This chapter discusses Jean's miscarriage. I have no medical background just person experience to go by.
Lucien's footsteps tread heavily behind her, pausing in the kitchen to grab his suit jacket off the back of his chair. He continues in her path to the sunroom. When he enters he finds it empty. Looking through the window he sees Jean in the garden, face upward towards the stars.
She knows he is near long before the crinkle of the fallen leaves under his feet reaches her ears. Of course, he follows her. He followed her to Adelaide naturally he will follow her to the garden. Jean pulls the jacket he drapes around her shoulders close to ward off the chill of the night, grateful for his devotion to her.
Lucien's arms remain around her. The soft glow from the house lights blanket them in the darkness while nature's night sounds, the only music they hear. Another time this moment would be the epitome of romance but the heaviness in each's hearts doesn't allow for sweeping gestures of romance. She can feel by the movements of his face against her cheek that he wants to speak but refrains from doing so.
"You must think terribly of me." Jean speaks first.
"No, never." He turns her around in the circle of his arm. "If possible I love you even more for trusting me."
"I wanted to blame Christopher, I tried, but the truth is I was just as much at fault. Some of these young girls that come to you don't understand. Noone tells them the truth, letting them find out along the way. They believe the myths that are told to them by their boyfriend; the giggling stories between their friends. They truly don't realize that it only takes one time for everything to change and then they are left carrying the shame."
"But you did?"
Jean nods, "I grew up on a farm Lucien. There are certain things one learns." Her left brow raises high giving emphasis to her point.
"Aaah, yes."
"Anyway, after a week of barely speaking to Christopher, he and I went to see Father Morton to set a date for the wedding. Then I told my parents."
Jean joins her parents in the sitting room, the wireless is playing softly, a tune that is unfamiliar to her. Her father's eyes are closed, foot tapping along to the rhythm. Her mother's knitting needles are clicking in time to the music or so it seems. The sight is so familiar, so comforting that Jean pauses taking in the moment so as not to forget this image of her parents.
She walks in, taking a seat on the footstool in front of her mother. Mr. Randall opens his eyes, "Dinner was delicious, Jeannie Bean."
"Thank you. I learned from the best."
Her mother gives a chuckle at the flattery. "I thought we would have seen Chris tonight. It isn't like him to miss your stew. Come to think of it we haven't seen much of him lately. You two have a falling out?'
"No." Jean hands run along her skirt hem, fingering every stitch that her own hands sewed. "Mum. Dad. I need to speak with you."
"What is it dear?" Mrs. Randall's knitting needles continue clicking until Jean's hands cover them causing her to look at her daughter.
"Christopher and I are getting married on April second."
"What? So soon? I thought you were going to take your trip?" Mrs. Randall's eyes glare at her daughter.
"Plans changed Mum."
Mrs. Randall's voice begins to raise, "I don't understand Jean!"
Jean swallows hard then looks to her father who has yet to say a word, before dropping her eyes once again to lap. "Mum, I'm pregnant." Duke Ellington fills the room, the only sound heard. Mr. Randall gets up and leaves the room without saying a word, "Daddy?" She calls after him.
"How far along?" Any softness in Mrs. Randall's face has turned to stone with the knowledge of her daughter's indiscretion.
"Two months."
"Have you gone to confession? Made arrangements with Father Morton?" Jean nods. "Well, that's it then." Jean's mother takes her leave, turning back to the daughter that had enough dreams for both of them. "I hope you will be happy."
Jean remains on the stool, head hung low and weeps.
"I was expecting my mother to be angry, yell at me. I don't know what but she didn't. She just walked away." Lucien nods in understanding. "Their disappointment in me was far worse than anything. My father barely could look at me. And when he did it nearly broke me to see the pity, the anguish. I wasn't his little Jeannie Bean anymore. My mother, well. she just focused on getting things done with as much discretion as possible."
"So you were married in Sacred Heart." Lucien says almost to himself.
"Yes, on April 2, 1932 I became Jean Beazley. My father walked me down the aisle without a word. We had a small but beautiful ceremony and then a dinner at the house. Noone was the wiser, at the time anyway." Jean shudders, the thin coat no longer warding off the cold and the cruel memories of the past. "A few weeks later the whispers began."
Lucien holds her tighter, knowing just a fragment of what she has endured since his return. He can only surmise how brutal the gossip must have been for her then. "People can be cruel."
She nods, "There will always be talk in a place like Ballarat." She pulls away from his grasp. "Let's go in."
With the click of the kitchen door Lucien's own mind registers the date. "Chrisopher Junior's birthday? I thought you said he just celebrated his twenty-eighth in June?"
Jean pauses, takes off Lucien's jacket before answering. "That's right. He was born in June 1933. It wasn't Christopher I was pregnant with when I got married." She walks into the studio, settles herself on the sofa, knowing he will be by her side soon.
Lucien sits close, takes her hand and patiently waits. One of the many things he has learned about Jean is she needs time. Time to heal, time to trust, to love; time to gather her thoughts. If he gives her the time he is rewarded with the best of her, her heart.
