Please. I’ll do anything. Just help me. Help me, please.
And suddenly a wave of anger overcame me so violently that I let out a fierce yell of rage, ripping one of the already-loose cabinet doors from its remaining hinge and hurling it at the wall. The door splintered, and plaster flew from the place the door had hit, the wood clattering to the floor. My chest heaved as I sucked in air. It wasn’t enough. “I needed you!” I screamed. “I needed help!” I wrestled with a whole section of cabinet, finally tearing it from the wall and hurling that as well. “You never helped me! You never helped me! Why? Why?”
You’re stupid. You’re so fucking stupid.
Another door ripped away, another piece of cabinet. Wood splintered, plaster exploded, my muscles burned, and blood splattered on the floor from some injury I couldn’t even feel. “Why couldn’t you love me?” I yelled. It sounded desperate, animalistic.
Why did you have to be my son? Why did I have to get you?
There were no more cabinets left, so I went for the pipes, shaking and twisting them until those, too, came loose in a burst of black water that bubbled up and then disappeared back into the floor. I used the pipes like a club, bashing the wall closest to me until I’d busted through the drywall, growling and panting with the effort. “Why couldn’t you love me? I just wanted you to love me.”
I continued to swing the pipe, but my arms were shaking with fatigue and the wetness splattering on my bare arms wasn’t blood, but tears. I let out another yell, but it ended on a sob, and I dropped the pipe, hanging my head as tears coursed down my cheeks. I fell to my knees and then to my side on the cold, dirty floor. “I wanted you to love me. I needed you,” I gasped. “I didn’t have anyone else. I needed you, and you never helped me.”
I didn’t know if I was talking to God or my father, or maybe both. All I knew was the agonizing pain that had come up from deep inside my soul and was demanding to be set free. It was beating at my bones, ripping through my muscles, clawing at the inside of my skin.
I sobbed as I surrendered, letting it pour out of me, shaking with the pain and shame I’d held close to my heart for so very long. I cried for the feeling of worthlessness that I’d held tight to, owning it because I believed it was rightfully mine. I cried for the desperate longing to be loved by the one person who refused to offer it. “I needed you,” I choked again, my chest heaving. “I needed you to help me.”
I’m here to save you.
My eyes flew open, and I swiped at the blurriness, sitting up and looking for the child who’d just spoken near my ear. I scooted backward quickly, pressing my spine against the wall as I attempted to catch my breath. I used both hands to swipe away the tears on my cheeks. There was no child. The voice had come from my memory. But it’d been sweet and clear, and I’d swear she’d spoken right in my ear.
Jessie.
It’d been Jessie’s voice. The voice of that eleven-year-old, freckle-faced princess.
I’m here to save you.
I drew in another long, shaky breath, my heart slowing, a trickle of calm beginning to move through me as my shoulders relaxed. I brought my knees to my chest, sitting against the wall in the same way I’d once sat in that boxcar. I rested my forearms on my knees, noting the state of my scratched-up, bloody hands, and closed my eyes, leaning my head back against the wall.
I’m here to save you, she’d said, not once, but twice.
I’m here to save you.
It echoed in my head like the ringing of bells. Was…was that how God worked? Did he send people to save us when we needed saving? Signs? Small guides? Had I been too blind to see that I’d asked him for help and he’d answered again and again? My heart thumped with hope, a sweep of wonder rushing through me. I’d asked him to help me, begged him to save me, and he’d sent Jessie, not only to provide friendship and laughter when I needed it most, but to gift me the joy of music. She’d delivered it straight into my arms, like a messenger bearing miracles, and I hadn’t once recognized her for what she was. My gift. My fate. My love.
Oh, Jessie.
I pictured her eager face peering into the boxcar that day, pictured her grasping my hand and leading me through fields and over train tracks, transforming the miserable world I knew into a magical land filled with happiness and hope. I pictured her reading to me, engaging my imagination, and teaching me how to dream. I saw her going over musical notes, her finger touching on each one as she taught me the language I’d been meant to know, the language that flowed through my blood—my marrow, my very soul—as if it were the mother tongue learned in some distant place that I could no longer remember but still somehow carried inside.
