Needing
Christine's tears had long exhausted themselves and she sat now, curled in the same hard, simple chair where Erik had deposited her. Her feet tucked up onto the seat and her arms wrapped around her knees where her face was buried against the harsh brightness of the lights, she was very aware of the sound of her own breathing as it sank into the still damp folds of her stained nightgown.
The table shifted before her and she slowly lifted her head to look, stretching the stiffness her neck had become.
Erik settled himself across from her. His injured hand was cleaned and upturned on the cold metal tabletop; he pricked the flesh with a short, curved needle and then tugged gently upwards the thin, dark thread that pulled closed the pit of red, stitching together jagged white lips over that little, bloody mouth of a wound.
She stared at him silently until he repeated the exercise three times before she spoke, her soft words crackling in the back of her throat like burnt scraps of paper. "Does it hurt?"
He paused, the fingertips holding the needle suspended in midair above his hand, and lifted his head to turn and simply stare at her for several very long moments. Then without replying otherwise, he turned back and resumed what he had been doing.
But she continued to watch him too intently for comfort until finally, jerking the thread a bit too roughly, he answered shortly, "No, Christine. No, it does not hurt."
She winced and glanced away. She waited until the soft snip of surgical scissors recalled her blank mind to the world of thought, and then she released the tension in the grip of her fingers and allowed her feet to slide from the chair's edge back to the floor, which struck her as too very cold. She took her time to smooth her nightgown over her legs before she looked to Erik again, just as he finished winding a long gauze bandage about his hand.
She moved around the table to him. If he noticed her, he made no motion of it. Slowly, she sank to kneel next to his chair and then reached up and clasped the arm of his bandaged hand. She felt him jerk, but he did not pull away as he turned where he sat to look down at her. She slid her hands down his sleeve and took his hand in both of hers, gently by the sides; she did not want to hurt him.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. But the way she stared, so focused at the bandage over his palm, it was rather as if she were apologizing to his hand than to him.
He sighed as if he meant to speak, but he remained silent.
She turned his hand over and pressed her tear-stained cheek to the bandage across the back of it.
"Erik?" she whimpered.
He shifted and she almost thought he had moved closer to her until she realized he had pulled slightly away.
"What do you want from me, Christine?" He sighed again. "Do not ask for forgiveness, for you know there is no need."
She shook her head vaguely, her face brushing against the soft fibers of the bandage, and then she was silent once more for a very long time before she spoke again:
"Erik?" she said more calmly then. "Do you think I am mad?"
"No Christine," he said as the tips of his fingers shivered in the faintness of her breath, and flexing slightly, one of them brushed her lips. "No more so than I."
Her lips parted again, but this time her eyelids only fell shut.
"Are you tired?" His other hand had begun to move towards her face.
She opened her eyes again and tilted her head back slightly to look up at him. "I don't want to go to sleep."
He seemed to freeze. "What do you want to do?"
And suddenly Christine was very aware that just then he would grant her absolutely anything she asked of him. The intensity of his gaze alone recalled a blush to her cheeks and she gingerly released her captive hold on his poor hand.
"Oh…" was all she managed.
He took her by the chin and leaned down to her, bringing his mask very close to her face. "Why do I feel I know what you must want?"
She began to shake her head again and amazingly felt once more the sting of tears. "I'm sorry…"
He clasped her face a bit more firmly. "I do not think you are mad, Christine. Fixated. Obsessed."
"But I saw—"
"Delusional. But not mad."
"But…" She whimpered, helpless to move in his grip. "How will it end?"
"That is just the thing." He leaned a little closer over her. "It must end. What will give you that closure? What is it you are needing to set your tormented mind at ease?"
She tried to turn her face away, but he would not let her. "I want to see her," she murmured. "I just want to say goodbye."
He relaxed his hold on her, but his caress on her face as he pulled his hand away was most deliberate. "Then you shall say goodbye."
She shivered and looked up to him as he straightened in his chair. "Erik…"
"The sooner, the better." He pressed the fingertips of his two hands together. "If you are certain that is what you need."
She nodded slowly and shivered again.
He studied her for several very silent moments before he stood, and bending to take her by the arms, he lifted her to her feet.
She looked down at his hands on her arms, but as her vision momentarily blurred as a brief wave of dizziness claimed her, she could only half listen to his words.
"Get dressed," he said. "And I will take you to her."
"I…" She met his eyes again.
