Miracle (36 page)

“I have satisfied his requirements, then. I owe him nothing. He wants what suits him best, not me.”

“Oh? With all your talent and arrogance, why can’t you at least manage to give him a grandchild? Why can’t you give my daughter a baby?”

Slowly Sebastien swiveled his head. He met Christian d’Albret’s eyes and held them until a warning had been fully and effectively conveyed. A month ago Marie had lost another baby, their fifth. Thank God, this one had miscarried very early, not like the first one or the fourth, which had both reached six months. Sebastien ground the knuckles of one hand into the other. Her specialists, having conducted every test possible over the past few years, still found nothing wrong.

Nature culls her mistakes
. Sebastien winced. He and all his siblings had been mistakes, the products of a marriage that should never have taken place. If his sister had not borne two healthy children in the past three years, Sebastien would have allowed himself the morbid thought that nature, in keeping him from becoming a father, was simply correcting its error in the second generation. Perhaps the sins of the father were only visited upon the sons, the bearers of the family name.

Sebastien found himself pondering sins and curses, then angrily discarding such nonsense. He tried to concentrate
on Christian d’Albret, who was now detailing some minor point of administration that had no importance to the practice of surgery, particularly transplant surgery, where the protocols were shaped by the skills and personalities of the members of a small, elite team.

Sebastien already knew how he would run the new unit: He would treat his doctors and nurses with respect but demand complete dedication. Home, family, friends—all must be a distant second to the incredibly complicated work at hand. He expected no more of them than he expected of himself. He never left the hospital before midnight, and many times he didn’t go home at all, catching a few hours’ sleep on the cot in his office. He saw Marie no more than two or three nights a week.

“I think that your most crucial staff problem will be burnout,” Christian was saying. “Transplant patients inspire such personal involvement … and so many of them die. You must give your staff ample means to retreat.”

“I have selected people who understand the risks and the demands, people who live for their work.”

“But each of them needs a sanctuary, Sebastien. Even you, believe it or not, need something besides your career.”

“No.”

Christian exclaimed in dismay and continued lecturing him. Sebastien tuned out the sound. Marie’s father was the perfect type to head a hospital bureaucracy; it was from him that Marie had gotten her passion for rules and her colorless view of life.

Christian finally came to an awkward stop. When Sebastien didn’t comment, he leaned back in his upholstered executive chair so heavily that it groaned. “Forgive me for bringing up the subject of children a few minutes ago. But I can’t help but think that you spend so much time at the hospital in order to avoid Marie. You blame her for the problems, and that angers me.”

“I don’t blame her.” Sebastien returned his attention to the window, while peace deserted him and frustration twisted his stomach. Each of Marie’s miscarriages carved a larger wound than the last one and strained their cool relationship even more, it was true. But he didn’t fault her;
instead he felt cheated by some vindictive fate or by his own failure, some enormous failing he had only to discover and fix. “She suffers. I know how much she wants a child.”

“And what will you do if she never produces one? What is there to make your marriage worthwhile besides children?”

“There will be children. Have patience, Christian.”

“You will not divorce my daughter, you understand? Not if you want to keep your position here.”

“Don’t insult me with a limp threat. I would be welcome at any hospital in Europe.”

“But there is only one Sainte Crillion, the best of the best, with a new transplant unit that could bring you worldwide recognition. No, Sebastien, I think you won’t jeopardize what you’ve built here … and what you could accomplish in the future.”

“I’ll live my life as I wish, Christian, without your permission. But rest assured, I have no intention of divorcing Marie.”

“I don’t hear love speaking, I hear complacency. You and Marie—”

“Have an understanding. And it works quite well. She understands the liabilities of marriage to a heart surgeon. She has always understood that my work demands most of my time and energy. She enjoys the prestige. She has her own life.”

“She is very unhappy.”

“Unhappiness is the state of most lives, eh? Enough.” Sebastien shrugged, trying to sidetrack the anger that was winding through the muscles of his shoulders. He shut his eyes and made himself concentrate on the soothing, silken glide of his shirt and the heavier weight of his coat. He spent more time at his boxing than ever before, and the workouts plus maturity had added bulk to his chest and shoulders. He knew that he looked brawny and intimidating—and vain, many of his colleagues claimed.

“What are you thinking?” Christian asked in a disgusted tone. “What are you feeling? I can never tell. That’s a great talent of yours, Sebastien. Goddamn arrogant surgeons. So
tough. They hide everything so well. And you are the best, I admit it.”

Sebastien shook his head. “I am only reveling in my new position of power,” he said in a sardonic tone. But his emotional state was as fierce and vivid as the torrent of sleet that slashed across the window. He was thinking of a night seven years ago on a hilltop in the moonlight, when a naive American girl had made life seem so carefree and simple.

Annette had relaxed since having her children, because they put her in a position of power. Sebastien was deeply pleased to have her friendship again, though it came at his own expense. She had contributed something to the family that he couldn’t—grandchildren. And her ambitions benefitted because Philippe de Savin adored them.

“You should hear how he talks to them!” she told Sebastien over lunch at her club. Gripping a lapel of her dusk-blue cutaway jacket like an orator about to make a speech, Annette leaned across her venison cutlets and winked. “He calls them Puppy and Kitten! Imagine! Papa using whimsical nicknames!”