It was like every good and beautiful thing in the world came together all at once and you’d found a way to express it in one single song.
I wasn’t useless. I wasn’t. Jessie had tried to teach me that. And yet I hadn’t been able to trust anyone to love me, even someone kind like Jessie, when my own father hadn’t been able to.
I sat for a long time in the desolate shack, my tears drying, the blood hardening. I stared at the ruined wall as my heartbeat became a steady thump, thump, thump.
Oh God, I was a fool. I hadn’t seen. I hadn’t realized.
I held my head in my hands, so many visions flowing through my mind, not just Jessie. Not just the second time she’d shown up to save me on a rooftop in Paris, not only the third, in a French château in the Loire Valley. But Nick, how he’d arrived in my life when I’d needed a friend the most, how I’d protected him and how he’d unfailingly had my back. Even Myrtle. Even crazy-ass Myrtle. I gasped, gripping my hair.
Maybe I had been loved all along…by something…or someone. By a loving hand that sought to guide me if only I’d listened. The feeling that something immense was happening danced across my skin, through my veins, and settled inside. It felt warm and shimmery, like a light. It felt like love.
You’re a disgrace, Jessie had said. I let go of my head, laughing out loud, not with self-mocking, but with the truth of her words and the realization that she was right. Of course she was. But the greater realization was that I didn’t want to be a disgrace any longer, and I needed to find the strength not to be.
I’d spent my life rejecting miracles. I’d spent my life snubbing fate. I’d spent my life sending boats away. One after the other.
Fate hadn’t given up on me, though. Fate had sent Jessie over and over again, and, God, I wanted to be worthy of the gift.
A scratching sound caught my attention, and I pulled myself to my feet. The last thing I needed was a run-in with some rabid raccoon that was squatting in the abandoned house. But when I peeked around the corner into the short hallway, I spotted a medium-sized brown and white dog, its expression moving between a grin and a pant. I backed up and the dog came forward, rounding the doorway into the kitchen where I now stood, moaning softly.
“Whoa,” I said, holding up my hand. The dog sat down, dropping its eyes. I paused. It seemed to have remarkably good manners for a stray. I could see the outline of its rib bones beneath its matted fur, so it was clearly hungry and homeless.
I shifted on my feet. “I should take you to the pound,” I murmured. The dog, seeming to know the word pound, dropped onto its stomach and covered its eyes with its paws. I laughed in surprise at the clear intelligence of this mangy animal. “Been there before, huh?” I sighed. “Well, I can’t take you. I live in an apartment in Los Angeles. No yard. No pets allowed.”
The dog continued to stare at me as if waiting for something. You could move. I let out a ragged breath, leaning back against the wall behind me. “Where am I gonna move to? France?” The dog’s ears perked up, and it lifted its head, letting out a moan. Of course. I wasn’t sure exactly where the thought had even come from other than that maybe…maybe it’d been swirling around in my head for weeks now. Perhaps I’d just been too scared to even ponder it and all the other risks I’d have to consider if I took that leap.
I pressed my lips togethe
r, still looking at the dog. “If we moved to France, I’d name you Pierre. It’s a really stupid name and you’d have to put up with it.” The dog leapt up, barking softly. I laughed. “It figures.”
I sighed again. I’d have to think about moving, really think about it, but it seemed that for now I had a dog. “Come on, Pierre. Let’s go get you a hamburger.” The dog moaned happily and then started panting, joining me where I stood and looking up at me solemnly. “I know. I didn’t expect you either. I think that’s the point.”
Pierre followed along behind me, and I unlocked the latch of the front door. Before I opened it, I looked back into the kitchen, picturing that small boy sitting at a table, scared, sad, filled with shame for who he was and what he couldn’t do.
“You were wrong about me,” I whispered, and then I opened the door, Pierre running ahead of me as we walked away.
