Miracle (31 page)

“No,
you
have chosen her life, without consulting her, as usual. Whether she marries Giancarlo or not, she wants to head the family corporation. Let her. Women do such things now, as well as marry and have children. Annette would be an excellent chief executive.”

“It isn’t a daughter’s place to take charge. It is the eldest son’s place.”

Sebastien laughed curtly. “Still the same argument. And always pointless. You seem to think that I’ll throw away my career someday and come to you, begging to be a part of your dynasty.”

“Hardly. But I have other expectations.” His eyes were fathomless, but a knowing smile hinted at private plans.

Sebastien went to a wall filled with photos of the de Savin businesses and idly studied the display. “Scheme if you want. I don’t worry about it.”

“You’ve become even more self-assured. So proud. But how is your life, really? I hear that your wife prefers the company of her friends and that the two of you share few interests.”

“We share enough. We respect each other.”

“So when will you take a mistress? Or have you already? It’s really a very practical way to run a marriage.”

“I enjoy your quaint description of disloyalty. I don’t need a mistress. I barely have time for a wife. My work is everything.” He paused, then pivoted toward his father, smiling thinly. “Well, not quite everything. I have a new interest that surprises me with its charm. I didn’t expect to be so taken with it. Marie and I are going to have a child.”

Philippe de Savin sat forward, his fingers clasping the chair arms, his blue eyes intense. “I’m going to be a grandfather?”

“Typical, you look at it solely as it affects you. Yes, you’re gong to be a grandfather.”

Philippe rose from his chair. Sebastien was surprised to see his father tremble. The sheen of emotion in the older man’s eyes shocked him so much that he took a step backward. His father crossed the room and halted so close that he could almost touch Sebastien. He held out both hands. “You came here to tell me this as a gesture of truce.”

Sebastien reeled. His father’s unexpected vulnerability confused him, repulsed him, then made him angry at the swift tug of sympathy he felt. “I came here to tell you because Marie asked me to do so. She believes a child should know its grandparents. You will be invited to visit after the baby comes.”

“Son, I am honored—”

“Were it up to me, you’d never see your grandchild. I don’t intend to take part in your show of dubious sentiment. I’d prefer that the next generation of de Savins never be exposed to you. I won’t have any more of my loved ones destroyed by you.”

Philippe slapped a fist into the opposite palm. His moment of softness evaporated in fury. “How many more years will you go on making sacrifices at the altar of your mother’s insanity? How much longer will you hate me for no reason?”

Sebastien walked to the doors, his hands clenched by his sides. “Your blindness crippled this family. But it will
not cripple my children. Perhaps you and I are both getting a second chance to prove ourselves. Good afternoon.”

“To prove
what
, Sebastien?” His father strode after him and blocked his way. “I did nothing wrong.
You
did nothing wrong. Terrible accidents happen in the world without blame.”

“It was no accident. There was blame.”

“You know what I mean. Your mother was an accident, a mistake, a misguided soul, a simple-minded and confused woman incapable of adjusting—”

“If you ever let my child suspect that you feel that way about its grandmother, I’ll kill you.” Sebastien’s voice was low and utterly serious. “Do you understand? I’ll kill you.”

He left his father standing in grim silence, both hands out in a supplicating gesture that came more than twenty years too late.

Annette’s wedding was planned abruptly, owing to the fact that Annette was pregnant, a circumstance that delighted Giancarlo and depressed her, she confessed to Marie.

“She will be happy once the baby arrives,” Marie told Sebastien as they dressed for the ceremony. “It’s just that she fears that your father will pressure her to curtail her work.” Marie patted her swollen stomach, at five months showing generously under the pleated black dress she wore. “She’ll be happy.”

Sebastien finished knotting the silk tie that matched his double-breasted suit. He frowned at himself in the long, gilt-framed mirror of their bedroom, privately hurt. “I shouldn’t go to the ceremony. She doesn’t want me there.”

Marie settled in a chair near the bed and laughed lightly. “She didn’t include you in the attendants. So? She feels threatened by the birth of our child. But she didn’t include your brother, either. Surely such things are insignificant. Don’t tell me you’re hurt. I don’t believe it.”

Marie’s pragmatism was her charm, but there were often times when he felt that he was conversing with a stranger.
The baby was their most intimate connection, and they were both excited about it.

She rose and went through an open doorway to the stone balcony that overlooked a small courtyard and garden. The house they kept in this exclusive Paris suburb was solemn and stately. Marie had chosen it, and Sebastien was indifferent to it.

“What is this?” she called a moment later. “Are you decorating the shrubbery for some special holiday?”

Sebastien walked outside. She stood beside a flowering shrub set in a container of thick stone. Bright sunlight glinted on the silver necklace she pulled from a leafy branch.

“I must have left it there when I was going through a box of photographs yesterday. It’s something I carried when I was working in Africa.”

She lifted the worn video token and studied it. “Was this the magic charm you mentioned? The one the villagers expected you to wear?”

