Jeanne Valjean could honestly say that she was happy with her life. It might seem strange to those who had always had more that she could be so satisfied with less but it was true. No amount of complaining or wishing could have changed it, anyway, so what was the point?
She had a good life. Her parents were long-dead but they had been good, moral people who never got into trouble and had done right by her and Jean. Her brother was now an adult and capable of earning his own living so she and her husband did not need to continue to support him. Her husband loved her and treated her kindly. She had seven healthy children, the oldest of which was able to help mind his brothers and sisters. And, for the first time in her marriage, she had gone more than a year without being with child. Oh, she adored her children and was glad for all of them but seven years of cycling between being with child and recovering had taken its toll.
If she was very lucky then little Theo would be her last child. If she wasn't…they would deal with that when it came. Seven was not too many children for them to manage, even if the oldest was still too young to find work, but they had to be far more careful with money now than they had to be when they were first married. There had never been enough money to be frivolous but now her definition of 'frivolous' had changed greatly.
She had left all the children but the youngest at home while she went to the bakery. She would not leave the children home unattended for long but it was always a trial getting the seven of them ready to go anywhere and so she was content to leave that for a once a week church attendance when her husband was there to help.
M. Isabeau smiled at her when he saw her, though he knew she would not buy much. "Aw, Madame Valjean! It is a pleasure to see you."
Jeanne smiled back. "Thank you, Monsieur. I need two loaves of bread."
Isabeau sold several different kinds of loaves depending on preference and how much coin one was willing or able to spend on them but Jeanne always bought the cheapest loaves. Bread was bread and there were nine mouths to feed each day. She did little work where she could but it was harder now than it was once with so many children and so they largely lived off her husband's earnings. Occasionally, often in the winter, it was not enough but Jean was always there to give what was needed.
Jean was not married and, as far as she could tell, had no woman that he wished to marry and so it was easier on him and he could afford to be generous. Jeanne supposed it was still gratitude for her having taken him in after their father had died, for all that Jean would never actually say the words.
Little Theo began to fuss as they watched Isabeau wrap the requested loaves up and put them on the counter. Jeanne rocked him gently as she took out the coins, one by one, and inspected them carefully before setting them down next to the bread. She had already worked out how much money they could afford to spend on food today but it was an old habit to just keep making sure. Isabeau was a good and honorable man, certainly not a thief, but they could afford no mistakes.
Isabeau showed no offense as she placed the coins down and Jeanne knew that she was not the only one who did this. He nodded to her. "Thank you, Madame."
Jean hadn't left their mother's bedside once since they knew it was serious. At first, they had thought it was just an illness like any other illness. She had complained of headaches and fatigue but there was always work to be done and they couldn't afford to slow down. Then her back had started to ache and her stomach. She had refused to eat and developed a fever.
Jeanne wanted to call for a doctor. They all did but there was just no money for it and they were sure she would eventually get better on her own. Days passed and she only seemed to get worse. They needed a doctor but how could they summon a doctor when they could not pay one?
Their father stayed up late into the night arguing with himself about the impossibility of both paying a doctor and just allowing their mother to die. Jeanne herself went out to find a doctor and beg him to help. She must have made quite a pitiful figure indeed for he couldn't bring himself to say no. It was a wasted trip just the same as all he would do is come and tell them that she had milk fever. He could not keep coming with no money to pay him and so all they could do was hope she got better.
Every morning she woke up feeling better than she had when she went to bed and every morning they wouldn't be able to stop themselves from hoping. Then every afternoon the fever came back and she took to her bed.
Their mother's illness didn't mean that their father didn't still need to work to feed their family and Jeanne herself needed work so that just left little Jean to sit with their mother and take care of her. He would go out and pick her interesting plants and she would smile and tell him that she felt a little bit better.
But it didn't matter if that was true or not because the truth was that she wasn't getting better. One day she simply didn't wake up. By the next day she was dead.
