Chapter 28: The Result

Esmeralda ran around the belltower searching for Quasimodo. He was nowhere in sight. She started to call his name, at which point she received a response.

"Up here..."

Esmeralda looked up to see her friend curled up between the struts of the ceiling, sporting an expression of pure misery.

"Quasi..." Esmeralda muttered compassionately. "Are you okay?"

"No..." Quasimodo replied sadly.

"Do you want to... Come down and talk to me?" Esmeralda invited.

Quasimodo was reluctant to talk about what had happened the night before, but he thought it necessary. Esmeralda probably already knew what had happened, and therefore needed his acknowledgement of the situation. He climbed down, but only looked at the floor. He didn't want to look at his best friend with the indescribable pain that he knew was in his eyes.

Esmeralda thought her friend could use some prompting to help him talk about whatever was wrong, so she asked a question.

"Frollo said he apologized to you. Is that true?"

Quasimodo nodded.

"What else did he tell you?" The bell ringer asked with dread.

"Nothing." Esmeralda replied. "He just said he wouldn't be coming today, that you didn't want him to."

"That's right..." Quasimodo said under his breath.

Esmeralda was taken aback by the bell ringer's apparent anger. It was a mood that didn't suit him.

"I don't know what happened." Esmeralda assured. "All I know is that you're both feeling terrible and... he has a black eye."

Quasimodo had been waiting for that to come up. He wondered what Esmeralda thought of it, and what she would think if he told her the reason.

"Did you... hit him?" Esmeralda asked.

Quasimodo barely nodded.

Esmeralda was taken aback. Quasimodo had been the obvious source of Frollo's injury, but that didn't make the confirmation any less shocking. It was hard to picture the bell ringer being violent, especially as a response to an apology. It wasn't in his nature to show such rage. Esmeralda wondered what Frollo could have possibly done to provoke such a reaction from someone so sweet.

"...Why?" Esmeralda finally asked.

Quasimodo couldn't bring himself to answer. He didn't feel prepared to explain the devastating truth he had learned.

"I know you wouldn't do it without a good reason." Esmeralda said confidently.

"I was just angry..." Quasimodo said disappointedly.

"And what made you so angry?" Esmeralda asked.

"He told me... He told me he did something horrible. He said..."

Quasimodo choked, bursting into tears.

"He killed my mother!"

The revelation shook Esmeralda like nothing that had happened during her marriage. For a moment she was stuck, gaping. But as soon as she returned to reality, she acted with urgency, taking her friend in a hug that he desperately needed and crying with him.

A few minutes later, she had Quasimodo sitting beside her against the wall, holding an arm around him while he slowly composed himself.

Eventually, Quasimodo relayed the story of what had happened the night before, from Frollo's desperate apology to the incredible revelation of what had happened twenty years earlier. Esmeralda became increasingly shocked with each word.

"I can't believe I'm mourning my mother's death after twenty years." Quasimodo grieved. "I never even knew I lost her."

"Oh Quasi..." Esmeralda said with sympathy. "I'm so sorry..."

"I almost killed him..." The bell ringer eventually shared. "He didn't even try to stop me... But I couldn't do it. Even after this, he's still..."

He trailed off, but Esmeralda understood. Even now, Quasimodo couldn't cease to see Frollo as family.

"I don't know what to do now..." Quasimodo said hopelessly.

"I'll help you figure it out." Esmeralda assured. "I promise."

On her way out, Esmeralda found the archdeacon.

"Could I talk to you about something?" She asked.

"Of course." The holy man replied. "I presume this is about what happened last night?"

"You know about that?"

"Claude was quite desperate to talk to someone about it."

Esmeralda sighed.

"I don't know how to handle this." She said unconfidently. "What got into him, anyway?"

She remembered that her husband's sudden change of heart had come after speaking with the archdeacon.

"Is this because of something you said to him?" Esmeralda asked. "How did you do it?"

"As I said," The archdeacon reminded. "I have known Claude Frollo for a long time. We went to university together, you see. I knew things about him, like how violent his father was, and how desperate he was to please the man. When I spoke to Claude yesterday, that information helped me figure out the reasons for his way of thinking. And when I explained it to him, he could no longer find a way to lie to himself."

Esmeralda was amazed. It was a wonder to think that one former classmate was able to singlehandedly dismantle Frollo's view of himself.

"And... what were the reasons?" Esmeralda asked.

"Perhaps you should ask him that." The archdeacon suggested. "I think he will explain his change of heart better than I can."

Esmeralda nodded.

"I just want to know one thing." She said hopefully. "What was he like when he was here last night?"

