Page 20 of Nineteen Eighty

“Heal, Ana,” Kellan said.

“Heal, Ana,” Charles said.

“Heal, Ana,” Cordelia said, after a reluctant sigh.

“She’s a very strong, very brave girl,” Colleen whispered, pressing her lips to the fading bruise on Ana’s cheek. “Very strong.” She looked up. “Just like her daddy.”

At one, a nurse popped into the room to let Charles know a call had come in from Vacherie. Lisette was in labor.

He looked up from the end of Ana’s bed. “What? She’s not due yet.”

“It’s what they said, Mr. Deschanel. And they said you better come fast. They’ve already called the doctor.”

“Let’s go,” Cordelia said, when he didn’t immediately move. She beckoned from the door. “You coming or what?”

He looked up.

“For heaven’s sake, Charles, come on!”

Charles turned to Augustus, who nodded.

Ana would be okay. It was time for Charles to turn his attentions to his own daughter, soon to enter the world.

CHAPTER 8

Dust in the Wind

Charles flew through the oaken front door of Ophélie, pressing his body into the old slab with all the force he had in him.

“Adrienne!” he cried out, throwing his face north, toward the upstairs, the nursery, where his new daughter awaited him. “Daddy’s home!”

Richard appeared at his side, reaching for his arm with tentative motions. Each time, he withdrew, looking in the same direction as Charles. “Charles, can we go sit in the parlor a moment? There’s something we need to talk about.”

Charles flashed him an uncommonly mean stare. “Now? Are you crazy?”

Richard looked away from him then, toward someone else, and that was when Charles noticed the doctor standing at the base of the stairway. His white coat was covered in swashes of blood, but Charles didn’t immediately register this, or connect it to the moment.

Cordelia stepped forward. “You can talk to me.”

The doctor looked down at his hands then up again. “Around—”

Charles cut him off by stepping forward, so close they could warm each other with their breaths. “Out of my way. I want to see my daughter.”

Cordelia tugged on his arm. “Let’s hear what the doctor has to say first.”

Richard sighed from behind them, and in Charles’ heightened state he almost thought it sounded like tears. But he didn’t want to hear anyone’s tears. He wanted to meet his daughter, and to have more, more… more! The sooner Lisette healed, the sooner they could plan for the next, and the next, and… “Get the fuck out of my way!” he cried.

Cordelia stepped away then, but Charles only had eyes for the doctor who blocked the path leading to his fourth, but not last, daughter. Lisette was yet young. She could have twenty, maybe thirty. With Lucie, she’d only needed a week to recover and was pregnant within a month of that!

But then Cordelia slid an arm gently through his. Gently. There was nothing delicate or gentle about his wife, but something in this very unusual gesture stayed his anger momentarily.

“Charles, darling, we need to listen to the doctor, and it might be best if we did it sitting down.”

“I will not,” Charles huffed, but he’d stopped winding further into his anger and now was merely in limbo, waiting. For what, he didn’t know.

“Halfway through Lisette’s delivery, she started bleeding. By the time we delivered Adrienne, it was evident we had a serious problem. I called down to the hospital in St. James, and also to University in New Orleans, but we couldn’t even slow the bleeding long enough to buy her time to understand exactly where it was coming from and how to fix it.” The doctor leaned into the banister and breathed out. “Lisette passed away twenty minutes after she brought Adrienne into the world. I’m very sorry, Mr. Deschanel.”

Charles sidestepped all of them, laughing. His laughter carried across the room, bouncing between them as it increased in pitch and intensity. “Lisette? No. No, no, you’re wrong. She’s young and healthier than all of us. She’s just tired, is all. Maybe she needs a year off or something.”

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