* * *
“What do you think, Monsieur Hayes? Very nice?”
I turned, giving the modern kitchen a once-over. It was all shiny stainless steel and sharp edges. “It’s nice, I guess, but…do you have anything with a little more…history?”
The Realtor raised his eyebrow. “History? Monsieur, Giverny is rich in history. But in real estate that often translates to…needs work.”
I chuckled. “That’s okay. Within reason.”
The agent, Monsieur Voclain, brought his phone out and swiped through a couple of screens, stopping on one. He glanced at me. “I do have one you might like to see. If you like…history.” He smiled.
“Yes.” Or rather, someone special to me does.
“Okay. If you’d like to follow behind me, I will show you the way.”
I followed Monsieur Voclain’s car for several miles and pulled up next to him in front of a stone cottage, overgrown with ivy, white shutters falling from the hinges. I stood at the open car door for a moment, looking at it, a feeling of…rightness settling in. Pierre barked, sliding past me and jumping out the open door. “Hey. You’re supposed to stay in the car,” I said. The damn dog ignored me, trotting toward the house, where she lay down in a patch of sunlight on the stone pathway and put her head on her paws.
I looked around, taking in the overgrown yard fenced in by a stone wall that still looked sturdy. Massive trees shaded the property, and flowers and vines grew rampant and wild. It needed some taming, but the natural, unbound beauty of it caught at something inside me.
There was a familiar quality about the light here. The way it glowed so softly behind the house and then diffused gently away into the trees and the sky beyond. It brought to mind the way the light had looked behind Jessie that day as she’d stood in front of the window at the inn.
And as I tipped my head back and inhaled the breeze, I swore I could smell the sweet, spicy scent of roses wafting from somewhere beyond.
Monsieur Voclain approached. “It’s a fixer-upper, no doubt. But it has a lovely private garden in the back, and the fireplaces inside are still working. It has all the original beams and wood floors.” We started walking toward the front door. “You know that Monet’s house is nearby? When he moved here in 1883, the beauty of Giverny became a source of great inspiration for him. He painted several of his most famous paintings here. It is…a special place for artists.”
“Hmm,” I hummed. I’d heard Monet’s home and gardens were nearby. She would love that.
Monsieur Voclain chuckled as he looked at Pierre, who had made herself right at home already. “Your dog will like it here, too. There are beautiful places to walk, a river with an old bridge just that way.” He pointed to the left. “And above the trees, you can see the steeple of an eleventh-century church.”
A melody pinged inside me: soft, sweet, lonely, speaking of things I’d always longed for but never had the courage to try to make my own.
Love.
Home.
“Monsieur Voclain, I’ll take it.”
He laughed, turning from the front door he was just unlocking. “You haven’t even seen the inside.”
I grinned. “All right, let’s walk through, just to make it official.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Jessica
“Jess?” I turned from the stove where I was heating up some soup as Frankie entered our apartment.
“Hey,” I greeted, giving her a smile.
“Hey. How was your day?”
“It was good.”
She came in the kitchen, looking over my shoulder into the pot of vegetable soup and wrinkling her nose. She tossed some mail on the counter, holding up a magazine that had been on top. “Look.” She grinned. “It’s the published article about how my brilliant friend helped uncover one of history’s great mysteries.”
I sucked in a breath, setting the wooden spoon I’d been using on the counter. I took the magazine from Frankie and leafed to the page where the article about the words Joan of Arc had said to Charles the Seventh to get him to give her an army was located. I’d already read the piece, but to see it in print sent a thrill through me. I was still so proud of the work we’d accomplished and overjoyed about the information that had been contained in the misfiled writing.
Frankie looked over my shoulder as I glanced through the article. “We’re framing that, you know.”
I laughed, setting the magazine down on the counter and spotting a large, padded envelope on top of the pile of mail Frankie had set down. “What’s that?” I nodded to the pile.