Their father was still at work when Jeanne came home. He hadn't wanted to leave when their mother was so sick and wouldn't even wake up but the trees still needed to be pruned and they couldn't afford to lose his pay. Jeanne almost stayed but that wouldn't have done anybody any good, would it have? And so once again Jean was left alone but this time it was with a woman who could not even pretend to be watching over him.
There was a stillness in the house that made Jeanne shudder even if she didn't understand it.
"Jean?" she called out, hugging herself as she moved through the house to their parents' bedroom.
Jean said nothing. He just sat unmoving on the chair facing the bed.
"Jean?" she repeated.
Still nothing.
At first glance their mother looked the same as she had that morning. She was sleeping and just wouldn't wake up. But while Jean had been pale and worried when she had left he hadn't ignored her and so a terrible suspicion began to creep up on her.
She swallowed hard and reached a trembling hand out to brush her mother's cheek. It was cold. She turned back to her brother. "Oh, Jean."
He blinked slowly at her.
She dropped to her knees and threw her arms around him.
"She's been like that for hours," he told her, as if in a dream. "I don't know what to do."
"It's alright. Everything's going to be fine, Jean," Jeanne said with as much conviction as she could put into her voice. Their mother was dead. How was it possibly going to be alright? Death happened. It would come to both of them in their time, though hopefully not for many more – happy – years. But they never should have left him alone to watch her die. But what else could they have done?
"Will it?" Jean asked. "She won't wake up."
Jeanne released him and stood up. She offered him her hand. She had to be strong for him. Their father would come back soon enough and he would know what to do. "Have you eaten anything today?"
Jean absently took her hand and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. "I don't remember."
"Then that's what we're going to do," Jeanne decided, gently leading him to the kitchen. She nudged her brother towards a chair at the table and he mindlessly dropped into it.
"Can you wake her up?" Jean asked. "I've tried everything. I took the blanket from our beds and gave them to her. She's so cold."
Jeanne had been considering the limited food they had in the house but she stopped and turned back to him. "I'm sorry. I can't."
His eyes widened. They were always too big for his solemn little face. "Can Father?"
Jeanne winced. "Jean-"
"Is she ever going to wake up?"
Slowly, Jeanne shook her head. "No. She's not."
"Oh." With that he looked down and didn't even glance up when she set his plate in front of him a few minutes later. There was bread and some cheese. He might not be hungry (she knew that her own hunger had fled the moment she touched her mother's skin) but the food would do him some good. He ate like he wasn't aware he was doing it but at least he ate.
She tried to do the same and waited for her father to come home and somehow, impossibly, make everything better.
When she left the bakery, she noticed that everyone seemed to be worked up about something. People were clumped together in small groups and gesturing animatedly. If she had been alone, she might have joined them and tried to find out what was going on.
Faverolles was a small town and while there was always too much work to be done for it to be considered dull, life tended to follow a predictable pattern. The last time anything exciting had happened was six months ago when the Bernard boy had been forced to marry the Martin girl by her father, uncle, and three big brothers. They all knew, or at least suspected, what that meant but nothing could be proven and they were properly married anyway. They were expecting a child very soon.
And before that there was Mathieu Sevier who had fallen from a tree and died. That had certainly caused a commotion but it had been one that Jeanne had been far less interested in than the tale of the suspicious wedding. It had reminded her too much of her father. And Jean was a tree pruner now as well. She didn't know how he could keep climbing up there day after day after what had happened but they couldn't afford for him not to. She was fortunate, then, in being a woman and not being expected to do the same. Jean said he didn't think about it and if that was true then he was fortunate, too.
Good things could cause excitement, too, and the wedding was a good thing but somehow bad things tended to catch more attention.
Theo was getting heavy in her arms and the children would be getting hungry. She would find out what was going on soon enough and it probably wouldn't make a difference in her life anyway. How had the Bernard wedding or the Sevier death really changed anything anyway?
