I'm shifting to a different gear. This jumps ahead to when Alex is only 8 months old. Thank you to all of my NDBRs who made suggestions—including the note at the front to actually tell people that we're leaving The Shadow for a moment and going back to Erik with Alexandre as an infant.

Also…enter the contest on my site! It's under Introducing Erika Kire. You don't have too much longer to enter so check it out!

Giver22

When I held my son I felt whole. Hours passed and I was content watching him sleep, knowing that he was mine and no one else's. It both frightened and overjoyed me to have this child, to know a part of me existed in blithe, perfect flesh and blood.

"Listen closely," I told him as I sat him on my bed.

He wobbled, drool forming at the corner of his mouth as he stared at me. I took up my chair and sat at arm's length from him, showing him my violin. When I allowed him to grasp the bow, he cooed to himself in delight.

"Music," I told him, "is in your blood."

Naturally, he wailed when I pried it from his tiny hands.

"Cease this fussing," I said roughly. He laughed again when I shook a finger at him, the insolent little imp. "You must pay close attention as I may require you to play for me."

He babbled as I tuned the instrument, his voice filled with excitement. I knew he joyfully anticipated my performance. Since the day he had arrived at my doorstep I had sung to him, wrapping him in my world of sound.

The moment I placed the bow to the strings he became silent, his large, gray-blue eyes the window to his endless curiosity.

"I call it…'Alexandre'."

He clapped once, honored that the performance was named after him. There could have been a crowd of thousands and I wouldn't have been as nervous as I was when playing for him. As my son, I valued his opinion over all others—even if he could not yet voice his thoughts in words. If he cooed he would show joy, if he cried it would be in disappointment.

When he did nothing more than stare at me I was confused.

"Don't be difficult," I said to him.

A grin spread wide across his face and he tipped back on my bed. With a giggle, he rolled onto his belly and babbled for me to set him upright again.

With his hands in mine, I looked him in the eye. "Who would be foolish enough to abandon you, Alexandre? Who would ever voluntarily give up this voice…these eyes?"

I blinked and felt tears in my eyes. Before his mother had left him at my doorstep, I expected that the one line I had asked to be placed in the newspaper would come true. Erik was dead. I'd felt as though I were dying--and then he was in my arms, this savior of my life.

As he made bubbles, I scooped him up and cradled him in my arms. He smacked his lips together and immediately began to kick.

"My composition has made you ravenous. I understand you." I shifted him to my side and with his legs around my hip, I carried him downstairs and into the kitchen where Meg and Madeline were chopping vegetables.

"My son is hungry," I said to them.

For all of my care and love, he was still an imperfect child. It was the only way I could explain how he took on a fever when he was eight months old. The night following his first concert he screamed and kicked until he was limp in my arms.

"Monsieur Kire?" Madeline said as she tapped on my bedroom door.

I had kept the door closed all day as I sat and held him, shushing him as though it would make him well again.

I didn't answer her. There was no time to speak to anyone, to look away from his curl-framed face.

"Monsieur Kire?" Her voice held more desperation than it had the first time.

Alexandre fussed again, his tiny hands balled into fists. He reached up, his mouth opening in a soundless cry.

"Is Alexandre well? I haven't heard him make a sound in hours."

She questioned me because she feared I would fail, that my monster's hands would harm him. Perhaps she thought I tired of him and placed a pillow over his head. Or that I had left him somewhere to rid my household of Christine's final gift to me.

The door opened and I rose from my bed with Alexandre in my arms. Madeline walked up beside me and grabbed me by the arm. She'd never touched me before—at least not that I could recall. I wrenched away from her contact but she held fast and placed her free hand against Alexandre's forehead.

"My God. How long has he been this warm?" she questioned.

I didn't want to answer her, but his fever terrified me. Somehow I had failed to care for him, and in defeat I hung my head.

"Since last night."

Madeline gasped. "You must give him to me."

"No."

"He's ill."

"Then I will care for him."

"But you don't know how to care for a child," she blurted out.

She was correct, which only made me angry. I knew nothing of my son, of how to heal what I had created. With a heavy heart I pressed his body to my chest, unwilling to give him to anyone. If he died, I would die.

I was tired of living alone. Tired of being a stranger to the world. Only my son knew me, and if he were gone…there was no use living in this house, in this city. In this damned, horrible world.

"Bring me whatever he needs. Then leave me with him."

"Monsieur—"

"Now."

She didn't question me. Head bowed, she walked away. When the door closed I sat on my bed and kissed his face.

"I don't want you to die," I whispered. "You have not yet heard the second part of my performance."

As he slept I carried him down to the cellar where the air was cool. Through the floors I heard Madeline and Meg speaking.

"Leave him be, Mother."

"I worry for that little boy."

"Oh," Meg scoffed.

"What does he do in there all day with him?"

"He sings to him." Meg's voice sounded light and musical. "How man infants have you seen that rarely cry?"

"Infants should cry. It's not healthy to spoil a baby the way he does. His lungs won't develop properly and he'll grow up to be a mute."

"What are you going to do? Steal Alexandre from Monsieur Kire's arms?"

"Hush, Meg. He'll hear you."

"If he hurt the child you'd hear him screaming. As long as the baby is content I see no harm. It would be worse if he neglected the poor child. Or beat him bloody."

"You are not a mother. Children need to cry themselves to sleep. You wouldn't understand these things, Meg."

"No, perhaps I haven't a child of my own, but I understand the sound of laughter and much prefer it to the sound of a baby crying."

I'd never heard Meg so feisty before. Nor had I ever heard her defend me and my decisions. She always shrank when I was near her.

In my heart I knew what I did was correct. When I looked in the mirror I understood why my parents locked me away, why my mother had refused to touch me, why my father had never said a kind word to me. The few moments of kindness and respect I had known came to me unexpectedly…unbidden. But through those heartbeats, those rare connections, I had found it in myself to love and care for this child, to see that my past did not become his future. A monster on the outside. My heart still beat with warmth. For Alexandre I would have a gentle hand.

My son brought tears to my eyes. Unlike me, he deserved to be coddled and protected. A good baby, a perfect baby—so much better than his father in appearance and temperament, was worthy of good treatment. The man who had spent the last three months of his life raising me would have been pleased with the child I held in my arms.

"He would have adored you," I said to him as I carried him up the stairs and into my room.

He was the only reason I could love my son.