Frankie grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl, bringing it to her mouth. “I don’t know. It’s for you,” she said around a bite of the fruit.
I picked up the envelope. It had a label with my name and address on it but no return information, except the postmark that indicated it was posted in France. I frowned, pulling open the seal and peering inside. I removed a music CD case with a blank cover. “What the…?” Pulling the cover open, I saw a CD with JESSIE’S SONG written in bold, black letters. “Oh my God,” I whispered, leaning back against the counter for support, my hands beginning to shake.
“What is it?” Frankie asked, taking it from my hand and staring at it for a moment. “It’s from Callen?” she asked, blinking at me.
“It—it has to be.” I shook my head. I hadn’t heard a word from or about him for more than two months, not since Nick had stopped by unexpectedly the day they were leaving for the States. I’d asked Frankie for verification that he’d actually left, that there was no news on him in the tabloids, and she’d told me that she’d searched online and there wasn’t a whisper of him anywhere. It was as if he’d just disappeared.
And now…he’d sent me a song. “Jessie’s Song.” What did it mean?
“I think you need to go in your room and listen to that,” Frankie said softly.
I looked up at her. My heart was suddenly beating so rapidly, I could hardly catch my breath. “O-okay.”
She nodded, looking concerned. “I’ll be here when you’re done listening. And stop gripping that so tightly. You’re going to crack it.”
I let out a strangled laugh, releasing my grip on the CD. I walked on wooden legs into my room and closed the door behind me, going to my desk, where I plugged in my headphones and slipped the disk into my computer.
As the first notes played, I clenched my eyes shut, the tune that he’d hummed constantly while we were in the Loire Valley filling my ears, filling my heart. A singular violin, beautiful, but the notes…bleeding somehow. It had been only the soft sound of his voice then, humming the melody, and then later, the harmonies, but now they all came together, an entire orchestra, and it was unbelievably beautiful. I put my hand over my heart as if to keep it from bursting from my chest at the story this music told. Of longing, of despair, of loneliness, of love and joy. He had named the song for me, but this was Callen’s story, being told through notes that had drifted straight from his soul. His heart was here, being laid bare on a thin, silver disk. He had given it to me.
When “Jessie’s Song” ended, another began to play. And then
another. Each one told a story, some I thought I understood and others beautiful but mysterious to me. Perhaps speaking of things he had never told me. Maybe of things he hadn’t even told himself—until now.
If heartache and redemption mixed together to form a soundtrack, this would be it. And I understood his pain even more poignantly. Oh, Callen. I listened to each song, tears streaming down my face, sitting in my room as the sun slipped away, waiting with bated breath for the way in which he had chosen to end the final song. And when it came, my heart squeezed so tightly I let out a gasp. The music lifted gently, the sound of a singular violin again, the notes soaring, my heart following.
Callen…Callen.
He’d written an ending filled with happiness. With hope. With love.
* * *
In the year of our Lord 1431, on the seventh day of October
There is a chill in the air today as I sit in the mouth of our cave, the Loire Valley beautiful in all the shades of autumn splendor. Olivier wanders the field below, exercising his leg, and I can see from where I sit that his limp is less noticeable. I can’t help smiling as I recall the day several months ago when we met again under the light of a new moon, the way he swung from his horse, limping toward me as I ran, colliding in a heap of tears and kisses, love and laughter. His words, “You’re here, my love, you’re here,” and the way he shook as he said them, will stay with me forever.
Olivier promises we will make a good life, a peace-filled life, in a distant part of France, growing apples perchance, or maybe grapes. No war, no fear, no rules or strictures, our hearts governed only by God. And I know, with all the faith in my heart, that it will be so, for my destiny has led me here, and it is not only Olivier’s promise that brings me solace, but the knowledge that it is also a promise written on the wind.
I feel certain that we will not return here, that today is goodbye to this wondrous place where Olivier’s and my heart became one. He is my family now. Him and the child that grows in my womb. A tiny speck of hope, of love. Proof that though life takes, so does it give back.