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Henri goes pale. I understand why…I can’t imagine leaving this tiny infant here among a hundred others with only a hope that she will be okay. Knowing she might not even live through the night.
We drive home, the two of us too panicked about Cecelia to think of any other topic we could possibly discuss. When we arrive, Henri goes straight to the barn, and Marie is in the garden, which leaves me alone with Yvette when I walk in.
“Did you enjoy that?” she asks with a miserable little smirk. “Creating some drama about my daughter to get time alone with my spouse?”
“You know what’s interesting?” I ask. “Your daughter nearly died today, and she may not live through the night, and the only person who doesn’t seem to care about that is you.”
* * *
I’m unable to sleep that night. I lie awake and eventually dress and go downstairs, where Henri sits, staring at the fire. I take the seat beside him on the couch.
“Is she going to be alright?” he asks.
I squeeze his hand, briefly. “Yes,” I say firmly, because it’s what he needs to hear. And what I need to hear.
He gives me a small smile. “If that’s so, then why are you awake?”
“I just miss her,” I tell him, and it’s true.
“Me too,” he replies.
Behind us, the bedroom door opens, and we both turn guiltily though we’ve done nothing wrong.
Yvette stands at the threshold, her eyes narrowed on me. “Isn’t this cozy?” she asks. “I hate to disturb you, but I need my husband’s assistance.”
He rises and leaves, while I remain behind. Is it wrong that we were sitting together? Is it wrong that I squeezed his hand, that I wanted to comfort him? No. But that doesn’t mean it was innocent either. Nothing about the two of us is.
I wake early, on little sleep, and dress to go to the hospital, only to find Yvette waiting downstairs when I arrive. “Your help won’t be necessary today,” she says.
Henri looks at me with apology in his eyes. “Get some rest, Amelie,” he says softly. “I’ll call the minute there’s news.”
Marie and I wait near the phone but it does not ring. Instead, not three hours after they took the one-hour journey to Reims, they return. My hand goes to my throat. “Cecelia, is she…”
Henri shakes his head. “She’s alive. Still on a ventilator.”
“Then why are you here?”
Henri looks straight ahead, and I realize for the first time that he’s holding himself apart from Yvette, painfully stiff.
She shrugs. “It was so dull there and I did just have a baby,” she says. “I suppose you’ll never understand since you can’t have children, but sitting for long periods like that is hell after childbirth.”
I stiffen, shocked that Marie told them. Has Henri been pitying me this whole time? Has he been thinking he’s lucky things turned out the way they did?
Henri is staring at Yvette as if he finally sees her for the monster she is. “Have you taken leave of your senses?” he asks her.
Her eyes go wide. “What? All I said was that—”
“Everyone in this room heard what you said,” he replies, opening the door to walk away. “Please have the decency not to repeat it.”
I walk out to the hay bale, sick over the whole thing. I know I’m a bad person and maybe I deserve my losses. But Yvette’s no better. Why should she get everything I want? Henri, Cecelia, his future children?
Footsteps approach and I recognize that heavy tread before I’ve even looked up. “I’m sorry,” Henri says. “It was thoughtless of her to have brought it up.”
It was far worse than thoughtless. It was intentionally cruel. I wonder if Henri sees how bad she really is.
“Marie shouldn’t have told you,” I reply.
“She was trying to help,” he says. “She wanted Yvette to be more sensitive.”