“Yes.” Feeling that something very private was being violated, Sebastien took the necklace from her rather abruptly.

“You needn’t snatch it away.” She gave him a bewildered look. “It isn’t like you to keep memorabilia. Why this?”

He smiled sardonically. “Perhaps I don’t want to lose my magic.”

Marie dismissed the notion with a delicate sniff. “Throw it away.”

“No.”

Her fair complexion reddened a little. “You’re being silly.”

“Allow me. It’s a first.”

“Such nonsense.”

Doc, don’t you ever want to just sit on a hill somewhere and howl at the moon
? “Marie? Have you ever howled at the moon?”

Her eyes widened in astonishment. “No.”

“I thought not.”

Marie gave him a rebuking look and swept past him.
attend. Do what you wish with your magic charm. But please don’t become maudlin.”

“I hardly think I’m in danger of that. A patient called me ‘pitiless and acerbic,’ only yesterday. See? You can relax.”

“I dislike your sarcasm.”

“I dislike it, myself.” Sebastien went to an enormous armoire and opened a drawer at its base. He dropped the necklace atop precisely folded handkerchiefs bearing the de Savin crest. His fingers lingered on the medal for a moment. He murmured under his breath, “Someday, Marie, we really should howl at the moon.”

Sebastien didn’t see his brother at church. He looked for him during the reception, a huge affair in the garden of a fine restaurant near the Champs-Elysées. Jacques had been attending art school in Amsterdam for the last two years, and rarely returned to Paris.

Sebastien finally glimpsed him in the crowd dressed in pastel hues. He stood out like a raven among canaries in his black leather pants and a black sports jacket. He turned, a thin cigar clamped in his mouth. His gaze met Sebastien’s, he smiled, and with the awful flash of teeth still showing in his gaunt face, he made his way across the garden.

By the time he stopped a pace away, Sebastien had recovered enough to speak calmly. “Come with me.”

“And greetings to you, too, dear brother. I was planning to find you if you didn’t find me first.”

Jacques followed him to a corner where a trellis draped in vines sheltered them from scrutiny. Sebastien stared at his brother’s ashen, emaciated face. “What’s happened to you?”

“A bout with a stomach ulcer, that’s all.”

“Who are your doctors in Amsterdam? What have they said?”

“They’ve said they’d like their bills paid. Could you loan me some money?”

Sebastien was silent, disbelieving. He knew the size of the trust fund that Jacques had received at eighteen. Each
of them had been given such a fund. It was an enormous amount of money. “You couldn’t have—”

“Ah, but I did.” Jacques threw the cigar on the perfect carpet of grass and ground it viciously with the heel of his black boot. “And I don’t need a lecture on my irresponsibility. All I need is a loan. To pay my medical bills and my tuition. Consider it a grant to support the arts.” He blithely named an amount.

“That’s not a grant, that’s an endowment. It’s ridiculous for you to remain in school, wasting time.”

“Look, will you give me the money, or not?” Jacques’s cheek twitched.

The movement produced a tightening that made the skin look frail and translucent. Sebastien’s heart twisted. Suddenly he remembered a whimsical, daydreaming little brother scorned by their father for interests he didn’t perceive as masculine. Sebastien remembered a cheerful shadow who had idolized an impatient older brother.

“I’ll give you a loan as soon as you have your doctors send me your records.”

“Shit. You’ve got Father’s skill at coercion.” Jacques lifted trembling hands to scrape at hair that looked thin and dull.

“You’ve asked Father for money, too?”

“Of course not. I’m asking you. Shit. I thought you’d be easier. I should have known better. And I can’t ask Annette. Her husband dislikes me, so at the moment she wouldn’t give me a centime.”

“I only want your medical records. That’s not a terrible trade.”

“Such unselfish, unquestioning love. To hell with you.”

He started to leave, but Sebastien grabbed him by the arm. “If you want to waste your life, I won’t pay the way. What have you done—sniffed a small fortune up your nose? I won’t help you fund a drug habit.”

“You won’t help me at all. But relax, brother. I don’t need it. I was just seeing how much I could take you for. Testing to find out if your balls are still made of steel.”

Sebastien shoved him away. “I have no pity for whining and weakness. But come to me like a man and I’ll listen to you.”

“I
am
a man. I am. Goddamn you.” Tears brimmed in his eyes. Jacques jerked his arm from Sebastien’s grip and stumbled off. Sebastien watched him leave. Marie came over, frowning.

“Jacques looks terrible. Is he in trouble again?”

“Yes.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Nothing. His lack of control is not my concern.”

For a moment, before he realized that Marie was looking at him closely, he grimaced at the coldness of his words and wondered if he were being strong, or merely cruel. And when had he begun to sound so much like his father?

The nursery was becoming the focal point of their home. Every evening when Sebastien returned from the office or the hospital he found the signs that workmen had once again been altering the room to suit Marie’s excited plans. It was as if carpenter ants were making daily pilgrimages and leaving their trailings for him to find.