Still, as she walked the familiar path towards home she couldn't help but catch a few words here and there. Crushed. Cart. Nothing anyone could have done.
Ah. That was it then. Some poor soul was crushed beneath a cart. It was a sad story and they didn't need any more death in their lives. She would have preferred another wedding. What a painful death that would be! She couldn't even imagine it. Being crushed.
She didn't need to hear the details but there would be no avoiding it in the days to come.
She had almost passed the gossips when she heard a final word that made her blood freeze.
Jean.
Jeanne couldn't stop smiling as she gazed at her reflection in the window.
"You look beautiful," Jean said, coming up behind her.
Jeanne blushed. "Do you really think so?"
"I know so," Jean said, grabbing her hand and twirling her around to face him. "You're almost a princess."
Jeanne laughed self-consciously. "I wouldn't go that far."
"Why not?" Jean asked. "It's your wedding day. If you can't be a princess today when can you be one?"
Jeanne put on a serious face as if to consider the question but couldn't fight the infection grin down for long. "Why not indeed? I just wish…"
Jean nodded. "I wish Mother were here, too."
It had been a few years since they had lost her but speaking about her still wasn't easy. Sometimes Jean seemed not to remember her at all though Jeanne was sure that that wasn't true. How could he have possibly forgotten the day she died?
"Maybe," Jeanne began hesitantly. "Maybe Mother is here with us today. I can almost feel her here."
Jean smiled wistfully. "I'm glad that you can."
Abruptly, Jeanne clasped her hands and brought them up to her chin. "Oh, I'm just so nervous!"
"Nervous?" Jean repeated. "Why? I know he loves you."
"Oh, I don't doubt that," Jeanne said. "I know I'm lucky. But I just…I don't…"
Jean looked encouragingly at her. "What?"
"There are just things that I know that mothers are supposed to teach you," Jeanne said delicately. "Only I don't quite know what they are because Mother died when I was too young to know them. I know that this happens to every woman and they all survive it but I'm still so just so…nervous."
Jean nodded though Jeanne wasn't sure how much of that he understood. Not much, she hoped. It was an awkward subject but there was no one else she could confide in. "You will be fine. As you said, everyone survives so you will survive, too."
"I just wish I knew what to do," Jeanne admitted.
"Well I guess you'll find out," Jean said, shrugging. He looked away. "Everything's going to change now, isn't it?"
Jeanne brought her hands down. "Oh, I don't know about everything."
"Isn't it?" Jean asked stubbornly. "You're getting married and moving away and going to have babies. I'm just going to stay here with Father."
"One day you'll get married and maybe move away and have babies, too," Jeanne told him.
Jean made a face. "Maybe. But that's years away and it doesn't mean everything isn't going to change now."
"Maybe not but it's not like I'm going very far," Jeanne pointed out. "I'm still going to be here in Faverolles and I'm still going to see you and Father all the time. It's just…growing up and living life and this is a good thing. Besides, don't you like Jean?"
Jean crossed his arm stubbornly. "I don't like that his name is Jean. Why does his name have to be Jean?"
"I guess you'd have to ask his mother and father," Jeanne said. "Why does your name have to be Jean?"
"Because that's Father's name," Jean replied matter-of-factly. "Just like your name is Jeanne because it was Mother's name. And now you're marrying another Jean. And you'll have a boy named Jean and a girl named Jeanne, too."
Jeanne laughed. "Oh, I will not!"
"It's going to happen," Jean said seriously. "We can't escape it. There will be Jean Valjeans and Jeanne Valjeans from now until forever."
"At least it's a nice name," Jeanne offered.
"That's easy for you to say," Jean grumbled. "You're the only Jeanne Valjean. Now there's going to be three Jean Valjeans in town. I'm never going to stop being confused."
A distant look came into Jeanne's eyes then. "Maybe. But would you really want to be the only Jean Valjean?"
Jean made a face. "Why do you have to go and be so reasonable?"
