53.

~ It was not easy to leave his duties in Paris. As sympathetic as the general was, he couldn't release the valuable major right away.

Arthur called the war office in New York, but the influx of men coming home had made the organization too unreliable. He had his call dropped several times and he eventually gave up. He thought about calling his mother again, but felt sick at the idea of all those horrible names she had called his pretty nurse.

"Ariadne." He whispered as he looked at the sepia picture in the case. The photograph was barely a year old, but he knew he looked so much older now. He knew his face was haunted and lined from war.

He was no longer the man in this photograph. The man she married. The man who had his bride dance on his feet.

~ Ariadne had been having back pain all day.

"You alright?" Phillip asked her as he brought her a plate to eat. Her lost cousin had come to dinner and had proved he wasn't at all the young man he used to be. The occupation had humbled him somehow. Made him more forgiving to others and made him cling more readily to his last family.

"My editor loves your story." Beth was saying as she poured wine for herself and Phillip. "I think he's going to publish."

"Wait, publish?" Ariadne said. "You never said anything about publish."

"Of course I did!" Beth laughed.

"Beth, we don't know where Arthur is!" Ariadne said as that knot in her back tightened again.

"Right, but my editor thinks the story should end with Arthur putting you on the plane to London. He thinks it's more romantic that way. Kinda a 'Casablanca' ending." Beth said.

"They love things that romanticize the war." Phillip said in French as he handed Ariadne a glass of water.

The two cousins exchanged a secretive look and she smiled at him.

She winced as the back pain hit her again.

"Ariadne, are you alright?" Beth asked as she looked worriedly at the pretty nurse.

"Yes." Ariadne gasped as she suddenly didn't want to eat.

"Ari-Bell?" Phillip questioned. His thin face pulling into a scowl.

"I think I might be in labor." Ariadne breathed.

"It's too soon. It's six weeks too soon." Beth said logically.

"Owe!" Ariadne said as she felt a sharp pain rip through her.

"Ariadne, no." Beth said as Phillip helped his cousin to stand. "I told you, it's too soon. You're not due till early September. It's only July."

"Phillip." Ariadne gasped as her cousin helped her hobble out of the apartment.

~ She told her cousin to call Robert as Beth checked her in.

"Who is he?" Phillip asked.

"A friend." She whispered. "My employer, but he's been very good to me."

Phillip nodded and made the calls.

~ Robert was there in less then an hour.

"Sorry it took so long." He breathed as he looked freshly roused from sleep.

"Thank you for coming." She whispered as he took her hand.

Beth said nothing as Robert played the part of husband and expectant father so well, the staff took it on faith he was the father to be.

"You folks can wait outside." The doctor ordered. "This is not the time for everyone to be here."

"No." Ariadne breathed as she felt a strong desire to push.

She didn't want to be alone. Not again.

"Robert, please stay." She begged.

Robert nodded and refused to be moved.

~ The pain felt like she was being boiled alive. The well groomed young man questioning the doctor as to why she wasn't given something for the pain. The doctor was old and believed the pain of child birth was God's punishment for original sin.

"The price of being a woman. The price of eating the forbidden fruit." The old man said.

Robert tried to get her another doctor, but her son was soon brought into the world screaming great gulps of air at the shock of being born.

"Is he alright?" She called to the nurses who didn't let him hold her baby right away.

"He looks alright." Robert said pushing back the hair off her sweaty brow. "He's getting plenty of air." He laughed as they could hear the baby scream.

~ Finally, her son was swaddled and soothed and placed in his mother's arms.

"Ariadne, he's so perfect." Robert laughed. "Arthur would be proud of you."

Ariadne recognized her handsome major in her tiny son's sweet face. Beth and Phillip crept into the room slowly to peek at the new family member.

"Hi." Ariadne laughed at her sister-in-law. "Beth, this is Robert. I've been taking care of his father."

"Pleased to meet you." Beth whispered. She didn't seem to judge Ariadne for having Robert with her. Her sister-in-law seemed to understand

"What's his name?" Phillip asked as her son opened his eyes to peek as his family.

"Adam. I want to name him after Arthur's father." Ariadne whispered.
"I think that's wonderful." Beth almost cried.

"Beth. I want you to call your mother. I want her to know her grandson is here. I want her to see him." Ariadne said. The swell of motherhood made her forgive everything Lydia had done.

Made her realize how hard it was for the older woman to lose so much in just a few years.

