Happy new year, and, more importantly, happy Jeanuary! :)
I recently looked back at an older draft, and I'd just like to say thank god escapewithstories is here.
Hope you enjoy, and that your new year is off to a good start!
April 3, 1964
While the news of Lucien's survival eliminated the possibility of sleep for Jean, Mei Lin had been traveling for days and nearly collapsed as she rose from her chair at midnight. Jean helped her up the stairs to her old bedroom, leaving Matthew to brood in the kitchen. After fussing over Mei Lin and berating herself for not noticing her exhaustion earlier, Jean eased the door shut and leaned against it, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. In six hours, she and Mei Lin would embark on the journey to bring Lucien home. One would expect the thought to send her over the moon, but her shock tempered her joy. Naturally, her relief nearly overwhelmed her, but she wouldn't be happy until she saw him, held him, ensured he was truly safe.
Taking a deep breath, she braced herself to face Matthew, but she returned to the kitchen to find his chair empty and the dishes sitting in the sink. With a sigh, Jean flipped the light switch, leaving the dishes for later. As she locked up for night, she realized that leaving for China without a word would disturb her sons, not to mention Danny and Charlie. Until she could sleep, she would occupy her time in the study, writing to the boys and drafting a letter to send to the city council.
Two months ago, she had decided to use the study instead of walking past it with her heart in her chest every day. As she sat in Lucien's chair and reached for one of his pens, she thought of the studio. To pack for both herself and Lucien, she needed to unlock that room. For months, all his belongings had been hidden in the room that had seen more love than any other, and she slept in Lucien's old bedroom.
When she first decided to move out of the studio, the thought of moving back upstairs, where Jean Beazley had spent so many years, terrified her. At the time of his disappearance, she had just begun to feel confidence in her identity as Jean Blake, the doctor's wife, only to be thrust back into the town gossip—poor Jean, widowed again. In his old room, she could be close to him without being confronted by all the happy memories of experiences she thought she would never enjoy again. Even now, knowing that Lucien would be home soon, Jean had no idea if she possessed the strength to brave the studio.
But for now, with another task at hand, she could avoid it. Her letters to her sons betrayed nothing of her feelings, only expressed concern for theirs and assured them, as only a mother can, that all would be well. Since Charlie and Danny cared for Lucien more than her sons ever could, Jean gave them as much information as possible, promising that she would contact them with more information at her earliest opportunity. As much as she wanted Matthew to come with her to China, one advantage of his staying in Australia was that he could talk to the boys in person, fill any gaps her letters left. With Mattie in London, she thought a long-distance phone call would be worth the cost, and she made a note to dispatch Matthew for that duty as well. To the city council she clinically explained her absence, but as she wrote the words, My husband has been found alive in China, to a group of stuffy men who resented her presence in their corner of a man's world, she could no longer avoid the question by focusing on the feelings of others. Would the man she brought back from China be the man she married?
As soon as she finished the thought, she shook her head and scribbled her next sentence. Of course, he would be different; he'd spent the last year as a hostage, likely confined to one room, reliving trauma while he endured more. Much of the progress he made over the last four years would likely be gone, but as always, Jean would be there to guide him through every reintegration, every bad night of banging on the piano, every breakdown, every nightmare.
Right now, she couldn't consider what she would do if he found more consolation in the bottle than in her.
Her first task complete, she returned to the next job at hand, packing her necessities. Returning Lucien's pen to the cup on his desk, Jean rose and pushed his chair in and straightened papers on the desk. Though she had no idea when he would next use the study, she couldn't resist the urge to make sure everything was just so. She smiled, thinking about working in the study with him.
For the first half hour, she skittered around her bedroom, lugging her largest suitcase out from under her bed, digging through drawers, tossing her bare necessities into the case, packing and unpacking as she decided what to bring for Lucien and what she could do without to make him more comfortable. She started a mental list of things to retrieve from the studio: basic clothing, his Brylecreem and shaving kit, the novel he'd been reading when he left, his softest pair of pajamas. She need not retrieve his dressing gown, which hung on the back of the chair in front of her vanity. She refused to part with everything of Lucien's, no matter how unbearable the pain. The silk skimmed over her fingers and palms as she lifted it to her face, hoping to find a trace of his scent. Jean could only have one miracle at a time; it had stopped smelling like him months ago.
After triple checking the contents of her suitcase, Jean opened her bedside table. She smiled tenderly at the unfinished knit booties for Christopher's five-month-old baby boy, who had outgrown the first pair she sent, Next to the booties for a grandson she had worried that Lucien would never meet, lay the cold key with the red ribbon at the bottom of the drawer. She hesitated only briefly before grasping the key and sliding the drawer shut. Lucien needed what was in that room, and now that she knew he was alive, it shouldn't hurt so much to go back. Biting her lip, she heaved the suitcase off her bed and left her room without another thought. She focused on the weight of the case so that she didn't peer down the hallway at the door that Lucien never would have wanted her to lock. Her hand shook so much that she had to set down the suitcase and use both hands to fit the key in the lock.