Jeanne smiled again. "It's my wedding day. If I don't get to be right today then when will I get a chance to be right?"
"I really am happy for you, Jeanne," Jean said softly.
Jeanne reached over and squeezed his hand. "I know. Today is the beginning of the rest of my life and what a marvelous beginning it shall be!"
"Jean?" she repeated, her voice a little high-pitched. It could be nothing. It probably was nothing. As her brother had so often complained, there were far too many Jeans in Faverolles. The fact that something bad had happened to a Jean, the fact that they were probably dead, didn't have to mean that her world was going to spin wildly out of control yet again.
The closest group of people turned to her. The look on their faces when they saw her said it all. It was a small town. Everyone knew everyone in some way or another. She didn't think she'd ever spoken to these people before but they all knew who she was.
"Madame Valjean," Madame Muller said, the uncomfortable guilt of someone who had been enjoying a tragedy come face to face with someone hurt by it clear in her eyes.
"Which is it?" Jeanne asked tonelessly, her mind racing. Her surroundings were suddenly dim, unimportant things and the feeling of Theo in her arms were all that was keeping her connected to this moment.
Not again. Not. Again.
She had been here before, this terrible place where death happened to those she had loved. It had been different, then. Those had been her parents. And as much as she loved her parents, it was the duty of a child to bury them even if she and Jean had had to a little earlier than they would have liked. This was different.
This was her brother or her husband. The little boy who had always been too quiet and too serious for his own good, that she had held moments after his birth or the man who had loved her more than anyone ever had, who had promised to share his life with her and who had created a family with her. She couldn't lose either of them but it seemed that she already had.
She felt a desperate hope that…what she couldn't even say. Was she so terrible as to wish for it to be one of them instead of the other? She couldn't believe that. It was probably just a futile wish that she had somehow gotten it wrong. That it was some other Jean and they were all looking sad because being crushed to death under a cart was a very sad thing. Or that it was one of her Jeans but she had misunderstood about them being dead and actually they were just fine or maybe a little bit hurt but nothing that couldn't be fixed.
She felt a sudden, irrational desire to flee, to just escape this terrible truth. But it was useless. She would know in time no matter how far away she ran.
It was an eternity before Madame Muller answered her and the words were not helpful. "What do you mean 'which'?"
"I have heard that a man was crushed to death, a man named Jean. I have seen the way people are looking at me. I know what that means. I'm asking you if I've become a widow or if I've lost my brother."
Madame Muller looked down, apparently unable to bring herself to answer.
Madame Guerin spoke up instead. "You're a widow, Jeanne. I'm so sorry."
Jeanne had been excited to see that something had happened and immediately joined the first group of people she saw to ask about it.
That excitement had promptly died when the people saw her and their expressions became much more somber. She didn't want to know what had happened anymore but it was too late to ask them not to tell her. And if it truly affected her then she couldn't hide from the news forever.
There were three people in the group she had approached and they all refused to meet her eyes, none of them wanting to be the one who had to tell her what had happened.
"Please," she had said although she wasn't sure what she was asking for. For someone to tell her of whatever misfortune had befallen her? For them to stop looking at her like that? For none of this to be true?
Eventually, one of them – Madame Simon – had haltingly explained how her father had been pruning trees like he always did and Jean had been helping him when a tree branch had given way and sent their father crashing to the ground. They didn't think he was going to make it.
"Where?"
She had tried her best to stay connected to her father and brother but she was a married woman now with a husband and a house to concern herself with (not that she hadn't been managing her father's house since her mother's death). They had been trying to have a child. Somehow she had drifted and now her father could die. She tried to think if she would have known where her father was working before she got married but she simply couldn't focus.
Madame Simon reluctantly pointed her in the direction of the accident and she ran.
When she got closer, she saw a crowd had started to form. She could only guess what was in the
"Please, let me get past," she pleaded and the sea of people parted for her.