“I’m glad that his attention pleases you.”

“And I’ll tell you something else.” She clinked her wineglass to Sebastien’s. “He’s become more open-minded. He’s turning the shirt factory in Lille over to me. I’ll be in charge of the entire operation.”

“Congratulations. You deserve much more than that.”

“Oh, in time, Sebastien, in time.”

When they finished lunch and rose to leave she grasped his hand. “Don’t drive back to the hospital this second. Come see the children. Come to the nursery with me while I gather them up.”

Sebastien agreed reluctantly. He avoided children, even Annette’s. “I have only a few minutes.”

“That’s enough. Good God, how will you ever be a father if you can’t stand children?” She frowned at him.

He decided to let her mistaken assumption pass. “So far, that question has not urgently required an answer.”

“Oh, I give up! I’ll never decipher you.”

“Mystery is part of my charm.”

“ ‘Hardly. There’s no mystery, only stubborness. Come along, stone face.”

The club’s nursery was too bright; the cheerfulness of it weighed him down as he followed Annette into a suite of rooms filled with toys, children, and sunlight. She clapped her hands at the blond two-year-old who sat in the midst of candy-colored building blocks. “Jacques! It’s Maman! And Uncle Sebastien! No, you haven’t forgotten him, even though he hasn’t come to see you in months.”

Sebastien hid a grimace that leapt from deep discomfort. He hadn’t been surprised when Annette had named her first child after their brother. He approved, in fact, but the name was never easy to hear. Little Jacques laughed and held out his arms. Picking him up, Annette kissed him heartily then thrust him into Sebastien’s arms. “Now, Sebastien, you hold him while I retrieve Louise. She’s in a crib in the infants’ room. Try not to look so stem. You’ll frighten him.”

“Wait, Annette—”

“I’ll be right back.”

She left Sebastien holding his nephew, who squirmed and stared at him with dark eyes that grew wider with each second. The silence hummed with uncertainty; Sebastien realized that he was gripping the boy against his chest in an almost fierce hold. “You have your father’s coloring, but those eyes,
mon petit
, those eyes …”

The child had his grandmother’s big, haunting eyes. She had given those ancient Celtic eyes to the de Savins. Sebastien looked into them and saw her, remembered her dying. He saw Antoine, Bridgette, Jacques—and himself. Himself. Doomed to survive alone, doomed because he had grown up afraid to let anyone come too close again.

Doomed. He told himself it was a ridiculous, morbid notion. But suddenly the room felt too hot; Sebastien had the disturbing thought that he was being smothered by the scent of babies and the light, high laughter of the older children. His throat ached. To his horror, his eyes burned with tears.

Shocked, he held Jacques at arms’ length. The boy dangled there, looked frightened, then began hiccupping.
“Stop it,” Sebastien ordered, his voice raw. Jacques began to cry loudly. Calling an attendant, Sebastien set the gulping child in her arms. “Tell his mother that I had to leave. I detest cranky children.”

“Sir, you can’t treat a child so coldly and expect—”

“I have no time for this nonsense. Take care of him. Do your job.”

She regarded him with maternal disdain. “Yes, sir.”

As he walked away he measured his gait carefully so that it would not appear that he was on the verge of running.

Due to the brutal schedule he set for himself as head of the transplant unit, months passed before Sebastien realized that something strange was happening to Marie. She had gradually filled every extra spot in the downstairs library with books on astrology, psychic phenomena, spiritual channeling, and other occult subjects. He found crystals tucked among the cushions of the stately eighteenth-century divan in their bedroom suite. When he passed through the somber rooms downstairs he smelled the lingering aroma of an incense so heavy it obscured the delicate scents of fresh flowers the maid regularly set about the house.

At first he found it difficult to believe that Marie, the soul of earthly pragmatism, had succumbed to a spiritual fad. He disdained the commercialized and public grasping for spiritual fulfillment, and he thought of his mother’s quiet adherence to her Catholicism and the occult, her faith, lifelong and simple, potent, filled with magic.

He didn’t discuss his own fancies, not certain whether he believed them himself: the longings that he couldn’t name; the dreams in which he was always reaching, always searching; the moments when he paused during his daily routines, feeling compelled to listen. He couldn’t shake the idea that someone who cared about him was whispering so softly that he couldn’t quite hear.

Yes, he could tolerate a few harmless chimeras, whether his own or Marie’s. It was only when they invaded his
breakfast—a cherished tradition of thick coffee and pastries—that he rebelled.

One predawn morning he sat down in the breakfast alcove to enjoy his usual fare, but the cook, coughing with embarrassment, set out new concoctions. “What is this?” Sebastien demanded, throwing down a medical journal to glower.

“Wheat germ cereal, sir. With soy milk. Herbal tea and a slice of melon. Madame said this is what you’ll be having from now on.”

“Not unless I’m being force-fed through a tube inserted in my stomach. Take this away and bring me my usual.”

“I can’t, sir. Madame has forbidden it. I’ve restocked the kitchen and thrown everything away.” The cook, a florid middle-aged man with classical training, seemed to be on the verge of tears. “I can’t manage this health-food cuisine, sir. I’m going to resign.”

“You most certainly are not. For me, at least, you’ll continue to cook as before.”

“God bless you, sir. Will you tell madame?”