Page 13 of Nineteen Eighty

He said little else over the subsequent months, inquiring only occasionally about her doctor’s appointments or the health of her growing baby. But she had less than two months left until Alain was born, and that meant only two months left with the only man she’d ever loved.

Soren was different. He was a little mad, and a lot odd, and he had mood swings worse than Maureen. But he was hers, heart and soul. And she was his, God help her.

Soren pressed his lips to her belly, and she felt his tears tickle her skin.

God help her.

Maureen hooked her purse on the old hanger inside Blanchard House. It sagged with even the slightest weight, and she found herself doing the same.

She gripped the banister to stay the tears rushing, soundless, down her cheeks.

Edouard’s heavy steps sounded on the stairs. She swiped her palms across her face, sniffling the last of her sorrows away. He’d never liked an abundance of emotion, and she couldn’t bear his disapproval on top of everything else.

“You just came from Soren,” he said.

Maureen turned away to hide her reddened cheeks, nodding.

“I appreciate the sacrifice you’ll be making. I understand what it means to you,” he said, and she wondered why he was even talking to her. He only said words in her direction over dinner, and even then he was judicious.

And how could you understand? You, a man who has no time for love? A man who was forced to marry the woman he raped, and then did it again, in the name of that so-called love?

But he did understand love, in the way that mattered most to her. He was a wonderful father to Olivia. For her, he always had words. And he’d even found ways to give her his precious time.

“We can be a family,” he said, and then she heard, but didn’t see, his steps once again plodding back upstairs, toward his office, his safe place. “In our own way.”

CHAPTER 5

Four Daughters

Irish Colleen set the kettle aside after pouring the steaming water into the saucers of her four daughters. When Elizabeth tried to take a sip, she shot her a scathing look. Three minutes. That was the rule.

“So, let me see if I understand this correctly. I have one daughter who, after over half a decade, is finally moving back to me. Another who, after slightly less time, is moving even farther away. And my youngest, my baby, is disappearing for the summer to Paris, of all places, and I risk losing her to the charms of that romantic city.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Mama,” Maureen said.

“No, darling.” Irish Colleen patted her hand. “But you’re not without worries. Will you ever tell your little one who his real father is?”

Maureen blanched. She withdrew her hand.

“Don’t be cross with me, dear. I understand your marriage better than you think. I’m not judging you, but it does none of us any good to play make-believe.”

“I wouldn’t sleep with Edouard either,” Elizabeth muttered, pursing her lips as she blew on her tea.

“You’ll have all your grandbabies in one place for the first time,” Colleen offered, shooting Maureen an apologetic glance.

“Think of it this way, Mama. You can come vacation in Switzerland,” Evangeline said.

“I never visited you in Boston, or Colleen in Scotland, so what makes you think I’d drag these old bones on a plane to Switzerland?”

“I hear it’s beautiful,” Evangeline said with a shrug.

“And so is my home, Erin, but have I been back?”

Colleen smiled. This was Irish Colleen logic, and there was no besting it.

And when was the last time they’d done this? It seemed to Colleen there’d been many times when it had just been she and her mother, or there’d been one or more other siblings, but never only the sisters. She couldn’t honestly remember the last time just the women had sat at a table together to talk.

Colleen was twenty-eight now. When Irish Colleen was twenty-eight, she had seven children to manage, her oldest already a decade into living. It was fun to compare, but hard to imagine the different directions their lives had taken. She tried to picture her diminutive mother and assuming father falling in love, but suspected the reason it was tough to conjure was because it had never happened. August had a broken heart, and Irish Colleen had the skills to nurse it. Quite the skills, as it turned out.

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