She saw Jean in the middle kneeling by what could only be their father.
"Jean," she said, going to him and kneeling beside him. "Is…"
When she didn't continue, Jean said, "He's dead."
Jeanne's hand flew to her mouth. "Oh!"
He looked wrong. So still. Their mother had almost been sleeping but there was no way to mistake this death. He looked like he was in so much pain. He would look that way forever or at least until the worms came. He was just as still and all the people milling around made it harder to believe. When their mother had died there had been a certain stillness and only she and a shaken Jean had been around. Now she could hear the hushed voices of their neighbors behind her making this all seem less and less real.
"He didn't die right away," Jean said, sounding curiously detached. He wouldn't stop looking at the body that had once been their father. "It seemed to hurt a lot."
"Did he-" Jeanne broke off and tried again. "Did he say anything?"
Jean nodded vaguely. "He said he was sorry. He said I had to take care of myself now and he was glad you had your Jean. He said that he loved us."
"What happened?" Jeanne breathed even though, in some ways, it was obvious. He had been in the tree and then he fell down and died. But she wasn't there so she didn't know, not the way that her brother did. How was it that he had been cursed to see both of their parents die while she had been spared the sight? Or maybe deprived of it. Their father, at least, had been conscious and Jean had gotten to hear his last words. Not that she could really envy him that.
She wondered what it was like to see death. Death had touched her life in many ways but she hadn't yet seen it happen and, rather selfishly, she hoped that she wouldn't have to and that Jean wouldn't have to see any more of it. He had seen enough. What would it be like, that moment where someone you loved became the body that used to be someone you loved? It wasn't cold but she shivered anyway.
She tried to remember the last time she saw him, the last words that they had said. They had not been angry words, she was certain of that. She never fought with her father. But they would not have been meaningful words, either, since she had no idea that they would need to be. They probably weren't 'I love you'. What were they? 'Goodbye'? 'I'll see you soon.' Something even less meaningful like a comment about the weather or his job?
She couldn't remember. Had he remembered?
It wasn't fair.
Jean shrugged listlessly. "I don't know. I wasn't looking. He stepped on a branch he shouldn't have and it broke and he fell. There was blood and things didn't look like they were supposed to and it took a long time. And now he's dead. You were right."
"I was right?" Jeanne asked. What could it possibly matter now? "About what?"
"There's only two Jean Valjean's now and I'm not happy."
Jeanne closed her eyes painfully. "Oh, Jean…"
"What are we going to do?"
He had asked her that before, she vaguely recalled, when their mother had died. Back then she had only needed to comfort him until their father had come home and taken care of it. But now he was dead, too.
"We are going to be fine."
"How can you say that?" Jean demanded. "Our Father is dead. Our Mother is dead. There's just me and I-I don't know what to do."
"I do," Jeanne said with a confidence that she didn't really feel. But he needed her to be strong for him and so that was what she was going to be. "You're going to come and live with me and Jean."
Jean blinked rapidly, surprised and confused. "What? But will Jean allow that?"
"Of course he will." He had to. He loved her and was so good to her and they couldn't possibly ask Jean to live alone at his age. It would all be alright, somehow. She was all he had and he was all she had apart from her husband. "Don't you worry about a thing, Jean. I'm going to take care of you."
Jean finally managed to tear his eyes away from the body of their father and flung his arms around her.
Jeanne had no idea how she managed to make it home. The last thing she was clearly aware of was being informed that her husband was dead and then she was sitting in her chair by the fire with the bread on the table, the baby in her arms, and the other children surrounding her. They looked worried but she was powerless to make it better. They were worried now but they would be worse when they knew what had happened.
Her husband was dead. The father of these little children was dead. It had been such an easy thing for Madame Muller to say but her life was in shambles.
She didn't want her brother to be dead instead, of course she didn't. But she could have survived losing Jean. Losing her husband…how was she to live? She could barely work with the children to look after and money was always a worry and now they would have less of it than ever.
