Quite correct, dears.

I thought I'd made my own mistake with Mama Val after all, but now I see, I've slithered-out so hard I wound up right where I started. Which suits me perfectly in this case! So she remains as named.

Your social commentary

Les morts vivants

The living dead

Scene IX

Focus: la Suédoise

"How is he today?"

"Not so well I'm afraid, he was doing better yesterday though. I'm certain seeing you will do wonders. We've been reading a new book, it's in there still, and the page where we left off is marked if you want to continue."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome dear."

"Good morning father!" Charlotte cried. Trying her best to sound jubilant. As ever, the room smelt of bleach and cleaning agents. Charlotte leaned over and snapped on a reading lamp she had brought to use instead of the fluorescent ceiling lights before kissing him on the cheek. She'd always hated that kind of lighting and it made the blandness of her father's room unbearable.

"I brought you a new picture, father. Would you like to see?"

He could not answer but she could easily imagine what he would say. If he could speak he might say, yes of course my little Lotte, show me what you've made for me.

"I'll hang it up with the gardens Marguerite painted," she said. Quickly, she moved to stand on the brown chair next to the bed, bracing one foot on the bedrail because it had wobbly legs. She taped it on the ceiling among a small collage of other images where he could see them lying on his back. It was the one bright spot of the room, and a veritable riot of colors. The rest was dull and drear. Winter light filtering through the blinds, graying tiles, the tan blanket on his bed, even Mama Val's flowers were wilting at this point in the week.

Anxiously, she watched him for a reaction, a small child waiting hungrily for her father's approval. With an effort, his eyelids trembled several times and his lips moved without making sound.

"I'm glad you like it. It's the grand escalier, the marble is really beautiful," she said while taking his left hand. "I knew you would of course, I'll bring more next week. Have you had lunch yet?" She glanced at the clock on the wall.

"I guess it's good afternoon then! I'm sorry I was late papa. I've been so tired lately! But it's good that I've been busy…"

Here her resolute cheer slipped momentarily. Charlotte sat on the edge of the bed facing her father. She pulled her knees to her chest and rested her chin in her hand. She wanted to tell him how frightened she was of the strange man in the opera house and how she was fighting with her friends. Fighting over what? If she weren't so scared it would have been laughable. But she didn't tell her father any of these things. She didn't tell him anything that might worry him.

"Oh, things just confuse me, you know? But it doesn't matter. Did I tell you that Mme. Valérius said hello? She's such a sweet lady. Do you remember how at Christmas she used to make us a whole bûche de Noël, just for the two of us? And all the other food too! It was wonderful."

Charlotte thought she felt him just barely move his hand in hers and the idea encouraged her.

She went on to detail how her vocal instruction was coming with an enthusiasm that was less affected and more sincere and then told him a smoothed over version of how she had gotten to sing in the old opera house. When she ran out of new things she could bring herself to tell him, her gaze slipped down to a dusty ancient looking leather boundbook resting inconspicuously on a shelf beneath the night table.

"I guess this is the book Sister Bridget has been reading to you," she said as she pulled it out and examined it. It looked as though it might crumble in her hands as she studied the cover and spine for a title with care. Whatever had once been embossed had faded with time and wear. Cautiously, she cracked it open to the page marker.

"Would you like me to go on reading the book for you?"

She watched him carefully while settling her satchel on the floor. Charlotte couldn't tell if he reacted at all. Her eyes stung fiercely for a moment and she bent her head, fussing with the delicate novel. She smiled forcefully when she looked up again.

"If you're tired you can just fall back to sleep, Papa," she said softly.

—

Scene XI

Focus: la Suédoise

"Ms. Charlotte?"

"What? Oh, Sœur Bridget."

She stared at the older woman as though still bewildered by where she was.

"Are you well child?"

"I—I must have fallen asleep, what a strange dream I had! How late is it?" Charlotte murmured, rubbing her eyes. Without giving it any thought, she set the book aside and stood to stretch.

"Six o'clock, Ms. Charlotte."

"Oh, no, I missed my ride back to the station! I guess I'll have to find a room in town."

"Sœur Geneviéve will have no trouble boarding you for the night, dear. Why don't you go have dinner, I'll get everything fixed up for you."

"Thank you, Sœur. It's so kind of you." Charlotte wrapped the surprised nun in a firm hug and smiled tiredly.

"Pas de tout. Not at all."

Sœur Bridget thoughtfully threaded her rosary through one hand, while watching Charlotte pull on her trench coat and wrap her scarf around her neck. The young woman was here every weekend to visit her incapacitated father. She was among the most devoted of the tiny rest home's visitors. Few would willingly subject themselves to so much ongoing pain. Sister Bridget had few misconceptions about reality and the nature of the world, but she found it difficult to imagine that her poor father was the only one who cared for Charlotte.

—

Scene XI

Focus: le guardien galant

Ralph stomped his boots impatiently, and when he sighed his breath hung around him in a cloud. When he was particularly anxious he often found himself wishing for a cigarette. Lotte had been quite fierce on the subject, in fact rather astonishingly so, and had forced him to give it up almost two years ago.

While he tried to reassure himself that she was fine, a slight trembling of his hands gave him away. He had either missed her completely thanks to that pharmacist's horrible directions or she was spending the night at the rest home. It was something she'd done once or twice before, but she had always called, and tonight she hadn't. He might have understood her still not wishing to speak to him but she might have at least called Max, but Max hadn't called his cell and the phone at home went unanswered.

