She sat alone. The room was dimly lit which made it nearly impossible to see farther than three feet in front of oneself. But that didn't stop her from drastically scribbling her last notes on a scrap piece of paper. She laid the sheet, yellow with age, down upon the mahogany desk that stood before her. She rose and exited without saying a word. Not even to her husband, who slept peacefully on their crimson covered bed, presumably dreaming about some boyish escapade.
She made her way down the hallway and descended the carpeted stairs, her feet padding softly against the expensive material. When she reached the door she removed her burgundy cloak from the adjacent coat rack and placed it securely around her slim shoulders. Lifting the hood over her chocolate hair, she turned the knob and opened the door.
She had tears in her eyes. They trickled down her cheeks like a slow cascade of sorrow. With her embroidered handkerchief, a gift from a friend or neighbor naturally, she sloppily dabbed at her face before the chilling air could freeze the moisture collecting at the end of her chin.
Why she had decided so suddenly to leave her husband was a mystery, even to herself. If anyone had ever asked her how her marriage was lasting, she had truthfully replied that she was quite content and couldn't have thought of a better man to settle down with. He had never done anything to upset her, or anger her in any way, and she wanted for nothing except children.
Perhaps that was the reason. Children were the one joy missing from her life. Ever since she had been a little girl, she had deeply desired to be a mother, exactly like hers would have been if she had remained alive long enough to see her daughter grow up and mature. But that wasn't possible. And she knew that the secret she held deep within her breast was finally beginning to take it's toll, so she left her husband to protect him from it. And to give him happiness, even if this last aspect wouldn't be instantly gratified.
She couldn't bare children. When she had discovered, less than a year prior to her flight, that she was carrying a child, Raoul's child, she was the happiest mother to be. But before she got a chance to break the news to her doting husband, who had been away, she was struck with a strange and familiar aching. Something she had felt long ago.
It was the feeling of a heart breaking. Or in this case, two hearts.
Christine had lost the child. Devastated by this blow, she saw her physician to devise the cause of her body's defiance. But his only explanation was simply a womb incompatible for childbirth. So that was it. Christine had everything in life, but the one thing she really wanted was out of reach.
Of course to tell Raoul would mean having to explain why she hadn't told him of her pregnancy in the first place. She could have sent him a letter detailing her happiness and her hopes and dreams for the child, but to do that would rob her of witnessing first hand his reaction. But as it was, she had gone through the whole ordeal alone.
That might have been another contributor her impulsive decision to flee the house they shared together. She couldn't bear to see the hurt in his eyes when time after time they attempted to have a child, but she could never keep it, and probably never conceive again. The realization that the woman he adored couldn't fulfill the wish that they both shared would shatter his sensitive heart.
And what's worse, all of France would be talking about how the famous opera singer Christine Daae, world renowned in her success, couldn't bare a child. It was her duty as a wife and female to perform such an act. Was she maimed from birth? Or had she been "worked to hard" in her career…or otherwise. Christine simply couldn't bare the mockery, not for herself, but for her good husband.
By leaving him, she inflicted the horrendous reputation upon herself, sparing him from the scandal mongering society's criticism and leaving him to fall into the "poor husband wronged by their vicious and flirtatious wives" category.
She stood on the doorstep, looking out onto the deserted street which was only frequented at night by the local feral cats. The only thing she took with her from the house was some pocket money from one of her hat boxes. That and a small ring which had mysteriously appeared, snagged in the folds of a dress she had been forced to wear when she was still a dancer at the Opera Populaire.
Since Christine's rise to fame, the Opera Populaire fell into disuse. After Don Juan Triumphant had premiered, the managers had tried to put on several other performances, but the house never sold more than a few seats. Little by little, the cast and crew disbanded in search of real work, and the Opera Populaire was closed.
That had been years ago, and yet, even though it was unheard of to even go near the haunted opera house that was where Christine's feet would carry her that night.
Back to the opera house she had inhabited since she was a child. Back to visit an old friend…