Page 23 of Sex, Love & Lingerie

Though I’d seen photos of his father with Jaime as a youth as well as self-portraits, I wasn’t prepared for how much they resembled each other. They even shared the same dimpled chin. I couldn’t stop trembling.

Payton held me in his arms. I rested my head against his chest and felt my beloved Jaime. Tears fell from my eyes, but they disappeared into the gauzy fabric of the white robe he was wearing. He gently tilted up my chin and brushed my tears away with his magical fingers. Long, tapered, and beautiful just like Jaime’s.

“My son loves you very much, my dear.” His voice was soft and melodic.

“How do you know that?” My voice was watery.

“I have watched over you. You have given him everything. You have given him the love he’s never had from a woman. The love I never knew. And you have given him a family. But you made a promise to him.”

My tearful eyes searched his. They were cerulean and soulful. Wise eyes that had once known pain and suffering.

“I did?”

He nodded. “Gloria, my dear, you vowed on your wedding day you would never leave him.”

My exact words whirled around in my head. “Mon amour, I promise I will love you forever. No matter what life throws at us, we will always be toi et moi. I shall never leave you. My tears are my witness.”

“You were at our wedding?” I asked incredulously.

A warm smile lit his face “Indeed, I was. I saw it all.”

I absently fidgeted with my toi et moi ring. It was still on my finger! I glanced down at the two entwining heart-shaped diamonds, the symbol of our eternal union. The two glittering stones putting me into a hypnotic state. “Toi et Moi.” The Charles Aznavour song played in my head. The words so poignant.

Suddenly, the sound of babies wailing cut into the lyrics and catapulted me into the moment. Panic seized me. Oh no! Had our babies died in childbirth and gone to heaven?

“My babies! They died!” I sobbed out, clapping my hand to my mouth. The pain that ripped through my heart was greater than any gunshot or contraction.

Madame wrapped her arms around me one more time. “Shh, ma chérie,” she whispered, stroking my hair, her voice more comforting than her touch. “They are not yours, and they are crying because they want the chance to live. Paulette and Payton are on Earth. They are zee most beautiful children in zee whole world. Healthy and strong.”

Henri and Payton nodded in unison.

“What do they look like?” I asked anxiously, butterflies beginning to leave my stomach.

“Paulette eez blond and fair like you. So stubborn…a petit peu feisty comme moi.”

“Does she have one blue eye and one brown one?” I had a rare genetic idiosyncrasy known as heterochromia that could be passed down.

“It eez too early to tell.”

“What about Payton?”

Jaime’s father chimed in. There was a melancholic glint in his eyes. “He’s a handsome devil if I must say so myself. He looks just like Jaime did when he was an infant.”

Oh, how I longed to see them both! Hold them in my arms! Kiss their little heads. Be with my Jaime. My love. My eternal love. Yes, Payton was right. I’d promised I’d never leave him. Another rush of tears poured down my face, vanishing into the vapors that shrouded us.

“I want to be with them,” I wept, overcome with emotion.

“You have that option, ma chérie,” Madame said softly.

My lips quivered. My eyes bore into hers searchingly. I managed one word. “How?”

Henri gripped my shoulders. “You must fight for your life with all your might.”

“And tell yourself you want to live,” added Payton. Sadness swept over his face. His thick-lashed eyes lowered. “I was a coward. I didn’t fight for my life. I didn’t want to live. I let my son down.”

The guilt this man felt sent a thick wave of compassion through me.

I shifted my gaze to Henri. “But you were brave, and you died.”

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