16 July 1959
The next morning Jean woke warm and comfortable; her stomach was not churning, her head was not aching, her toes were not freezing. It had been months since she'd felt properly rested, but she felt it this morning. She felt well, and at peace.
She felt, too, the heavy weight of a body draped over her own, and she smiled when she opened her eyes and found him there. Her Lucien, blissful at rest. From the state of the bed it looked to Jean as if he'd spent half the night thrashing about; the blankets were bunched up around his hips, but his body was draped across hers, his head resting on her stomach, his arms flung out to the sides. That was why she felt so warm, she realized; it wasn't the blankets, but rather Lucien's own heat that had comforted her throughout the night.
The sun had begun to rise beyond her bedroom windows, but Jean was in no hurry to wake him. He looked...sweet, she thought, covering her, holding her. As much as the last few months had been a trial for Jean she knew they had been for Lucien, as well; every fear she felt, he felt it, too, and watched her progress with worry in his eyes. He deserved the chance to rest; they both did.
Idly she smoothed her hand over his hair, soft and curling slightly now that he had washed the cream out of it. What an indulgence that seemed, touching him gently, softly in the wan light of dawn. Golden blonde hair slipped through her fingers, again and again, and she watched it, smiling, thinking all manner of thoughts. Thinking how he had come to her, unable to sleep, how she had opened her arms to him for the same reason, how the weight of him beside her had lulled her into dreams, dreams so sweet she didn't even notice him tossing and turning beside her. In her heart she hoped he had not fretted too long, hoped that when he woke he would feel as lovely, as blessed, as she did herself.
It was a wonderful thing, she thought, being able to touch him. That he felt safe here in her arms, that he had sought out her bed in hopes of finding comfort there, that his presence had instead comforted her, that they cared for one another and felt no need to hide that care any longer; it was beautiful, she thought. They had, both of them, been alone for so very long, but now they could rest, together. She had not sought to find such grace, had not dreamt to find it with Lucien of all people, but now that she held him in her arms she could not help but smile, thinking that it all seemed fated, somehow. God, or the universe, or whatever destiny ruled the lives of men had thrown him into her path at precisely the right moment. He had saved her life, healed her body, restored her heart. And she was determined to do the same for him.
As she lay there, still running her hand through his hair, still feeling the warm wash of his breath against her belly over her thin nightdress, she heard the soft sound of her bedroom door opening. Her heart leapt into her throat; it was only Mattie, she knew, come to check on her in the morning as she always did, but this morning Mattie would not find Jean alone and in want of a cup of tea. It was mortifying, to think how this gentle scene which had so warmed Jean's heart could appear so salacious, dirty, even, to another's eyes. If Mattie found them like this she would likely assume all sorts of things and while Mattie was a lovely modern girl who did not hold to Jean's beliefs about the way of things between men and women she would still know, with one look at them, that Jean and Lucien had left the line of propriety far behind them. She would know, and once this thing was known it could not be unknown. Their privacy, their fragile, tender hopes for the future, might well whither beneath too much scrutiny.
And yet Jean did not cry out to stop Mattie entering. If she had raised her voice it would have woken Lucien, and she did not wish to disturb him, not yet. If she cried out Mattie would know something was wrong; perhaps she would leave Jean in peace, but more likely she would come running, and when she discovered Lucien in Jean's bed she might mistake Jean's attempts at keeping her at bay for shame. Whatever Jean felt, about Lucien, about his presence in her bed, it was not shame, and she would not give anyone reason to think he had pressured or manipulated her in any way. Lucien was in her bed because she wanted him to be, and if he was to find his way back there in the future they would all three of them have to find some way to live with it.
In an instant Mattie was striding into view, but her greetings died on her lips and her eyes went wide when she caught sight of the scene before her. Jean knew how it looked; she was reclining against the pillows with Lucien's head on her belly, her hand drifting through his hair. It was intimate, this moment of peace they shared, Jean in just her nightdress, Lucien shirtless, his hips hidden beneath the blankets. It might even look as if he were naked, she thought, but Jean herself was bald and pale and weak, and only a fool would think she had been getting up to trouble in her current condition. Mattie was no fool; perhaps when she looked at them she would see that it was only love.
Slowly Jean raised her hand, pressed a finger against her lips asking for quiet. Mattie's eyes darted from Jean's face to Lucien's sleeping form and back again, a blush staining her cheeks, but she offered Jean a smile, a smile that seemed to say I will keep your secrets. That smile lived only for a moment, however; she promptly turned tail and fled, and Jean had to fight the urge to laugh at how quickly she departed, eager to put space between herself and the lovers she had inadvertently interrupted. Perhaps, Jean thought, Mattie wasn't so modern after all. Perhaps it was still new to her, the thought of a woman and a man who were not wed sharing a bed, half clothed and content with one another.