Jean was dead. She would never see him playing with the children or smiling at her ever again. She would never get to cook for him and watch his face light up every time no matter how simple the meal was or have him hold her at night. He would never take Adam or one of the other boys to work with him to teach them the skills they would one day need or worry about the young men that took an interest in their daughters. He would never see his dream realized and go to the sea or take them to Paris and, as unlikely as Jeanne always knew that was, it had at least been a possibility and now it no longer was.
They would never attend any of their children's weddings together or be there for any grandchildren. They would never have all of the years of their lives together like they had promised. Well, he had given her all the years that he had at least.
She felt all of this keenly but she knew that she couldn't wallow in her grief. Grief was powerful and consuming and dangerous. She was not a wealthy woman and had no servants who could see to her responsibilities while she tried to understand the idea of living without Jean. There was food that needed to be provided every single day. There were clothes to be procured when they grew too big or they were damaged beyond repair. There was wood when the winters grew cold and they would freeze without a fire. There was just so very much that they would need money for just in order to continue to live and Jeanne saw with terrifying clarity that she could not replacement her husband's wages with her own.
Jeanne wasn't old but she wasn't young, either, and something told her that that first bit might not be true for much longer. Grief and hardship had a way of destroying what youth its sufferers possessed. And she had suffered before but it hadn't been like this. It had been mere hours and she hadn't even seen the body. The lack of money would mean her losses would start to hit very, very quickly but they hadn't started yet but it still felt like it had.
What was she going to do?
She had asked that question before and had been asked it just as often but there had always been some sort of an answer, as difficult as it was. For the first time in her life, Jeanne honestly didn't know how they were going to survive this.
Jeanne hadn't stopped smiling since she had found out which her husband found to be terribly amusing. He was pleased as well but somehow hadn't been quite as expressive about it as Jeanne was.
She hadn't wanted to tell anybody immediately but after four days of cheeriness, her brother was starting to get suspicious.
"What's happened?" Jean asked.
"I don't know why you think anything has happened," Jeanne said innocently.
Jean crossed his arms. "Really?"
Her husband Jean laughed and shook his head. "Perhaps it's the way you were singing while you made breakfast."
"Singing makes the work go faster," Jeanne said blithely.
"What is it?" Jean asked again but he was smiling.
"I have news," Jeanne informed him importantly.
"I have news, too," Jean her husband said.
"Is it the same news?" her brother asked.
"I don't know," her husband said. "It might be but I will have to wait until Jeanne tells you what her news is before I'm sure."
"You two," Jeanne said, her smile broadening.
"What?" her brother asked again.
"I am going to have a child," Jeanne exclaimed.
Her brother's eyes widened and his small smile grew. "That's wonderful news, Jeanne!"
"I was going to say that I got paid two extra sous today because I was given more work than usual but the bit about the baby seems more important," her husband said.
"Ah, I should have let you go first then!" Jeanne joked.
"But if you did that then you would have made everyone completely forget about my news when it was time for your news," her husband pointed out.
"Well you have no one to blame but yourself for that, dear Jean," Jeanne said. "After all, you knew about the baby four days ago."
"Why did it take you four days to tell me?" her brother asked.
Her husband held up his hands. "Don't look at me. I thought Jeanne told you and you were just remarkably uninterested in the news."
Her brother laughed. "Yes, I'm going to be an uncle and what are we going to have for dinner tonight?"
Jeanne shrugged. "I guess I just wanted it to be between Jean and I for a little while. The whole world will know soon enough. But you're family and so you deserve to know, too."
"I wonder if this will be a Jean or a Jeanne," her brother said thoughtfully.
"I think you mean 'a boy or a girl'," her husband corrected.
"I don't think I do, actually," Jean said, shaking his head.
Jeanne rolled her eyes playfully at him. "Jean here is under the impression that, due to all of the Jeans and Jeannes in our family, we're going to name a daughter Jeanne and a son Jean."
