Ch 19

There had been a time, when Alexandre was three or four years of age, that influenza swept a deadly hand through Paris. Madeline had been quite vigilant in boiling all of the sheets, the clothes, everything that could carry disease. She allowed no one to enter or leave the house for fear of us all catching ill. I had understood her fears as Alexandre was so young, and Charles was not a healthy man following the war.

Madeline had been the first to catch a fever, and Alex followed in her footsteps. For seven days I sat with him and refused sleep. I bathed my listless son in cool water, fed him broth that Meg had brought to the room, and willed him to survive. If he died, I had no reason to live. Alex was everything to me. He had always been my life since the moment Christine had left him.

I had to remind myself that Christine had not only left me, she had left Alexandre as well.

I found my way to a seat at the kitchen table and tried to make sense of what Julia had said. Alex had not come to supper.

"He walked out the back door," I explained. "Madeline told him to change, but he stormed off half-dressed. He'll catch a fever in this weather, he'll…no, he walked out the back door. He came here."

Julia called my name. It sounded so distant.

"Did he say where he was going?" I asked but what she answered—if she did answer—I had no idea. "He must have told you. Did he know? What did he say? God almighty tell me what he said."

Her fingernails dug into the back of my hand and I sucked in a breath. Physical pain stopped my jumbled words.

"You aren't making any sense," she said gently. She had sat down beside me, her knees up against my thigh. "Slow down and tell me what happened."

"He's gone," I answered.

"When did he leave?" Julia questioned. Her voice was so calm, so soothing. It matched the gentle stroking of her fingers moving up from my hand to my arm.

"I don't know."

"Erik, calm down. You're shaking."

She was right. I was shaking. "I have a right to shake," I growled at her. "My son is missing."

"Did you check his bed? Perhaps he sneaked inside and he's asleep."

I walked numbly from her kitchen, into the back garden, and through the gate. The next thing I knew, I stood at the back door of my own home, fists pounding on the door I had locked on my way out. Even though I knew I would be the one to fix the damned thing, I would have broken it down if no one bothered to get out of bed and let me back inside.

Ten months before the Exhibition was to open, I knew what I had to do. I wanted Christine back, there was no doubt, but I knew she would not come to me without reason. Once we were face-to-face, she would think of Alex and want to see her son again. She would long for It was really quite simple. To have her back, I would tell her that she must agree to stay with me if she wanted to see her son again. What choice did she have?

At the same time, I would deny Alex all hope of ever meeting her. He knew of her. He always knew of her, but only through the papers. The letters, the intimate details of her life, remained only mine.

They were to be the puppets and I the master, pulling their delicate strings until they met on my stage. In the end, they would both thank me for reuniting them.

Despicable, to say the least, but I admit that as I pounded on the back door, the thought crossed my mind that Alex, the little heathen, had ruined my plans. That is a thought I most certainly expect would send me straight to the gates of Hell.

"Open the damned door!" I shouted.

The lock flipped. Madeline was ghost white when she saw me in my fit of rage at the back door. Her face was twisted in anger as she glared at me. "Have you absolutely lost your mind?"

Madeline's expression changed when she looked past me. I glanced back to see what she was staring at and saw Julia struggling to clasp her cloak at the throat. She had managed to pull on boots and throw a sweater on over her night dress.

"You should be ashamed of yourself," Madeline whispered as she looked from Julia back to me. "After what happened tonight, you going over there…how could you?"

"Where is Alex?" Ignoring Madeline, I stormed through the kitchen. Julia followed and I heard her attempt to explain to Madeline what had happened as they trailed behind me. Meg emerged from her bedroom at the end of the hall and stared silently at me, her arms wrapped around her body and eyes owlish.

"Is he in there?" I asked.

Meg swallowed. "I'm not sure."

She ducked into her room as I swung Alex's bedroom door open. His bed was untouched, however, there were papers everywhere, scattered on the floors and across the bed. He had gotten a hold of my compositions and, in his anger, had dumped them from the neat folders where they usually stay. He truly knew how to grate on my nerves.