He looked away and turned her in the direction of the door before releasing her. "Go on."
She did, but as she did, she shivered a third time.
She was almost finished dressing when she heard him knock softly at her door. He entered before she could even find the voice to respond and she watched him cross, without giving her more than a glance, to where his glove was still lying on the floor. She had completely forgotten it was there. He bent, picked it up, and then it disappeared. He turned to her then, folding one arm behind his back.
"Not ready yet?" he said, as if speaking only to himself. "Perhaps you do not really want to go."
She shook her head slowly, keeping her eyes fixed on his form. "I left my boots at home."
"You have six pairs in the wardrobe." He went to it and pulled out the bottom drawer to show her that she actually had eight.
She stared at them and said nothing, so he took out a pair himself and brought them to her. As he approached, she took several steps back, and would have taken more, but the chair by the door came in contact with the back of her skirts.
He paused, studying her expression for a moment, then he sighed. "Sit down."
She did, but she looked away. "Am I mad Erik?" she began, her soft voice trembling, "Or aren't you being rather forward with me."
He knelt before her and set one of the boots down next to her skirt. "If you cannot take care of yourself, Christine child, then I will do it for you."
He placed the other on one of her stockinged feet without managing to touch her and then proceeded to lace it up with only one hand almost too quickly for her eyes to follow. She watching him then repeat the act with the second boot as his bandaged hand remained folded across his knee. Finished, he stood, and her eyes followed him as he rose before her, her own hands clutched tightly in her lap. He stared down at her silently and she could decipher no expression beyond his mask, his eyes completely dark and unintelligible. She began to feel as if she were being watched by a specter, something not of this world, something out of a nightmare.
"Erik," she whispered. "Say something."
"You are sitting on my cloak."
Her entire frame trembled, but she stood, too quickly, for she was momentarily dizzy, and stepped to the door. She steadied herself against the pane and watched him as he plucked up the cloak and put it on just as swiftly with only one hand.
"I know," he said. "You left yours at home as well. I daresay you left a lot there. But I think you ought to know better by now that, here, you will never be without what you need."
She tore her eyes from him and went to retrieve it herself, and then found him again at the opened door to the lake.
She looked up to him as she passed through. "Where is she?"
"With the dead," he answered gravely, and he shut up the door behind them, leaving them in the much dimmer light of the catacombs. He held a lantern that had appeared, as it always did, from some hidden nook, and opening the flaps fully, he offered them as much illumination as he might.
"Will we take the boat?" she asked.
He had begun to walk with her along the stone bank. "And cross out of the underworld? No, Christine."
She walked along with him in silence then but soon began to feel something familiar or strange about it as they went. She realized suddenly that she had not been walking with him like this in more than a week, when they had been accustomed to taking their outings almost daily. Nothing at all had been the same since that day she took their walk alone. All at once she found herself aching terribly for a return to the way things had once been.
"I have missed the fresh air," she said softly.
He glanced at her.
She met his eyes. "The out of doors. It's healthy."
She imagined he smiled beneath his mask. She imagined he laughed. Perhaps he did.
With easy steadiness, he brought her through the dark winding passages, where even the eerie blue light of the lake did not reach, and out again to a narrow gallery lined with alcoves, some open, some barred by rusted doors. She could hear the sound of running water again, and though she had never been here before, she knew where they must be.
Erik shone his lamp along the doors. "The communards left many dead to rot in these dungeons, and they rest here still."
"This is where you've brought her?" Christine stopped, agape.
He glanced back at her as he continued on. "Not good enough for her? Even among the dead, she is little more than a butchered shell of a corpse."
She glanced about the edges of the light and her eyes at once found the dusty bones of telltale tortures, the grinning skulls of unblessed burials. Gasping, she caught up to Erik at once and dared not again stray a second form his side.
"The bones in your father's graveyard did not bother you this way." He led her around a corner.
"God does not dwell down here," she whispered, and her fingers dug into his sleeve as she pursed her face against the sickly sweet smell of the depths that began to become more obvious as they progressed.
He stopped and handed her a handkerchief, which she at once pressed over her nose and mouth.
"She is there," he gestured, and Christine turned around to face a door that stood half ajar.
She froze. Erik waited a moment then stepped around her and pulled open the door fully. "This is what you wanted. This is what you need. I only ever do what you ask of me, Christine."
Without removing the handkerchief, she nodded. She moved to take a step to join him at the door, but then halted, looking up to him, and speaking with muffled words, "Are her eyes opened or closed?"
