ll need them.”

Tears blurred her vision. Josef— gone . And even as it ate at her, as she wanted to scream at the injustice, she wanted to weep, too, at having his things here. His books. His clothes. She knew he’d want that—his things helping Christian. Feeding Felix.

“I have paperwork being drawn up, using a different surname for Felix now but the same general story. Granting you custody as the closest living relative. He’s good, the fellow I have working on it. It’ll hold up to inspection. You’ll be able to get rations for him, enroll him in school.”

She sank back onto the chair. Apparently her decision to put it off until another day simply meant “Oncle Georges will take care of it.” The tears spilled over when she blinked. “Thank you. Oncle—I don’t know what I’d do without you.”