"I started spotting in my fourth month. I asked my mother about it and she just said that it happens sometimes."
"Why didn't you come see my father?"
"I was going to but we didn't really have the extra money. Christopher didn't want it to look like he couldn't take care of me."
"Jean surely with your savings…?" She shakes her head.
"When Christopher's father gave us the farm he also gave us the dept. After we married I used my savings to help pay off some things. I had no idea how bad off the Beazley's had been. There was nothing left of my savings and we still had a mortgage. Besides, my mother said everything would be fine and I believed her. I wanted to believe her."
Lucien's tears hang heavily, on the cusp of falling. To know that his dear Jean went without the medical attention that she needed pains him. "Dad would have helped you or at least tried." Despite all the years of hating his father he knows these words are true.
"I know he would have. I was just 6 months along. I could feel her moving. I really thought everything was alright until it was too late."
"What's the matter?" Christopher asks, Jean's tossing having awaken him.
"Just uncomfortable. Go back to sleep. I'm fine." She turns on her side once again. The pains in her back persist till dawn.
The first streams of sunlight give her reason to get up. She pushes off the dreaded thoughts that things aren't right as she rises. The cramping becomes stronger with every step towards the toilet she makes. The spotting is different this time. The blood is a bright red, the red of new blood and it is so much more than ever before.
This is not normal and everything is not alright, this she is certain. Panic and fear begin to take over. "Christopher!" she calls out several times, louder each time.
"What?" He comes to her, the sleep still in his eyes.
The tears are flowing. Jean can barely stand straight from the cramps that run around her abdomen and back. "Something is very wrong. I need to go to hospital. Now!"
"Shit!" The sleep is now replaced by fear in his eyes. He sees the blood running down his wife's leg, the panic in her face.
"There was nothing the doctors could do. The bleeding slowed but I was in labor most of the day." The words are difficult to say. "It was a girl. That's what the doctors said." Lucien unconsciously strokes her back as if trying to ease the pain she once felt. "They didn't even let me see her."
"No, most doctors don't believe it's good for the mothers." He understands that his words are no comfort and he wishes he could change that moment for her. "Did they give you a reason?"
She shakes her head. "No one would talk to me about it with me, not even my mother. Christopher was heartbroken. I blamed myself. Felt like God was punishing me for my indiscretion."
"Jean, you know that it isn't true? Something must have been wrong."
She nods, "but that is how it felt to me." She turns to face him, the lamp light causing the tracks of her tears to shimmer. "It's funny how in such a short time how everything you want can change. I wanted that baby girl so very much, Lucien. Christopher and I had set our path, our future on this little baby and she was gone as if she never existed."
"Jean, I am so very sorry." He wants to say so much more, ask if anyone explained, guided her with all that her body must have gone through after the birth. She was a mother with no baby to hold, to nurse, to nurture. His words don't come, nothing he can say will heal the scars that such a loss creates.
"Three months later I became pregnant with Christopher Junior. I was so sick the first six months but it didn't matter. I was glad for it. Made me think that everything might be okay with this baby. When I stopped vomiting I was so afraid till he was in my arms."
"I can only imagine."
"With everything surrounding that first pregnancy and as difficult as it was to lose my daughter, if I didn't I wouldn't have him and I wouldn't change that. Sometimes Lucien, things happen for a reason." Her tears make her slate blue eyes a glisten in the soft light.
"Do you really believe that?"
"I do. I didn't always but time and age has taught me to think differently. If I didn't lose her I wouldn't have him. If Christopher didn't go to war I wouldn't have moved into this house."
"And I wouldn't have met you." He strokes the stray curl that falls upon her cheek.
"Yes, something like that. It makes things easier sometimes, to get through the sadness. We can't change that. Life is full of sad times. We just need to focus on the good, don't we?"
"You are a marvel. I don't know how I ever survived without you."
"Hmm." She folds herself into him, safe in the strength of his arms. Her breathing is in time to his.
They remain curled as one for a long time, lost in the words that have been spoken. His heart is near to burst with the love he has for this woman. That she, in all her stoic privacy, has trusted the deepest, dearest parts of herself to him.
"It is very late Lucien. We should go to bed." She reluctantly removes herself from his embrace.
"Of course."
She holds out a hand to assist him. "Come on."
They stand face to face, breathing in each other. Jean traces his beard and he melts at her touch.
"What was her name?"
Jean's hand halts, "What?"
"What was your daughter's name?" Her mouth opens but no sound seems to be able to reach her lips. "Jean, I know you. You gave her a name, didn't you?"
"No one ever asked me that, not even Christopher."
"I'm asking. She existed to you and I want to know."
Jean tries to swallow back the tears, "Lillian. Her name is Lillian after my grandmother."
"Lillian. Beautiful." Lucien pulls her close and she weeps. The tears are for a life long gone, a daughter that was never meant to be but mostly for having been given this second chance of love with Lucien.