Erik stared down at her for a moment, then slowly glanced over his shoulder into the room, and then looked back to her again. "They are closed."
She kept her eyes on him as she stepped to take his arm with her free hand in a fervent grip of anticipation. "Erik," she whispered. "Like a rag doll?"
He leaned back slightly against the door. "Yes, Christine. Like any ordinary cadaver."
She peered through the doorway, vaguely discerning a pile of white laid out on a slab of stone. She exhaled very slowly, and then with a short nod of her head, she tightened her grip on Erik's arm and stepped across the threshold, bringing him with her into that small dungeon tomb.
He remained silent and kept his lantern aloft so that Christine might see as well as she could as they approached what was left of that dear, little girl. She was covered head to toe in her clean white sheet, or perhaps it was another sheet, for hadn't hers become soaked through with blood? Christine's memory seemed momentarily lost among the clouds of dream or reality. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and forced herself to remember what was real.
"She is here," she whispered to Erik. "All of her?"
He nodded slightly. "Except…"
She nodded as well and very slowly released his arm so that she might take a corner of the sheet, but again she hesitated mid-act at the sight of the silver pendant that swung just below her wrist.
"Will I be frightened?" her voice trembled.
Erik made no response for a moment, but then, instead of speaking, lifted his hand and reached around her to place it over her fingers where she held the cloth. Then they lifted it away together.
Elainie lay on her back, her eyes were closed, and what was left of her golden curls, now dull in the dark, were carefully arranged to hide most of the dark stitching that ran the circumference of her skull. The rest of her face was as Christine remembered it, sweet and sad, and tinted blue and grey with death. Below her neck, the stitches began again, dark as leeches against that ghostly flesh, sealing away every mark of the slaughter Christine had witnessed as well as more she had not even imagined.
Erik's touch fell away and she shivered.
"She ought to be dressed," she said to him softly. "We might do that much for her. And there ought to be flowers."
"Clothing is for the eyes of others," he answered simply, without any tone of disregard. "And flowers are for the smell."
Christine glanced up at him over the brim of the handkerchief. "She would have liked flowers. I know she liked flowers."
"Do you?" he asked, and suddenly she remembered that she was not quite sure what she knew anymore at all.
She looked back down at the child and shook her head slowly. "Her sister might like flowers…"
"Her sister?"
"The Marquis de Pinson has twin daughters… Had…"
"Do not forget to recall, Christine, that he and his family offended you no less than they did me."
She shook her head again, her eyes never leaving the little face. "She never did a thing. Elainie… Elainoire… Songbird… I wish I had known you. I wish I could have saved you."
Erik remained silent and Christine stepped closer against the stone slab. With the tenderest of touches, she gently traced a finger along the girl's sunken cheek. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I just wanted to say goodbye. I'm so sorry. I should have let you rest in peace. I should have…" Her tears began to drip against the handkerchief, and so she lifted it to her eyes, letting the puffs of steam from her lips escape into the cold dungeon air. She said nothing else for a few moments as she attempted to recover herself and then she bent to kneel, and bravely relinquishing the handkerchief to fold her hands on the stone, she began to pray.
Erik let her take her time and he did not so much as step away so that no scrape of his shoe might disturb Christine's meditation. Neither of them counted the minutes, but when she looked up again, there were the marks tears that had fallen again and already dried on her ruddy cheeks.
She sighed and her eyes traced the frozen lines of Elainie's face. "Goodbye," she whispered. "Goodbye."
She replaced the sheet then, as it had been before, tucking in its edges as if she were putting the child to bed. She clasped her hands together and looked down at the necklace wrapped about her wrist. She pondered it thoughtfully for a moment, traced its silver chain with a fingertip, but then only looked up and sighed greatly as if she had pushed an entire other world from her shoulders.
"Erik?" she murmured.
"Yes, Christine?"
She glanced up at him behind her and smiled the softest of smiles. "I thought you might have gone."
"No, Christine."
Her smile spread bittersweetly and she extended both of her hands to him. He took them and lifted her to her feet. Once more, as she rose, the weary giddiness passed over her.
Erik studied her expression with silent concern. "You asked me never to leave you alone again." His fingertips pressed into her palms.
She tilted her head, her golden curls falling over one shoulder. "You've only ever done as I have asked of you."
He nodded slowly as he looked down at her, but then only squeezed her fingertips with the slightest of pressure before releasing them.