When the door swung open, the moonlight shone on the furniture covers, and a rush of stale, cold air nearly knocked Jean off her feet. All those years ago, when Lucien finally opened his mother's favorite room, it had been morning, hazy and dim, but promising. Now, the only light coming from the hallway behind her, Jean felt only dread at the thought of Lucien seeing this room shut up again. Leaving the suitcase in the doorway, she rushed into the room and yanked the sheet off the couch where they retired in the evenings, where they cuddled and kissed. Choking on the dust particles and ignoring the tears welling in her eyes, Jean folded the sheet and tossed it by the fireplace. She attacked the dresser next, where pictures of his daughter, granddaughters, and wife hid under the sheet. Suddenly, packing wasn't nearly as important as cleaning the room so that Lucien could truly come home. How could she expect him to stay in his old room? Would he be angry? Would he think she had moved on? Would he think she had given up?
No, never, my darling.
The cover on the bed must have gotten tucked under the mattress on the other side because no matter how hard she tugged, it wouldn't budge. Groaning in frustration, Jean stalked around the other side of the bed and heaved the bed up with one hand and yanked the sheet out with the other. She cursed as her hip caught the corner of Lucien's nightstand, knocking it over and spilling the contents of the drawer. As Jean knelt down to retrieve the knickknacks Lucien cluttered his drawer with, she remembered what Mei Lin said. Apparently, part of the reason that Lucien had taken so long to resurface was that Jiang threatened his family, for which Lucien would do anything. Obviously, the police would have no choice but to attribute Lucien's involvement to duress, but convincing Lucien of his innocence would be another battle. For years, he blamed himself for the atrocities the war inflicted on his family, and despite her best efforts, only he could exonerate himself. If he aided and abetted multiple murders, he may never come out of the stifling fog of guilt.
Resting her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands, Jean wished she could cry, relieve the ache in her chest. "Oh, Lucien." At first, she thought that she felt a sob in her throat, but she bolted to the bathroom just in time to empty her stomach contents in the toilet. An ill-advised inhale sent her into a coughing frenzy, and just as she got her breathing under control, she heard Matthew on the other side of the bathroom door, hanging slightly ajar.
"Jean? You alright?"
Leaning back against the cool tile wall, Jean closed her eyes, willing her churning stomach to still. "I'm fine."
Matthew pushed the door open with his cane and leaned against the doorframe. "I don't think you are."
With a scowl, Jean tried to push herself off the bathroom floor, but when another wave of nausea crashed over her, she leaned forward to put her head between her legs instead. Embarrassed to be found in any other way but collected and in control, she didn't look up when she heard the tap of Matthew's cane, the water running in the sink, or the legs of the stool under the bathroom vanity scraping across the floor. Only when Matthew placed a cold washcloth to the back of her neck did she lift her head. Tucked in his maroon robe, Matthew sat on the stool with the pink cushion and ornate flower carvings on its legs, and offered a glass of water.
When Jean thanked him, he cleared his throat. "I'd bring you some whiskey, but that doesn't seem like a good idea at the moment."
Jean smiled into her glass. "Good call, Superintendent." She pressed the cloth harder against her neck, welcoming the chill. "How's Alice?"
Matthew gawked the abrupt change in topic. "How's Alice?"
"What, you don't want to think about something else for two minutes?"
Grumbling, Matthew reached for his drink, resting on the bathroom counter. "She's…good. Don't know how she'll be when she finds out Lucien is alive."
The bitterness in his voice surprised Jean until she realized what Matthew was thinking. "It's not like he's going to demand his old job back, Matthew," she sighed. "I don't even know when he'll be well enough to practice medicine."
Staring across the room at a tub built for two, Matthew shook his head. "How do I even tell her? I mean, if this is how we react… Christ, Jean, she's been mourning his death for longer than any of us."
"I know."
Matthew rambled on as if he hadn't heard her. "This is just like Lucien, you know. I was thinking about popping the question, but in comes Lucien, fresh from another bloody brush with death."
His confession left Jean wondering just how much he had to drink. "Matthew, how wonderful!" she gasped. "You don't think it's too soon?"
"Well, even if I did, I've got to wait now," Matthew said before downing the rest of his drink.
After just a few hours, Jean had nearly forgotten how good it felt to smile. "Matthew Lawson, wipe that frown off your face. You're in love!" Her smile widened when she realized that for the first time in a year, she could share good news with her husband.
Without his whiskey glass to hide behind, Matthew couldn't conceal the grin teasing the corners of his mouth. "Alright, don't wake all of Ballarat. And she could always say no. She's a modern woman, you know."
"Nonsense. She loves you."
"You know love isn't always enough." Before Jean could process the smart of Matthew's quip, he realized his mistake. "I didn't mean it that way—"
"In what way, then?" Jean snapped.
