Gustave

An oddly pleasant cacophony of sound drifts down the hallway from the kitchen brings a smile to Gustave's face. Many months having passed since the laughter turned to arguing and back again were part of his daily life. Living with Julia in their own apartment at the hotel – the first home he knew in America – was a strange experience for both of them – each rooted in large families with all the joy and angst such situations wrought.

Returning to the milieu and sense of family was comforting now. The children were warned to leave him alone unless directly asked to provide company as he sits, stands, paces, then sits again in the small nook tucked under the staircase across the hall from the birthing room, built for the purpose of waiting the arrival of a new life.

Despite Christine giving birth here at Bay Ridge to the young ones creating the racket over breakfast – it is the child not present who comes to mind. The early loss of Belle Angelique still haunts him – one of the traumatic events defining the tenth year of his life. Her birth, such as it was, and death occurred at the hotel apartment – bonding Maman, Papa and him in a shared grief – their first as a family. Birth, death and new birth coming full circle now.

The arrival of each subsequent sibling was a challenge to be sure – Emilie, beautiful and knowing the fact to be so, is the most dramatic of the new family members. Angelique named in honor of her lost sister a joy to behold. The only child to have any sort of deformity visible on her face – the cleft lip coaxed into a sweet permanent grin by a talented doctor. Joshie will forever be a reminder of how necessary it was to know someone before making rash accusations. His partial deafness would not be discovered for a few years, years he spent mostly angry with the little boy for being loud and unruly.

Then there are the twins: Henry and Margaret, joining their family after the big fire at Dreamland. Left behind by their parents at an orphanage, the owners contacted Dreamland to take them into their Little People attraction. In the aftermath of the blaze, Miss Fleck's kindness brought them to Papa's attention – it would take almost no time for Maman and Papa to claim them as their own. Henry quickly became his shadow, idolizing him to the point where he found himself wondering what Henry might think if he failed at something. Margaret, a gifted dancer, despite the obstacles presented by her being a midget, is also Emilie's strongest critic and, in that role, ally.

After so many years as an only child – his only real companion being Maman – living in a houseful of brothers and sisters was off-putting at times. Even though he was given his own room in the attic of the large house in Bay Ridge not too far from Coney Island and Phantasma, but not too close either, the family was busy and noisy – happily so, for the most part, but sometimes even being at the top of the house was not far enough away for him.

Both Maman and Papa were only children – although, heaven knows, their experiences were as far from his own as they could be. Papa's own beginnings found him in a well-off household, but his own attic room spoke of banishment, not privacy. A cruel mother, unaccepting of a deformity that might have come from her own background – he did not create himself, did he? – found her rejecting him and, so, at ten years, the same age his own life changed, found Papa out in the world.

The thought of what his wonderful, loving father was exposed to never failed to bring tears to his hazel eyes – a combination of the green of Maman's and the amber of Papa's. The heat of anger at those who mistreated both the young boy and the man would rise in him…frustrated at his impotence at his inability to punish those inhuman beings.

Maman – on the other hand – came from a loving home. Her own mother dying when she was but six years old. Gustave Daae, his namesake, master violinist, took her in hand and they, too, traveled, earning their living on the road, much like Papa – only not in cages or locked in chains.

While Maman loved her Pappa very much, Gustave often wondered at a father who would impose such a life on his child – especially a little girl. His own father does everything possible to make the life of his children easy and full and protected. That the pair of them survived their childhoods is truly a mystery to him.

How they came together was a story in and of itself. He can only hope the love he has for Julia and hers for him can stand the test of time as this odd pairing has. That they can give this child of theirs ready to born at any time now will know the love he has experienced.

"Maman, Papa…"

Christine touched the linen napkin to her lips before cocking her head, a lifted eyebrow and a smile on her face, "Yes, Gustave, is there something else you want to eat? You hardly touched your dinner. I am afraid we do not have any hot dogs and chips if that is what you want."

"Julia seemed not to like the pot roast either," Erik interjected. "I am no real judge of food, to be honest, my sense of smell is not what it might be and most taste does involve the sense of smell. I can generally only recognize sweet, sour, bitter and salty – except when the food has a goodly amount of garlic…as this roast provides. Of course, one cannot always count on garlic being a pleasant odor – mythology tells us vampires are discouraged by the smell. Any of those creatures possibly lurking about would certainly have abandoned any pursuit of victims at the smells in this dining room."

"Erik, I think we can put the science lessons…and horror stories to one side for the evening," Christine laughed, swatting him with the aforementioned napkin.

"Oh, that is all right, Missus," Julia said. "I always love when the Mister goes off on one of his explanations of how something works, or why an answer should be this rather than that. He is especially good at other strange stories as well."

"Even so, Gustave appears to want to say something, and I doubt a lecture on garlic and its relationship to vampires or wherever else this line of story telling was leading are in any way related."