Tearing her eyes from his, she turned to face the white sheet again, and she sighed. "Perhaps… Maybe I could pick her just a few flowers. She needs flowers."
"Christine… It is winter."
"I could buy them then? And we wouldn't have to come back in here. We could leave them at the door."
He made no response. Christine thought of how often she received flowers in the winter at the Opera. Surely she would be able to bring some down here for the poor, lost, little girl, lying there on that cold stone, under that sparse sheet. But as Christine stared at that sheet, the very distinctness of the shape beneath it began to become more clear to her.
She took a quick step back from it, but at once felt the back of her shoulders bump into Erik's chest, as he still had not moved a step from where he stood. She shivered and she heard his breath at her ear behind the mask as he moved one of his arms gently around her.
"It is time we left this place," he said almost too softly for her to hear despite his closeness.
The faint cloud of her breath came out in a shuddered puff, but she nodded, and she did not resist as he guided her away and out the door, which he released her in order to close.
"Erik," she murmured as they walked back the way they had come. "Might I bring her some flowers?"
"Yes, Christine. If you like."
She nodded and pulled the folds of her cloak snugly about her arms. After several moments of walking in silence, she spoke again. "Erik, what time is it?"
He paused and withdrew his watch, holding it to the light of the lantern. "Almost five o'clock." He glanced at her.
She thought for a moment. "I will go in a few more hours then, when the shops are open, and find some nice flowers for her."
He studied her closely from where he stood. "Alone?"
She nodded and then moved to continue walking. He followed her.
Once back in the warmth of his home, they spent the next few hours together in quiet activity that did not lend itself to thoughts of death or ghosts, and so, when the clock struck nine in the morning, Christine found herself feeling quite comfortable with the thought of venturing out to the Parisian streets alone in order to purchase funeral flowers. Erik compliantly took her back across the lake in the boat, which understandably took longer than it usually did, but when he very slowly and carefully helped her out of it, his hand lingered upon hers.
"You are not frightened in the daylight?" he asked cautiously.
"No, Erik." She smiled and pressed his fingers reassuringly. "I am not frightened anymore."
He released her and moved back to disappear once more into the darkness, but Christine found she could still see the lingering golden glow of his eyes.
"Call to me upon your return," his voice floated back to her. "I will be waiting for you. I will be waiting…" And then he was gone completely.
Pulling up the soft hood of her cloak, Christine found her way out the exit that led to the Rue Scribe and walked through the crisp morning air around the building to the boulevard where she knew she would be able to purchase some very pretty flowers. She would buy as many as she could carry and bring them back herself. She wondered how much she would be able to carry and still work the key to the gate. A vision of a memory struck her then… Of a young man juggling with an armful of flowers, and handing her a small bouquet of lilies. Echoes of La Juive in her mind… It seemed as if it had been so long ago, but it could not have been more than last week. Those mysterious lilies… Lilies from a ghost. But those fears were all behind her now. She had found the closure she had been needing.
The morning sun glinted over the fresh mounds of snow that billowed about her path like cotton clouds, and Christine thought to herself that this must be what heaven would look like when she arrived there. Even the bell that tinkled as she entered a flower shop sounded like it might be heavenly music to her ears this morning.
However, once inside, and finding herself faced with various lovely arrangements of flowers set out at certain prices, she realized at once, that she did not have any money. She had absolutely nothing but the clothes Erik had provided for her and his key. She would have to go home first. And so she did.
Arriving at the apartment where she lived with her mama, she found the front door unlocked, the maid nowhere about in the dimly lit parlor, and a man's voice coming from her mama's bedroom.
"Even at the Opera?" she heard Mama Valerius speak as she approached the doorway to the room.
"Everywhere," the man responded wearily, and Christine now easily recognized the voice as the gentle timbres of Raoul de Chagny's.
She stopped outside the open door, but the old woman saw her at once and pushed herself up in her sickbed.
"Christine!"
Raoul sprung from his seat, a folded newspaper falling from his lap to the floor, and he whirled about to face her as she hesitantly entered the room.
"Christine! Where have you been? I… received your message."
"What have you done?" her mama continued. "Scaring me half to death, running out in the dead of the night!"
"I'm sorry mama," Christine said softly, trying to think of some way, any way to explain her fearful flight the night before. But upon thought of the matter, she realized that, considering to whom she was speaking, she would be very believed if she simply told the truth. "I saw a ghost, mama. I shouldn't have run away and left you alone." She sat on the edge of the bed and took up her soft wrinkled hand. "I was mad with fear. Please, forgive me."