But then I saw an envelope. And another. And another. Postmarked Belgium, Cairo, New York, Rome. All in Christine's handwriting. These were her letters to Meg and Madeline. The letters I had saved. And never allowed my son to read.

Somehow Alex had crept into the bedroom and taken the false book and stolen the letters from me. The balance between my concern and anger tipped.

"Is he in there?" Julia called out.

On my hands and knees I gathered each letter and carefully arranged them into a pile, smoothed the edges and tucked them back into the envelopes. After three or four, I realized what I was doing and stopped. The letters were unimportant; hey were only memories that I could salvage later.

"Is Alex in there?" Julia questioned again.

I climbed to my feet and turned to find Julia, Meg and Madeline behind me.

"I would like a moment to speak with Erik," Madeline anounced. She turned to Meg and patted her hand, then nodded for her and Julia to leave. Without a sound, they trudged away from the bedroom door. The last thing I heard was Meg asking Julia if she wanted something to drink.

Madeline entered Alex's bedroom and shut the door behind her. She gestured toward the bed, her expression unreadable, and I sat as she requested. Few have been stern with me over the years. I am a man accustomed to having what I want when I desire it, with few willing to stand in my way and protest my actions. That said, Madeline has been the exception.

"He is gone." Madeline pulled up a chair and sat across from me.

"I realize that," I said irritably. "Quite obviously he is missing." I shook the handful of letters into her face. "And what, pray tell, do you imagine he is out doing this very moment?"

"Something he had to do for himself," she answered.

"For his own good, I will bring him back here where he belongs." I stood, but Madeline grabbed my arm and forced me to sit once more. She was stronger than anyone would think by looking at her.

"For your own good, not his and you know it," she snapped. The tone of her voice made me sit again.

"You will not speak to me like that ever again, Madame!" I seethed.

"This is not about you," she replied evenly. "Far too long I have stood and done nothing more than watch you, but I cannot stand to see this any longer. Who is the one who will suffer in the end, Erik? Have you even considered that?"

"I have suffered all of my life!" I shouted.

"You've been given chances, many chances. But what about Alex?"

"He's had more chances than I ever did!"

"You only think of yourself. This is how you've always been," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

With that I stood again, this time towering over her. "In all honesty, Madeline, I do not want to know what you think or how you feel. I have never wanted to know what you think, what your damned daughter thinks, or what the hell anyone else in the world thinks of me!" That, I think, only emphasized her point.

Madeline had the audacity to roll her eyes in disgust at my juvenile behavior. "You'll wake everyone in Paris with your shouting," she warned, making one last attempt to pull me down before her.

"Good. Then everyone will know where to find me," I raged as I threw the letters, my precious mementos, to the floor and stormed out. "The Wisteria! The damned Wisteria Hotel!"

Madeline bolted after me and grabbed my shirt cuff. "For God's sake, she has her husband and children with her! You can't do this. Leave her alone. Just leave her alone."

Alone.

Was there any greater fear to be had in the world than solitude? I turned one last time and looked at Madeline, at the one person who had shown me mercy long ago. Her life had become a nightmare since that fateful night when we first met. She didn't say it, but I felt her thoughts as our eyes met: You're only going for Christine. You care nothing for Alex.

When she looked at me with her accusing eyes, I knew she did not recognize the boy she had rescued twenty years earlier, the one who had turned into a man who could not be saved. I was a stranger. Even to myself, I was nothing more than a stranger.

"She has her family with her," I said, feigning amusement. "What a brilliant surprise it will be to have me as their guest."

"Erik, consider what you are doing," Madeline warned. "Please, do not do this."

"Christine has a husband, two daughters, a lovely career and now…and now she has our child with her as well. She has everything," I murmured. I pulled up my hood and opened the front door. The walls and door disappeared in my blind rage. With my back to her, I spoke. "I will not be alone. Not for a moment longer."