"Um, no, that is true enough Maman, but, like Julia, I always enjoy Papa's tangents – especially when he talks about mythical creatures – having been one himself for a time."

"Hmmm, now you are deflecting, son," Erik said, with a wink to his wife. "What was it you wanted to say? I take it this was not about the beef or the seasonings, and I shall not have speak to Cook about the meal."

Gustave and Julia both look down at their plates.

"Well?" Christine urged. "Or would you prefer we tell you?"

Gustave's head shot up with Julia giving him the side eye. "Tell us what?"

"That our lovely daughter-in-law is with child, of course," Christine said. "That we are to become grandparents."

"How did you know?" Julia asked, placing a hand on her still relatively flat stomach.

"How could we not," Erik answered. "Having lived with a woman who has carried four children in my presence, it was not difficult."

"Oh," Gustave sighed.

"My Da always knew about Ma, too," Julia said, toying with her sash. "I told Gustave you likely sensed something when I was sick with the Spanish flu, but he seemed to think you would not know or would not want to know."

"Indeed?"

"Gustave?" Christine reached her hand across the table.

"We were not certain we wanted a baby. You lost a baby…and Julia's Ma has lost so many…nearly dying with the last one."

"And your father has a deformed face," Erik added. "I understand your concern…and, yes, your heritage is something to be considered."

"You have seen this is not a real concern – not you yourself… nor your brother and sisters…none of you," Christine interjected.

"The boy has read enough of those science books I have in the library to know there is always a chance of a throwback – is that not so, son?"

"Yes, sir, but that is not all of it…"

"One of Ma's babes was born too soon, he came feet first and the midwife couldna revive him. Another had a cleft palate…worse than Angelique's. We dinna know what to do, Ma did her best to feed him…" Her calm words turned to tears. "Sweet babes."

Christine walked around the table to give Julia a hug, pressing her lips against the younger woman's blond curls. "And yet, you decided to conceive?"

"No, not really," Gustave said. A sharp look and raised hand from Julia cut his explanation short.

"I told Gustave the Lord had other plans and we were meant to have this baby."

"Much like you were conceived," Christine said.

"Sometimes books do not have all the answers," Erik said. "I never believed I would be married, much less have a child – four children, who blessedly lived to call me Papa. Another two joining our family by chance. Each perfect in their own way."

"I just would not want him or her to suffer."

"Gustave! I am shocked – you of all people, "Christine exclaimed.

"Oh, I gave him a piece of my mind, Missus," Julia said. "I told him he would be as good a Da to his own babe as the Mister is to his family. Besides what's done is done. I love this wee one with my whole heart, so there is no more to say about whether we should or should not have a child."

Yes, this welcoming of new life is decidedly different from anything he has ever experienced in his still young life. After his early concerns, he now feels as Julia about this child of theirs. A little being, something of each of them creating an entirely new person to love and teach and watch grow.

"Any word, yet?" Papa asks, holding up a bottle of root beer in his hand as he pads down the carpeted hallway. "I thought you might be thirsty."

"I am not sure what I am," he replies with a short laugh. "Hungry, thirsty…anxious, certainly. I wish I could go in."

"You could but would have to be prepared to fight a battle with both doctor and mid-wife – and two soon-to-be grandmothers," Erik chuckles, sitting down on the chair next to him. "I am still not certain why they let me pass when your mother was in labor, except I can be quite convincing when I am determined."

"You are positively terrifying."

"Yes, I suppose – an art I mastered. When one is completely vulnerable, one must call on whatever tools one has to hold the enemy at bay."

"In your case, everyone was the enemy, though."

"Hmmm, true enough…although not everyone. Marie, Fr. Mansart – although I did not realize it at the time. Nadir, of course. Charles Garnier and, most importantly, your mother."

"I wish you had been my father when I was born."

"Yes. I, too, wish that had been the case. I was a foolish man. Leaving your mother behind when I left Paris was the greatest of many poor decisions I made in my life. I did not want your mother to suffer for who I was." Slapping his hands on his knees he stands up. "No point in reliving an uncomfortable past when the present is so wonderful, and a new life is about to make an appearance."

"You are going to be a grandfather."

"And you a papa in your own right," Erik says. "This may take a while, if memory serves. Come, bring your drink, let us divert our attention and offer some musical respite for your lady. I always wonder if Christine's labors might have been easier had I played for her instead of simply standing helpless next to the bed."

A loud wail, strong enough to be heard through the wooden door stops them from proceeding to the den.

"Good lungs," Erik laughs. "Impatient as well. Tenor, do you think?"

"Soprano, perhaps. "Setting the bottle on the small end table next to him, he grasps his father in a hug. "Do you think it would alright now to go in?"

"I would say it is absolutely alright – no matter what anyone says," Erik laughs. "Your wife and child await you."

"My child."

"Your child."