The old woman's eyes widened in belief. "A ghost? Here?"
"A ghost?" Raoul asked almost simultaneously, but much more incredulously.
Christine felt her cheeks flush and she kept her eyes focused on where she stroked her mama's hand. "Or perhaps I was dreaming…"
Madame Valerius shook her head and crossed herself with her free hand. "Whatever ghost that thinks it can frighten us here had better just look for somewhere else to haunt."
Christine glanced across at Raoul, then looked away again quickly when she saw how sternly he was staring at her. "Yes, but I think I must have been dreaming," she murmured. "You know I don't believe in ghosts, mama."
"Christine," Raoul repeated. "Where have you been?"
"I… Some… Someone helped me."
"So you needed help then."
Christine looked between the both of them. "I don't know what I needed. I was distraught."
"Who helped you?" her adopted mother asked.
Christine glanced askance at her. "Someone I know, mama. A friend."
The old woman's eyes seemed to brighten just a bit. "Was it he?"
Christine only pressed her lips together, and after a moment, looked up to Raoul. "You are too kind, my friend, to stay here all night with worry over me. Please forgive me."
"He wasn't here all night," the old woman spoke up. "He was out looking for you! Running off into the night like that, half dressed, and screaming like a madwoman!"
"I…"
"Isn't that how that driver described her, Monsieur de Chagny?"
Christine glanced across at Raoul again warily.
"Who helped you?" was all he said.
Christine looked away again. "Everything was fine."
Raoul cleared his throat and bent to retrieve his newspaper. "Madame, would you mind if I had a word alone with Christine?"
The woman looked up at him. "Why? Well… No, I wouldn't mind. Oh, but I am tired. I am too old for so much excitement."
Raoul offered her a sympathetic smile and then looked again entreatingly to Christine.
She gave her mama's hand one last comforting press, and then she stood and moved around the bed to follow Raoul to the door. Once out of the room, though, her dizziness caught up with her and she swayed slightly. Raoul took her by the arm, turning to her with startled concern.
"Are you all right?"
She shook her head and then passed a hand over her face. "There—It is gone. I only stood up too quickly."
He kept hold of her arm as they moved down the hall to the parlor again. "Have you eaten?"
"Yes, this morning I ate at… I only have a headache."
The pressure of his hand where he held her arm increased. He spoke in a hush that would not reach back to Madame Valerus's ears. "At where, Christine? Where were you all night?"
She gently pulled her arm from him then and turned away, but her voice was no more than a whisper. "That is none of your business."
"You asked for my help." He moved around her to try and see her face. "How can I help you if you do not tell me?"
She turned back to him suddenly. "Please, not here," she said softly. "She might hear us." And she went to the front door, leaving Raoul to follow her out onto the street and retrace the path they made the night before.
"Christine," he hissed irritably as he rushed to catch up with her after making certain he had shut the door. "What happened last night?"
"Nothing…" She shook her head. "Just… a nightmare. It was only in my mind."
"And that is why you sent for me?"
"I… I was frightened. I was out of my mind…"
"So it would seem!"
She stopped on the sidewalk just outside of the park and looked at him in shocked offense. She could see the muscles of his jaw clench as he stopped as well and stared at her in obvious doubt.
"You," she stammered. "You had said, if I needed you…"
"Apparently you didn't need me after all, though, did you!"
"Raoul!" She took a step back from him.
"You send for me, in this 'desperate fear, like a madwoman,' and then disappear with him for the rest of the night!"
She merely stared at him, her lips parted and her brows furrowed, and then she slowly began to shake her head.
He struck his newspaper against his side and then folded his arms and turned away from her, walking to the railing that lined the park's path.
"Raoul," she tried again. "It's over now. I needed your help, but he helped me instead. I am not afraid anymore. It's… It is behind us. All of us. It is over."
His arms fell to his sides and he turned back to face her across the path, the snow crunching softly beneath his heel. "But, Christine, it's not. It's not at all." He lifted his newspaper, unfolding it, and turning a few pages as he returned to her side. "I found this early this morning as I was returning from… my search for you." He found the front page again and then placed the paper in Christine's hands.
The first thing she saw under the name of the Epoque was the picture. It was a portrait of the Pinson family—the Marquis, the Marquise, their teenage son, and two little twin girls. The drawing must have been copied from one that had been done at least a year ago. Below it was the headline: "MURDER."