"...Heartbroken." The archdeacon replied.

Esmeralda thought about her husband's sudden change. She couldn't stop thinking of his tearful apologies to her, and now of the unbelievable confession he had made to poor Quasimodo. Claude's heart was certainly broken, and that made Esmeralda start to hurt for him.

"I can tell you this." The holy man offered. "You needn't doubt whether Claude is sincere. In the past he never would have behaved as he does now."

"I know." Esmeralda said sadly. "I really do."

Esmeralda was prepared to have a difficult conversation with her husband, but the sight she found when she returned was very unexpected.

He was asleep at his desk. Claude had not ceased to work on the letters after coming home in the dark hours of that morning. He'd eventually drifted off in the process, exhausted both from emotional exertion and lack of sleep.

Esmeralda yearned to know what had kept Claude so busy. She started to look at the papers on his desk. Esmeralda wasn't skilled enough to read many of the words, but she gathered that the scattered papers were letters. Who was Claude writing to?

He woke up at the sound of her shuffling through the papers. Esmeralda took a step back as her husband came to notice her. She was nervous at first, but she then saw that he only frowned.

"...I didn't think you would come back." Claude revealed.

He had fully expected that, upon receiving the news from Quasimodo, Esmeralda would not be willing to look at him again. Seeing her here once again was a surprise.

Esmeralda looked at him with a hurt expression.

"Did you really kill Quasimodo's mother?" She asked.

Claude closed his eyes in guilt. He nodded.

"I have to say," Esmeralda started. "I'm not even surprised to hear that. I'm more surprised that you admitted it."

"I raised Quasimodo on cruelty and lies." Claude said regretfully. "He deserved to know the truth..."

There was no doubt that Claude was truly sorry for his wrongdoings. It had to take an incredibly repentant heart to bring a man to admit to something so awful, something that would surely be received with intense anger.

"I can't believe I'm saying this," Esmeralda began. "But... I'm sorry."

Claude's eyes popped open. He stood to look at Esmeralda from her level.

"You are sorry?" He asked. "For what?"

"About last night." Esmeralda continued. "Yelling at you like that..."

"I don't blame you for it." Claude promised. "I just... didn't expect it. Perhaps that was foolish on my part..."

"I know what it looked like." Esmeralda acknowledged. "Like I didn't appreciate what you said. But it wasn't that. When you said wanted to make it up to me... Well, Phoebus was the first thing I could think of. But I realized that was impossible and... it just upset me so much..."

Claude remembered how Esmeralda had been speechless when he'd asked to make it up to her. It made sense now.

"When I thought of him," Esmeralda went on. "And how he wouldn't want me... I was partly mad at you, but I was mostly angry with myself for making it that way. And I took it out on you. I'm sorry for that."

Claude hated this. Esmeralda was the last person who should be apologizing right now.

"I'm afraid I can't accept that apology." He told her. "Because I don't believe you have anything to apologize for. I deserved every word you said to me."

"Yes." Esmeralda agreed. "But not at that moment. Not when you were trying to make things right."

Both of them stopped talking for a moment, staring into each other's eyes. Esmeralda decided to break the silence with the other question she had.

"What have you been working on?" She asked.

"I'm trying to find your people." Claude replied. "And I promise I'm not only doing it for your forgiveness."

Esmeralda was slightly surprised that Claude was making this much of an effort for her. She appreciated it, but it was a good thing that he wasn't only doing it in hopes of forgiveness. She still wasn't sure if she could forgive him.

"I meant it, you know." Esmeralda sighed. "When I said I wanted to forgive you."

"I know." Claude acknowledged.

"But it isn't that easy." Esmeralda added.

She looked at her husband sadly, yet warmly.

"I'm still angry, and I'm not over what you did before." She continued. "But I do believe that you're sorry, and I believe that you're not that madman anymore. And so, if this matters at all, I don't hate you anymore."

Claude was more grateful than Esmeralda could imagine. This wasn't the amount of change he would have liked, but it was far more than he felt he deserved. Even when she'd had the most compassion for him, Esmeralda had not ceased to hate who he was. But now he was different, and she had adjusted her view of him accordingly. That was an incredible blessing.

"That..." Claude sighed with relief. "Matters more than you will ever know."

Esmeralda barely smiled.

"I have to go." She informed. "Quasimodo needs company, so I'm staying with him a while. I just came to get some blankets."

"I can imagine." Claude said understandingly. "Between the two of us, do you think there is any chance that he will speak to me again?"

"He still sees you as family." Esmeralda responded. "So, yes."

That chance was what Claude needed most.