Her husband blinked. "I had not thought of it but we do have a lot of Jeans and Jeannes in our family. My mother's name was Jeanne and my father's name was Jean as well."
Her brother gave her a look that said 'See? There is no escaping it.'
"It does make it a little complicated when both of you are here and I'm addressing one of you," Jeanne admitted.
"Jeanne is mistaken," Jean said.
"Oh?" Jeanne asked. "You think it's not difficult at all to make it clear which one of you I'm referring to without resorting to calling you brother or Jean husband?"
Her brother shook his head. "That's not what I meant. I don't believe that you and Jean will name two of your children Jean and Jeanne."
Jeanne waited.
Jean grinned. "I'm convinced that you will name all of your children Jean and Jeanne."
"I hope we at least stick to Jeanne for the girls and Jean for the boys or we'll never be able to make sense of it," her husband said.
Jeanne laughed. "You cannot possibly be considering this!"
"It would certainly make keeping the names straight easier," her husband said innocently. "If it's a boy I'll know it's a Jean and if it's a girl I'll know it's a Jeanne."
"We are not naming any of our children after ourselves," Jeanne said firmly. "This is getting ridiculous. If we call them Jean and Jeanne we'll just have to give everyone nicknames anyway so why not just call them something else?"
"It wouldn't make a difference either way," her brother said. "And what if the nickname wasn't a proper name?"
"That is a good point," her husband agreed.
"There will be no Jeans and Jeannes!" Jeanne said again.
"I will believe it when I see it," her brother replied.
Jean found her eventually. She was dimly aware that this was far earlier than his usual time. But today was not a usual day. They couldn't afford for him not to be working and yet she needed him here.
"Children, why don't you go outside?" Jean asked. She hadn't even thought to send them away though having them around while she was like this wasn't doing anybody any favors. "Take Sarah and Theo with you."
It took a few minutes but the two of them were alone in the house.
Jean knelt down beside her. "Jeanne. I'm so sorry."
"He's dead, Jean," Jeanne said hollowly.
"I know," Jean said, nodding. "I heard. He-he was crushed by a cart. I'm sorry. I wasn't there. I could have done something."
"Don't be ridiculous," Jeanne said, shaking her head helplessly. She had always known that Jean was strong but it was impossible to think he was that strong. "It was a cart. You can't just lift a cart off of somebody, Jean."
"I don't know. Maybe I could have," Jean said stubbornly.
She didn't have the strength to argue. What was he looking for? Blame? All those people who must have seen and none of them could help but Jean thought that he alone could have made a difference? Did he want her to hate him? She couldn't do that. He was her brother and all she had. All the children had.
She tried to imagine tomorrow but couldn't do it. The children were outside for now but they'd be back and they'd be hungry and she'd have to fix them dinner because there was nobody else. She'd have to put them to bed and get them ready tomorrow and make breakfast and lunch and dinner and find work and…it was too much.
He had just died today and it was still too raw and new and the children didn't even know. It didn't feel real but it was and it would all hit her soon. She would have to see the body and make arrangements for a burial even though they could not afford it.
She tried to imagine never seeing Jean again for the rest of her life. She would just never see him no matter how much time had passed. He was gone and someone would have to tell the children and she didn't know how she was going to make it through this.
She felt a hand on her knee and blearily focused on the Jean she had left. "You're the only Jean Valjean now."
Jean swallowed heavily. "And you were right again. I'm not happy about it."
She closed her eyes and leaned forward into him. "Jean, what am I going to do?"
"I'm going to stay right here," Jean promised her.
Jeanne opened her eyes and saw that there was a new weariness in her brother but also a determination that hadn't been there before.
"Jean…"
There was nothing to say. She had to hope that he understood. She could feel gratitude bubbling up through the grief, weak but present, and she thanked God she still had her little brother.
"I'm going to keep working. I'll work more, if I can. The children won't starve. I'm going to take care of you."