"They must have stopped the presses the moment they got our anonymous note last night," Raoul explained as Christine's eyes skimmed the article. "All it said, and simply, was that she was unfortunately dead, certainly nothing about murder, but you see what they have done with it."
"Did you write the press?" Christine asked, becoming very uneasy with the discussion of a manhunt she was reading.
Raoul shook his head. "God knows why the police would have told them."
Christine sighed and felt a little weak as the fluttering of her heart overpowered her as she studied the picture again. "But now her family knows. They had the right to know."
"But see," Raoul tapped a paragraph, moving against Christine's side so that he might read it as well. "They described her again. She was wearing a pink dress and a pair of black leather boots. Her coat and hat were found at the riverbank where she disappeared. Her scarf was found floating much further downstream, but she was not. But look. This time they mention she was wearing a necklace, Christine. A silver necklace with a pendant in the shape of a heart, upon which was written her name and the word—"
"Songbird," Christine gasped. She released the newspaper with one of her hands and a few unimportant pages fell to the ground. Meeting his eyes, her cheeks flushed. "I… I told you it did not belong to me."
"What have you done with it, Christine?"
She folded her free hand over her other wrist and looked away.
"You wear it still."
"Raoul, it's…"
He shook his head quickly and took her by the arm, turning her to face him. "Nobody else has seen you wearing it, have they? Nobody else knows about this."
She looked up at him, gasping. "No, nobody! Except… Except him of course. And… and oh! That girl! Galerne… At the Opera. Jacqueline Galerne. But she thought it was mine. She said they call me Songbird. She thought it was mine."
"Can they be trusted?" Raoul asked too nervously.
Christine nodded quickly. "She is a sweet girl. She offered to help me home. She… And he… Of course. If it weren't for him… It was he who helped me finally lay her to rest. Elainie…"
Raoul's nerves turned at once into a glower. "You said you lost her."
"I… I did. But he…" She shook her head and looked away. She would never be capable of telling Raoul just what had gone on in those cellars.
"Christine, tell me the truth." He tightened his grip on her arm. "What does he have to do with all this?"
She shook her head again. "He only ever does as I ask him, Raoul. He only helped me when I needed him."
"And just how did you need him? How is it that he 'helps' you? This singing teacher of yours who lives underground and just so happens to have a spare room for you to sleep in almost every night now when you find yourself afraid of the dark."
She pulled away from him and took the newspaper between both her hands again. "He has nothing to do with any of this, Raoul, I swear it. He did not even know who she was. He would not have even cared if I had not begged him to help me…"
"Not have even cared about a murdered child?"
She shook her head quickly. "That is not what I meant."
"I can't imagine how you can claim he treats you so civilly then. If he is so callous."
"Raoul, he's not… He's…" Christine threw up her hands and turned away from him, moving further into the park.
He followed her quickly. "Tell me the truth, Christine. I know this is not charity."
She stopped abruptly and turned back to face him, causing him to stumble in his tracks. "No, Raoul," she said, finally with firmness. "It is not charity. It is friendship. I do not deny the lunacy of my attitude since all this began, but he has been good enough, kind enough, gentle enough to help me through it." She paused and glanced down at the paper in her hands. "Just as you have… Do not accuse him of doing any more or less than you have. You want to help me because you are my friend and you care about my well-being. Without his help, I would have surely gone mad."
He looked down into her eyes, hesitating a moment in attempt to find the words he wanted to speak. "I am your friend, but, Christine…"
She shook her head quickly and turned away from him. "There is nothing to say 'but' about."
He lifted a hand and placed his fingertips so very gently on her arm, which was more effective to make her turn back to him than had he wrenched her with the utmost force. "But there is, Christine," he said softly. "You know that."
She let her eyes linger on his for a moment before she forced them away and shook her head again, finding herself once more focusing on the newsprint picture if only to avoid that dear expression in his handsome face.
"Raoul, I…"
"Yes, Christine?" His fingertips moved up from her arm to the top of her shoulder.
Her heart fluttered and she wanted to tell him something, but as she continued to stare at those two little identical faces in the picture, a much deeper yearning welled within her.
"Raoul, I need to see them. Will you take me to see them?"
His gaze followed hers to the picture and he understood. And so he sighed and withdrew his hand from her shoulder and said very politely, "Yes, Christine. I can. I will."