There was a young woman in the cell across from Claudette's who had two sons. The woman rarely spoke but when she did speak, all she would talk about were her sons. One was eight and one was five. Their names were Antoine and Daniel. Claudette found it strange and obnoxious that she knew so much about these boys, but didn't even know their mother's name.
The woman would sometimes sit on the floor of her cell and just chant to herself "Antoine, Daniel, Antoine, Daniel."
Claudette was angered by the woman. She did not want to listen to her talk about her boys. She despised little boys. When the woman started her chanting, Claudette would bang her fists on the cell bars and yell to the woman "Quiet! Quiet I say! No one wants to hear about your sons!"
The woman stopped and said to Claudette "I am in grief. If you had sons you would know how I feel."
"I do have sons," Claudette said. "I got rid of them."
The woman scowled at her and went back into her mind. "Antoine, Daniel, Antoine, Daniel."
Claudette let go of the bars, making them rattle. She walked to the back of her cell to try to escape the woman's noise, but nowhere she went helped her any. "I hate little boys. I hate them," Claudette muttered.
Agatha's head perked up from the bench where she was resting. She had a curious look in her eyes, wanting to hear more explanation to her recent hatred.
Claudette spoke in a low whisper. "After my father died, my mother met a man named Richard. He gave me five brothers, then left without a trace. I hated those boys. I extended that hate to my own boys. They are good for nothing little things."
She thought back to Richard. Her mother met him four years after Claudette's father died. Claudette was eight. Marie was nine. One afternoon in early July, the two sisters were at the playground.
Their Mother was at home, sleeping, Claudette presumed. These days it seemed that all the mother could do was sleep. Claudette was usually only supervised by Marie, the only nine year old in Le Pin that wore a bun.
The playground they played at was really not a playground at all- more or less just a rusted swing set and some dead trees to climb on. Claudette liked it all the same. She would run around and climb all over things while Marie sat still and worked on her needlepoints and sewings. This particular afternoon, while they were playing, a carriage rode into town. The girls watched it pass the playground.
"Whose carriage is that?" Claudette remembered asking her sister.
"I've never seen it before," Marie replied. "No one in town has a carriage that expensive."
"We should follow it," Claudette said.
She was afraid Marie would say no, but instead she moved some stray hairs out of her face and said. "Let's go."
They ran behind the carriage and followed it down a street. It parked in front of city hall and a man stepped out. He was very tall with jet black hair and a handle bar moustache. He saw the two girls who ran up to him panting for breath. "Hello, young ladies," the man said.
Marie stepped back timidly but Claudette was not intimidated at all by the tall sophisticated man looming over her. "Hi, sir," she said, extending her hand.
The man shook it. Marie looked at them like they were crazy. The man spoke. "Do you know of any inns or other places to stay in town."
"No, sorry," Marie said, but Claudette had other ideas.
"There is a spare room at our house you could rent," Claudette said.
Marie's eyes widened and she pulled Claudette aside. "Are you crazy? We can't invite this man into our home! Mother would never approve."
"Mother said we needed to find ways to earn money," Claudette said. "Here he is. A blessing. You said yourself that Papa's money was running out. We don't want to be poor. He's perfect."
Marie did not think it was 'perfect', but she said to the man, "you'll have to speak to our mother."
"Sounds good to me," the man said. The girls led the man down the road to their little cabin. The cabin was not far from the city hall. It was the house Claudette grew up in; covered in climbing ivy and lillys. It looked small on the outside, but had three bedrooms and a dining to separate from the kitchen. Marie and Claudette led the stranger into the house.
"Mother!" Claudette called as they walked in. Her mother did not emerge from her room so Claudette walked inside. Marie watched from the doorway, still unsure about the situation. "Mother," Claudette said again. "There is a man here who needs a place to stay. Can he stay here?"
"What child?" Her mother asked, climbing out of her bed and slipping on her robe. It was the first time she had gotten up all day. She followed Claudette into the front room where the man was waiting.
"Hello Madame," the man said, taking off his hat and extending his arm. "My name is Richard. Your daughters told me that you have a spare room to rent me."
Her mother eyed her daughters then shifted her glare the tall handsome man standing in her house. "There is a spare room upstairs," she said.
