Bedlam
Jean heard the discordant sounds from the piano, far sloppier than earlier in the evening. A sure sign he was letting the drink take his focus. She repressed a tired sigh. This had certainly gone on long enough.
She tried to resist tiptoeing through the house, as though she shouldn't have been disturbing him. No, it was her job to care for the house. To cook and clean and keep the books. And to keep him. However he needed. She would walk with self-assurance to stop his incessant drunken piano playing and send him off to bed.
He noticed her walk in. "Jean. Did I wake you?" he asked, slurring ever so slightly. His eyes wouldn't seem to fully open.
"No, I was up."
"Fancy a drink?"
"No, I'm fine," she answered, perhaps a bit too quickly. Did he understand how it pained her to see him like this? How she wished he weren't so foolish to get himself roaring drunk where she would find him? If he had to, couldn't he at least have the decency to keep well enough to himself? She swallowed hard, trying to keep calm and collected.
Lucien didn't seem to notice her distress. "Ah. Here's one you'll know!" He began playing an upbeat tune, surprisingly proficiently. "Join in whenever you like!" he shouted above the melody.
"It's a bit late for a sing-song!" she yelled sternly in reply, crossing to the other side of the piano.
"Nonsense," he scoffed. "Never too late for a song.
"Yes, it is," Jean insisted, screwing the cap back on the whiskey bottle he'd nearly finished. "You play very well. It's a shame we only ever hear you late at night." There was a gentleness to her tone that surprised her. She needed to be firm with him, like a naughty child in need of discipline.
"Yes...of course, Dad was a virtuoso. Could play anything," Lucien muttered bitterly, waving his hands above the keys in demonstration. "Which is why I eventually took up the drums." That demonstration knocked over the empty glass from the side table onto the rug. "Oh I..."
Jean quickly collected it off the ground. "It's alright." She paused, leaning down to meet his eyes. "You should go to bed," she suggested softly.
He paused, averting his face from her steely gaze. "Yes," he eventually conceded. His fingers wandered the keys again. "Doctor Blake's son gets it spectacularly wrong again."
Bending down further, Jean sought to meet his eyes, more worried for him than she perhaps had any right to be.
He pounded out one final chord. "Self-recrimination and alcohol, Jean, never mix."
That tone in his voice was far too tender for her to indulge. "I'll keep that in mind," she replied resolutely before giving his knee a solid smack. "Come on. Bed!" she announced, standing up to assist him.
With a final huff of resignation, Lucien held out his hands for her to haul him up. She slung one of his enormous muscled arms over her shoulder and grasped him around the waist. "Um should I..." He reached around for the bottle.
Jean directed him away. "No, no. Leave that."
"Oh it's a bloody mess," he sighed.
"Yes," she agreed, nearly laughing. But she was too focused on her task, to get him to bed and not let her mind wander to the feeling of his body wrapped around hers, the solid wall of muscle she held in her arms. No, mustn't think of that. Certainly not now.
It wasn't too far to his bedroom, thank goodness. Jean was able to release him to flop down onto his bed. He fell with a mighty groan. She went about pulling a blanket up over him, trying to keep him settled.
"Oh I should...I should probably...go and brush my teeth. Jean...ah Jean, sweet Jean," he murmured practically incoherently.
And perhaps if he hadn't been saying her name in such a delicate tone, she would have been kinder and removed his shoes. But that felt too intimate an act for her to perform right now. She needed to leave the room before her mind wandered a bit too much. As it was, she gazed at his face too long, allowed her hand to linger on his chest. No, mustn't do that.
She turned swiftly to exit the room and leave him to sleep it off. But she noticed a pile of receipts that he'd promised to give her. Jean flipped through them.
And then, knowing Lucien was completely lost to the world, Jean allowed her curiosity to get the better of her. It always had been her mortal failing, being far too curious about things that weren't reasonably any of her business. But she couldn't help herself.
She opened the box full of his secrets that he tried to hide from the world. Letters from Singapore, tied with a lovely ribbon. And in amongst the papers, she found photographs.
Lucien and a beautiful Asian woman. Jean turned the photo over. It was labeled September 1940. That must be his wife. Oh she was so very lovely.
The other photos had a baby girl, about five years old, with her mother. Lucien's daughter. And another photo with the three of them. The wife and daughter were beautiful. And Lucien stood by them so proud and happy. So very, very happy.
Jean had to stifle a sob as tears sprang to her eyes. She glanced at the bed to ensure that Lucien wasn't awake to see her. She pressed her fingers to her lips to keep from crying. The feeling had bowled her over. This overwhelming sadness she suddenly felt. Lucien and his family. The family he'd lost. The family he had been searching for with all his letters and calls over the past months.
It was eighteen years since those photographs were taken. How long after that had been the last time he'd seen them? Had it been eighteen years since he had held his wife and child? Jean knew exactly how long it had been since she'd had her husband in her arms. She knew to the day, practically to the hour. But at least she had never lost her sons. Well, not the way Lucien had lost his daughter.
She put the photos away and closed the box. She couldn't bear to see them anymore. The image was burned in her mind.
That expression on Lucien's face in those photos was so foreign to her. He'd joked that he didn't have any pride, or perhaps just a bit. In the eighteen years since those photographs, he had obviously lost so much. His family, his familiar life, perhaps his very soul.
Because Jean realized what it was about those photos that had affected her so. This dear, broken man whose house she kept, who she'd grown to care for as a friend and companion of sorts...he had looked so content in those photos. Jean had never seen him look that way in the time she'd known him. And to think that such a wonderful man could be reduced to the figure she gazed upon now, passed out drunk on his bed with all his clothes on, to never again stand with a proud smile beside his family...well, the very idea of it had reduced her to tears.