"Are you sure?" Beth questioned.
"I'm positive. I want Adam to know his grandmother." Ariadne said looking back at her husband's face in miniature.

~ Arthur had received another promotion. He was now a Lt. Colonel and in command of his own unit. He felt nothing as he talked to the bedraggled men under his new command. He didn't care if they lived or died. If he lived or died.

"Pack your bags, Colonel." The general said one day.

"What's happened, Sir?" Arthur asked. He couldn't take one more thing going wrong. By his count, his child was due in a month.

"You're going home. Special orders from General Eisenhower. You have friends in high places." The general said stiffly.

Arthur didn't have to be told twice. He ran out of the barracks and in record time, packed a small bag. He took with him only his dress uniform, his books and is cigarette case. Everything else, he would leave behind.

~ The voyage home was strange. Arthur kept waiting for something else to happen to him. For the ship to sink, for it to be delayed. But, it arrived in New York on time. He wore his dress uniform that was too big because of all the weight he lost. He felt someone would ask if he had stolen the uniform as he was sure he didn't look at all like the highly decorated officer he was.

~ His first stop was the war office. A place crowded with men and women looking for information about their loved ones. He waited in line for almost four hours before a F4 clerk was able to see him.

"Do you have any idea how many MIA cases I have, Sir?" The youth explained.

Arthur lost what little reserve he had left and quickly reached over the clerk's desk pulling him off his feet so they were face to face. The youth almost crying from fear as Arthur held him up by the collar.

"Not Sir. It's Lieutenant Colonel. I was at Normandy, Paris and Berlin." Arthur growled.

The youth paled as the other people in the crowded office fell silent and looked at the the heavily decorated, high ranking officer in his dress uniform.

"Now, you go and get my file and tell me what address you have for my wife." Arthur said in his most authoritative tone shoving him back over his desk.

The youth silently obeyed and glanced back at Arthur with large, scared eyes.

~ Adam cries woke his mother. She had been dreaming of the bombings. Of little babies crying in the dark shelters. Her son's cries reaching her and rippling down into her dreams. She was in a shelter with Trixie as the two women tried to be brave as bombs dropped on them. Bombs falling so hard the ground shook.

"Who's baby is that?" Trixie asked her. Ariadne paused over a wounded old man.

"I don't know." She told her friend.

Suddenly, the cries became too real and she was jerked out of sleep to hear Adam was crying for her.

The baby was small from being born too soon, but he was healthy and soothed by his mother picking him up. She changed him and fed him and he was the sweet baby again.

She watched him fall back asleep and wondered what time it was. Beth had left for the office and she had the apartment to herself. Her editor wanted to met with Ariadne about getting her story published. Ariadne wasn't sure. She wasn't sure if she was ready for the world to know her story. Walking out of France, the bombings, Arthur. Not even Robert knew all the things Beth wanted to publish.

Robert had been wonderful. He had kept his distance from mother and son, but let her know that if Arthur didn't make it back home, he wanted her to consider marrying him.

It was something Ariadne hadn't been able to think about. She couldn't think about a life without Arthur. Robert was a safe choice. An easy choice to make for herself and her son. However, with Robert, her lips never wanted his. She never found herself thinking of his hands the way she did with Arthur. She never blushed at the thought of Robert or wanted to sneak into his bed like she had done with Arthur.

Things with Robert were just not the same as they were with Arthur. She didn't think it was fair to either of them to try and force it.

She looked at her baby sleeping and then at her compact. She had kept it open and on her night stand so she could fall asleep with her husband each night. Deep in the dark parts of her heart, she knew he was dead. She knew eventually, she would receive a telegram from the war office. Her son would get a box containing his father's medals and Ariadne would have to tell her son how wonderful and heroic his father had been.

Her son would have to look at his father's medals and she would have to try to make him understand why his father wasn't here.

She would have to tell him about Normandy beach. About the men he rescued from a POW camp. The bombing of the barracks in Paris. The men he lead and went back for when she broke her leg.

Of their picnic in a field of dieing summer flowers. Of how she danced on his feet on their wedding night.

She cried a little at that memory. He had been a light in the darkness of this war. The one good thing she could hold on to. The one thing that made her happy, that had made her special. He had married her, loved her and given her a perfect son.

Now, could she move on and be happy?

She looked at Arthur's newspaper photo in her compact. His face comforting and steady. She could never stop loving him and didn't want to.

~ She was pulled from her thoughts by a knock on her door. Adam slept on as Ariadne stood and went to the front door.

A ghost greeted her.