"Thank you, you are oh so kind," Richard said. He nodded to her. Claudette thought he seemed very gentlemanlike. He handed some money to Claudette's mother.
At the sight of this money, which Claudette thought had be a large amount, her mother's face lit up and she instructed Claudette to go up and make sure everything was ship shape in the spare room and Marie to put on some water in the kettle to make the man some tea.
Claudette remembered being excited to do these chores, which was strange given how much she hated doing housework. She thought it was thrilling that this man was staying at her house. She felt like a real innkeeper.
After these chores were finished though, Claudette lost complete interest in the man. At eight years old, her attention span was rather small, and she soon became preoccupied with her music box and stopped paying attention at all to Richard. She completely missed what happened that evening.
Somehow during the evening, something happened between Richard and her mother. They fell in love. Somehow this stranger had come into their house and turned their normally stoic, out-of-touch mother into her old cheerful self that the girls had not seen for four years.
It was decided that Richard would stay for longer than just one night. He said he would stay the week. But as Claudette's mother and Richard fell deeper in love the week turned into the month. The month turned into the year, and the year brought with it baby Thierry.
Thierry was a large baby who cried frequently and threw things. Marie thought he was the best thing to ever happen to them, but Claudette thought of him of more of a nuisance than anything else. Still, she liked him. She did not have to do a lot of work for him; her mother did the majority of the care.
Richard continued to live with the family. She was nice to have around. He took Claudette and Marie to the fair and to the theatre. He bought them toys and candies and beautiful dresses. He became more and more like a father to the girls.
At the end of the next year, baby Jean-Clause came to them. He was smaller than Thierry and cried even more frequently. Having two babies was much more care than just one and Claudette was expected to do more work. Still she had free time though and still had time to play.
The next year Richard took the girls on a trip to Spain, Claudette turned eleven, and her mother had twins. Edmund and Henry. Their cries were thin and shrill. Four babies were a lot of work. Claudette found herself always being told 'no' upon asking to do things because she had to help care for the little boys. She became rather bitter towards them.
The next year things became strange. Richard began to ask suspiciously, disappearing for long periods of time then coming back as if nothing that happened. He became secretive and stopped gifting the family with his riches.
When the fifth child was born, sickly Luv-Pierre, Richard was not even there. When he returned three days later he didn't even seem to care the boy was born.
About a week later he came to the family and said "Claudette, Marie, Emaline, I am very sorry, but I cannot stay here any longer. It was wonderful knowing all of you. I will not stay in touch, but I will miss you all very much." He tipped his hat and left the house.
"What do you mean you can't stay here anymore?" Claudette's mother asked, following him out of the door. "Your children are here! You cannot leave! Richard come back!"
Richard got into his carriage and rode it down the road never to be seen again.
That evening while Claudette was feeding the twins and Marie was lulling Lux-Pierre to sleep, there was a knock on the door. Claudette's mother answered the door to a large policeman holding up a poster with Richard's picture drawn on it.
"We are looking for this man. There have been reports that he was saying in your house. Is that true?" the policeman asked.
"Why are you looking for him?" Claudette's mother asked.
"He is a major jewel thief. We believe he's been living in one of these little towns outside Paris with a fake identity. Have you seen him?"
Claudette's mother looked at the man, shocked for a moment. She composed her self and said "no, officer, I've never seen him."
The policeman nodded. "Sorry for disturbing you, Madame. If you do per chance learn anything, be sure to report it."
"Yes, Monsieur," Claudette's mother said. The policeman left and Claudette's mother broke down into tears and cried nonstop for the remainder of the night.
Since that day Claudette's mother sunk back down into her depression. She retreated to her room where she let herself get drowned in alcohol once more. She decided she would never give anyone her affection again.
This left Claudette and Marie alone to take care of the five little boys. To this day Claudette could still hear their piercing cries whenever she thought about little boys. Hearing about the woman in the cell across from her's sons only made her think of crying and how her childhood was taken from her at twelve.
"Antoine, Daniel, Antoine, Daniel."
Claudette covered her ears and hoped that her being meal would come soon so she could have something else to think about other than little boys.