He had gotten off the afternoon train only to realize that since he had not come with Lotte there would be no ride waiting for him. He'd spent most of the remainder of the afternoon traipsing through snowbound country lanes on a wild goose chase and arrived in time to be stiffly informed that visiting hours were over. Although aggravated more than he had been in ages, Ralph had been apprehensive of nuns from childhood and his long trek through the drifting snow had exhausted him. In the end he had taken the address of a nearby bed and breakfast a little resentfully, but unable to bring himself to try and bully a clerical person. Which he doubted he would have been at all successful at anyway from the iron set of the woman's mouth.

Fortune seemed bound and determined to be set against him, for what should was been a marvelously comfortable bed only set his worries and fears free to prey on his undistracted mind. He should have been unconscious the moment he flopped down on it, still fully dressed, but instead he could not sleep.

Eventually, he had given up on trying. He pulled on his coat and held his boots in one hand while trying to slip down strange stairs silently in the dark. Every creak sounded like a gunshot to him in the silence, but no one stirred and he crept across the kitchen and eased the back door shut behind him.

Standing on the icy back stoop, Ralph could see the parish buildings were just a little to the south of the property boundaries. The church itself hid the former hospital from view.

Two world wars and a hundred years had taken quite a toll on the facility. Ralph had tried to talk Charlotte into moving her father somewhere with more technology and a better staff—somewhere with their own physical therapy wing and a stroke rehabilitation center—but she refused point blank. Since arguing with her over the affairs that dealt with her father's care was a sure way to upset her for days, he'd given up faster than he might have. He still didn't understand it; money could not have been the issue. There were plenty of better equipped and more convenient homes she could afford. Government health care would have handled it, and if not, Ralph would have, gladly. But Charlotte had never explained.

Bouncing on one freezing foot at a time he tugged his boots on and managed to slip and fall off the side of the back stoop.

"Merde!" Ralph shouted as he lost his balance.

Lucky in this at least, he managed to fall into a drift, preventing any real injury. Grumbling to himself darkly he picked himself up and beat the snow off his coat. He glanced up at the windows of the house nervously but they remained dark.

—

Scene XI

Focus: la Suédoise

"Are you still awake, Papa?"

His eyes seemed to be focusing quite clearly on her tonight.

"Me too."

Silently, she stood and pulled the blinds open. The old radiator at her feet creaked comfortingly. It was a gorgeous winter night. Snow draped across the old stone church and glistened in the light of a brilliant full moon.

"It's so beautiful tonight."

She quickly turned his bed and cranked it up so he could see out the window. For a moment she held her breath, searching for something she could say.

She was bursting with what she could not.

"Remember the games we used to play? You used to make me midnight pancakes with chocolate chips when we first moved here and I got homesick," her voice fluttered as she tried to reminisce. "Back in Sweden we'd lay out in the snow and you taught me all the constellations you knew."

Charlotte fell silent in the face of her own childish triviality. Memories were all they had left and it hurt her horribly. She couldn't bear to imagine what it must be like for her father. She had stopped speaking of recovery years ago. While he had made progress, the failures were too cruel to face.

Tonight she thought she might burst with all the secrets and suspicions building within her. Charlotte's head was spinning in thought at the rate of a cyclone, and still she could find no conclusion, no answer, and no peace.

She heard a rasping noise; it was her father.

"What is it? Should I call a nurse?"

Charlotte was at his side instantly; using everything she'd ever learned from the sisters to tell what was wrong. He rasped again, but gentler. His vital signs were fine as far as she could tell. Perhaps his speech therapy was finally making some progress? She looked into his weary blue eyes. His face was slack on one side, the side of him that had been ravaged most by the stroke, but the lines around his steady eye were crinkled. Not as usual, as though he were in pain, but almost mischievously.

He stared intently at her.

"I—oh, what is it?" She asked hopelessly, and could not help but begin to cry. Except that when she looked back at his eyes, his expression made him look almost as if he'd never had the stroke.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, in part because she had no way to know what he wanted and in part because she sometimes got so dragged down that she forgot the he was the same. His body was wrecked, and he was unable to express himself or communicate, but he was still the same person.

"I'm sorry," she repeated, and wiped her tears away determinedly. When she looked at him again this time she saw a smile. Not a real smile of course, but there was enough of it in his eyes for her to imagine the rest.

"Was it something I was talking about?" she tried. His eyes seemed to slide out of focus, but then he blinked several times and fairly steadily.

"The constellations?" She asked perplexed.

He rasped again. She stared trying desperately to understand what he could mean.

"I—you mean," she faltered, "Oh no…you can't mean…"

He rasped yet again, insistently it seemed to her.

She began to say, 'Oh no, Papa, I can't take you for a walk. Not now, it's nearly midnight and freezing cold! You'll get ill and the sisters would never forgive me. I'd never forgive me! Tomorrow please. I can't.'

But the old look was in his eyes and she had missed him so badly, to see a little of that come back…

The words died in her throat. She smiled timidly and planted a kiss on his forehead.

"One last time?"

She recognized his smile easily this time and returned it freely.

There was no way for Charlotte to know just how much more there was for her to learn about living and dying.

—

I'd understand if you despise my dressing of this, but, well, that's how it goes. If so, please be so kind as to say why. Sorry about the lack of 'sweet action.' This fic has gotten far longer than I first intended and the building takes time and thought. Merci beaucoup!