She'll grow used to it, in time, Jean thought.
They all would; it would take time, for Jean to heal, for her and Lucien to make plans for their future, for the strength of her limbs and the strength of their love to grow robust enough to sustain them out in the world. But it would, and one day everyone would know, she thought. One day their love would be as unremarkable as the rising of the sun, beautiful and yet constant. One day it would not be new, this sensation of holding him, touching him, caring for him without fear or remorse. But for now, this moment, everything was new, and Jean drank it in. She would decide later how best to deal with Mattie; for now, she would be content with Lucien alone.
For a time she drifted in and out of sleep, her hands gentle on his skin, but eventually he woke, and she woke with him. She felt it in the soft stirring of his limbs, heard it in his quiet sighs, and then at last he turned his head and pressed a gentle kiss against her belly. In response Jean slid her hands across the warm, smooth skin of his shoulders, let them slide down, and down, across the broad expanse of his back. As her hands moved she felt it, the ridges of the scars she'd only glimpsed so briefly, when she shared his bed that first night, when he came to her bed the night before. They covered him from his shoulders to the rise of his buttocks, a grisly spiderweb of grief written across his skin in a language Jean herself had not yet learned to speak.
It was terrible, she thought, that memories of such horror should linger upon the body of a man, that they should haunt this man, the one she loved so well. His heart was tender and full of care, wanting always to help, to make things right, to seek justice and heal hurts, and yet these hurts he carried, down through the years. Jean did not know the manner of their making, and she wasn't entirely certain that she wanted to know; the kind of violence, the kind of hatred that could leave such marks had no place here, in her bed, in her home, in this room where love had begun to bloom.
"Jean," Lucien whispered, and she flattened her palms against his back. He was too far away for her to kiss him, but she pressed her love into him with the pads of her fingers, gentle and full of care.
"Good morning," she whispered back.
"I've not slept so well in years." He propped his chin against her belly, raised his head so that he could look at her, a smile on his lips and affection in his eyes. Stretched out across her like this, smiling at her like this, he looked so much like a boy, eager and without care, as if love had erased all the many years of pain and lonesomeness he had endured before he found his way into her arms. It never would, she knew, not completely, but perhaps love could remove the worst of the sting. She hoped that was true.
"No, me neither," she confessed. It was no secret in the house that Lucien's dreams were often troubled. When he first arrived he'd drunk himself into a stupor more often than not, refusing to seek his bed until the small hours of the night. The nights he did not drink were worse; those were the nights he woke screaming. But he had been calmer, of late, as if the ghosts that haunted him had grown quiet at last. Jean could only pray that they had. For her part, Jean found sleep just as elusive as he, though she did not have such terrors lurking in the recesses of her memory. More often she felt only sorrow, when the sun set, taking her joy with it as she lay alone and lonesome in her bed upstairs. With Lucien, though, with him beside her, she slept well, and did not dream of grief.
For a moment she thought to ask him about the scars beneath her hands. It was the war, she knew; no doctor would ever come by such marks in times of peace. She knew a little of his service, knew it had been dangerous, and terrible, knew he had been held in a prisoner of war camp, and she remembered well the old news reels, the images of horror captured in those places, the stories the wives whispered when their husbands came home with vacant eyes and shambling steps. She had comforted herself, once, with the knowledge that while Christopher had died he had not been subjected to such pain first. Christopher had not, but Lucien had, and she regretted the momentary relief she had once felt on behalf of one love, felt it now as a betrayal of another. It was the camp that had scarred Lucien, that made his hands shake, made him cry out in the night, but he had survived it, had survived the pain and all the many years that had come after, and made his way here, to her bed. To peace.
In the end she did not ask. There would be time later, she thought, for all the questions and all the answers. The day would come when she knew everything there was to know about him, every place he had ever been, every hand that had every touched him; the day would come when she could name every mark upon his body, its cause and its history. It was a day she looked forward to, but one she knew would only come with time. They would share with one another, every moment, until he was as familiar to her as her own hand, and she to him.
It would not do, she thought, to spoil this beautiful moment with memories of pain. And so instead of asking she slid a little further down the bed, and Lucien dragged himself slowly up her body, and he smiled as she kissed him, and she was content.