Page 79 of Across Time

I land in the hay again, of course, and land badly, but the heaviness of the journey is already settling on me and there’s no time to waste. I bolt from the stall, grabbing the blanket that hangs on a peg to the left. I wrap it around me, and though sleep has begun its siren’s call, I keep pushing forward. I knew I missed Henri, but I had no idea how much until this moment, until he’s so very close and I have a few conscious minutes at most to lay eyes on him.

I rush into the yard just as he is climbing out of the truck. He sees me and for a moment only stares, as if I’m a ghost. That same longing is there, but uncertainty also. I have no time for his uncertainty, however, so I run, or try to anyway, stumbling over the long blanket at my feet, hair flying.

I throw my arms around his neck and feel his heart thudding beneath my ear. My eyes flutter and the fatigue settles over me like a weight I can no longer push away. I tip my head up toward him. "I’m back,” I whisper, as I sink into oblivion. “I made it back.”

29

I wake in the room next to Marie’s, which is flooded with morning sun. A chair sits next to the bed, with a blanket tossed over the arm and a dog-eared book on the table beside it.

My limbs are as heavy as ever when I rise, and the simple act of climbing out of bed feels like it requires more strength than I might have, but the breeze coming through the window is refreshing, not sweltering, and I’m motivated to get downstairs in a way I wasn’t the first time I arrived. In spite of the journey and the days I’ve probably spent sleeping, a quick glance in the cracked mirror on the wall confirms I still haven’t lost the sheen of my spa day. I’m ready to begin my life here...as long as Henri wants that too.

I hear the sound of feet racing up the stairs just as I’ve pulled the white dress over my head, and suddenly Marie comes running in. “I thought I heard you moving around!” she cries, throwing her arms around me. “At last! I want to hear everything, but first things first. You’ll eat while I draw you a bath, and then—”

I glance out the window. I’ve craved the sight of Henri’s face like a drowning man craves oxygen, and for far too long. “I just…I think I need to talk to Henri first.”

She waves my words away. “There’s time for that later. You’ve been asleep for days and you need your energy. Just take a quick bath while I go get him.”

She heads toward the door but turns back just as it opens. “I’m so, so happy you’re here,” she says. “I hope you plan to stay.”

That’s in your brother’s hands, not mine. I think of how uncertain his face looked when I ran to him and the doubt in my stomach begins to spread through my blood. “I hope it all works out.”

I take the world’s quickest bath and dress again before I hobble downstairs. I’m holding my breath, bracing for Henri, but when I reach the kitchen I find only Marie bustling around, having already placed an obscene amount of food on the table.

“Where’s Henri?” I ask.

“I’m leaving to get him in a second, but first you must eat.” She bites her lip. “And I thought perhaps we should talk.”

My stomach falls to the floor. I take a chair at the table, not sure I can continue to stand. It’s only been a few weeks. I thought he might be dating someone but he couldn’t already be serious with her, could he?

“Talk? About what?”

Her eyes are worried. “I think there are some things you need to understand. When you—”

The door opens, and her words stop short.

Henri stands at the threshold. Our eyes meet, and I start to rise but Marie’s hand presses to my shoulder. “You will stay where you are, and you will eat. And you,” she says, turning to Henri, “will sit politely at the table, and wait until she’s done.”

He looks more worried than pleased to see me here. Did I misunderstand the things he said? “Marie,” he says, his eyes never leaving mine, “get out.”

“Do you not care how well she recovers?” Marie asks. “Stop being selfish and take a seat.”

Henri sighs and slides his large frame onto the bench across from me. I watch, wondering how there ever could have been a time when I didn’t know I loved him. When I didn’t want that full, pouting mouth of his on mine, when I didn’t want his calloused hands—currently clasped tight above the table—on my skin. There is so much we need to say to each other, so much I need to know, and the fact that it can’t be said with Marie here makes me feel even more choked, even more desperate, than I already did.

“Tell us what happened,” Marie says breathlessly. “What brought you back?”

“What made her change her mind is none of your concern, Marie,” snaps Henri. “Don’t you have errands to run or children to teach?”

“All in good time. She deserves a chance to tell her side of the story,” she says, shooting Henri a look I can’t quite interpret. She turns to me. “Start at the beginning.”

I’m not sure what she means by my side of the story, as if there was a fight. Henri can’t be mad that I left—he never once asked me to stay. With one last glance at him, I begin to tell the story between bites of bread and cheese and sausage: how I woke, tied to a gurney, under the command of a doctor who was certain I was an addict. And the mysterious Cecelia and how she rescued me from all of it but would never tell me why. The whole time I’m talking, however, all I want to do is drink in the sight of him. I can barely look his way, however, without forgetting what I’ve just said.

"And you still have no idea who she was?" Marie asks.

“None. She said she was a friend of yours,” I reply, “but she isn’t even born yet, so that seems unlikely. And she told the hospital my name was Amelie Besson.”

Marie looks slightly alarmed. “Could she have been…one of our children? Mine, or Henri’s?”

I shake my head. “I think she would have said so. And she had a different last name and looked nothing like either of you. But anyway, she agreed to take care of me until I recovered. She seemed to know my arrival there would have gone really badly if she didn’t intervene.”