Matthew sighed, staring through the bottom of his empty glass. "I just meant that… you and Lucien were in love long before you got married, long before he even proposed. And God knows you two faced every obstacle in the book, but I don't…want to wait if I know that this is what we both want."
"She'll want that even when Lucien comes home," Jean insisted.
"Alice needs stability to make these kinds of decisions," Matthew said. "When Lucien comes home, he'll want his job back, and her professional stability will be gone."
Jean sighed. "Matthew, it's Alice's job now. Lucien wouldn't dream of taking it from her, and even if he tried, he would have no precedent."
"Just because you have a seat on the council doesn't mean that suddenly every bloke in Australia isn't going to prefer a male police surgeon."
Pushing herself off the cold floor, Jean stood in front of Matthew with her arms crossed. "I know you're still angry at him, and I respect your position, but you've got to stop thinking like this. Do you think after a year of being someone else's puppet that he'll be fit to run around solving murders or performing autopsies? Do you think that he would begrudge Alice her success, after all she's been through and fought for?"
"Do you think that after all that, he'll be the same person he was when he left?" Matthew countered. Apparently, it took Lucien's return for Matthew to remember to treat Jean like a person instead of a porcelain doll, but Jean didn't fancy hearing her worst fears come from someone else's lips.
"Of course not. He'll be broken. Again." At the sound of her quivering voice, Jean covered her mouth with the back of her hand and closed her eyes, determined not to cry again. The time for tears had passed. With Lucien coming home, needing her for everything, she could hardly burst into fits and risk him worrying about her too. With a firm shake of her head, Jean returned her focus to Matthew, who sat with his forearms on his knees and his eyes fixed on her, as if she knew what to do any better than he did.
"He'll be broken, and he'll need us, Matthew. There's no use in pretending it won't be hard for all of us because it will. Whether he came back or not, it was never going to be easy. But for heaven's sake, Matthew. He's alive." If only she could spend hours simply reveling in that truth instead of anticipating every problem to come. The last year had not been the epitaph of their story, but an interlude. "Do you have any idea how lucky we are? Did you ever think this nightmare would end in any other way but in pain?"
Matthew squinted at Jean for only a few seconds before filling the tense silence. "I know. I'm sorry I've been selfish."
Jean smiled sadly, remembering all the times she explained Lucien's behavior away because she saw in him what no one else was willing to overlook. "No. You just love her." She waited for Matthew to clear his throat of inconvenient emotions before adding, "She knows, doesn't she? You've told her?"
"Of course, I've told her," Matthew said. "I did learn a thing or two from your husband." Leaning heavily on his cane and glancing at the bathroom door, he rose. "You've got a long journey tomorrow. You should get some sleep."
Knowing he meant well, Jean refrained from rolling her eyes. "Of course."
Matthew rested his free hand on Jean's shoulder and squeezed. "I wish I could go with you."
Since she arrived, Mei Lin had been Jean's rock, but for months Matthew had steered the raft keeping her afloat. She could have survived the last year on her own; for seventeen years, she worked and raised her boys and saved and made every decision alone. This time, she thought, pressing through the ache of having to clarify which heartbreak, I didn't have to go it alone. While her friends hardly diminished her grief, they lived it with her instead of pitying her from their own happy hearths.
Now, at the end, she would have to go without them.
"So do I, Matthew. So do I."
Jean did everything but sleep. With only a few hours before sunrise, sleep would do more harm than good, and heaven forbid she and Mei Lin both overslept. No, better to keep busy, to prepare. She spent over an hour in the bedroom, trying to bring some warmth back into the room but knowing it would only return with Lucien. She accepted that he would have to know what she'd done to cope with his absence, and in all likelihood, he would understand because he would blame himself for everything, even what he could not control. As she smoothed the last of the wrinkles out of the fresh sheets, Jean was satisfied with the space, knowing that both she and Lucien would heal here.
After cleaning and packing, it was nearly two in the morning. With three hours to fill, she returned to the kitchen to wash the dishes. Comforted by this familiar part of her routine, she thought ahead to the upcoming week. Thankfully she'd just gone to the shops yesterday, so Matthew would have the makings for a sandwich to take to lunch while she was gone. He could fend for himself at breakfast, but for dinner, he and Alice were both helpless. Until daybreak, she cooked compulsively—potato soup, salads, chicken salad, anything that Matthew could stick in the fridge or reheat.
When first light filtered through the sunroom into the kitchen, Jean gasped, eyes flying to the clock. Thankfully, she still had an hour, just enough time to make some eggs and toast. After filling the kettle, she strained to hear any sound of Mei Lin, debating whether to check on a grown woman who is perfectly capable of rising on time. Shoving her anxiety aside, Jean lit the stove and started on Mei Lin's eggs—fried, not scrambled, if memory served.
"Good morning."
Jean looked to the doorway and found Mei Lin lingering. After a night of fretting and planning and crying, Jean drew strength from Mei Lin, from her sturdy posture and warm smile. Between them, there was so much suffering, so much loss, but here they were, ready for a triumph.
"Good morning."