Thurston House Read online

  “She made me promise not to say anything. I told her that she had to go to the doctor, or I would.”

  “Thank God for that, and …?”

  “She said he told her she was fine.” But Antoine didn’t look convinced and he finally dared to say the words, much as they hurt, and tears stung his eyes now, grown up or not, part of him was still a child. His chin trembled as he turned to André. “I don’t think she is, Papa … I hear her getting terribly sick sometimes … vomiting … and she almost fainted again the other day …”

  “Merde.” André’s face went white, and he clenched his hands. “Do you know where she’s going now?”

  Antoine shook his head. “Maybe for tests? Or to see the doctor again … I don’t know. She just told me everything was fine.”

  “Menteuse.” Liar. “You can see it’s not. She’s been worried sick all week and she wouldn’t tell me anything.” And then, as he looked at his son, he knew what he had to do. He dropped the tool he held where he stood and strode toward his own car.

  “Où vas-tu?” Where are you going? Antoine ran after him, but he already knew.

  “I’m going to follow her.” André pulled the choke and started the car, there was still earth on his hands but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything but the woman he loved, and he was going after her.

  “Vas y, Papa … go on …” Antoine waved, feeling relieved as his father drove off. She had only a twenty-minute start on him. He had faith in his old man, he’d get to the bottom of it, and he’d make her take care of herself. And all the way into town, André kept his foot on the gas. He had to stop once for a small traffic jam, a truck had a flat tire, and then he roared on across the Bay Bridge, grateful that it was open now, and they didn’t have to contend with the ferries anymore, and as he roared across Nob Hill, and saw her car parked outside Thurston House, he felt a wave of gratitude and relief wash over him. She was there, he would find her now, and get to the bottom of it, but just as he turned into the street and glimpsed her car, he saw her hurry out of the house, somberly dressed, a scarf over her head and an old coat he’d never seen before, flat shoes. She dashed back out to her car as he watched, and some instinctive sense told him to follow her. He hung back, and then followed as she started her car, turned right on Jackson Street, and headed east. He kept a healthy distance from her, and was surprised when he saw her stop in Chinatown. What she was doing made no sense at all, and it was almost dinnertime. For an instant, his heart sank and he wondered if there was a man involved, but she didn’t look dressed for that, as she parked her car and hurried across the street to a shabby address. He saw her knock, then hesitate, then knock again, the door opened then, there was a brief exchange, and then she handed an envelope to someone standing behind the door, and as André watched he could see even from there that she was deathly pale, and instantly he knew that danger was involved. Something was going to happen to her. Someone was threatening her, blackmail perhaps. He almost leapt from his own car, leaving it parked in a crosswalk and running to the door where she had disappeared. And if he made a fool of himself, he didn’t care. Sabrina had been through enough in her life, and if now someone was trying to do something to her, he’d kill them before he’d let anything happen to her. He knocked on the door, once, twice, there was no answer and he began to pound, and then he began looking at the solidity of the door to see if he could break it down. He was sorry he hadn’t brought Antoine. But just as he had the thought, the door opened a crack.

  “Thank you.” He startled the woman on the other side, and shoved the door into her face as he walked in. It was a darkened hall, a narrow staircase just in front of them, and she almost leapt at him.

  “You can’t come in here.”

  “My wife just came in,” he lied to the landlady, “she’s expecting me,” but he knew as he looked at her, in a filthy bathrobe and slippers, that no one was expecting him, and he couldn’t imagine why Sabrina had come, unless his guess had been right. They were blackmailing her. “Mrs. Harte. Where is she?”

  “I don’t know … there’s no one here … you make mistake.…”

  And without another word, André took one of his huge hands and shoved the woman against the wall. “Where is she? Now!” He roared at her and her eyes flew to the top of the stairs, but not as quickly as André’s feet as she shrieked and followed him. She tried to keep him from opening the first door on the second floor, and that only made it easier for him. He pushed his way inside and found himself in a room the size of a cell with one long filthy table in it, and beside it a tray of instruments. Sabrina was standing half dressed in the corner of the room, and a tall, seedy man reached for a gun as both Sabrina and the woman screamed. André didn’t move farther than he had come, but he glanced at Sabrina once as the doctor leveled the gun at him.

  “Are you all right?” She nodded and he turned his eyes back to the man with the gun. “Why is she here?” But he knew instinctively.

  “She came of her own choice. Are you the police?” The gun wavered once and then held firm as Sabrina held her breath.

  “No.” André’s voice was strangely calm. “She is my wife, and she won’t be needing you. She made a mistake. You can keep the money, but I am going to take her home.” He spoke as though to a child, and he correctly sensed that the man with the gun was drunk. It almost made him ill to think of what he would have done to her, but he couldn’t think of that now. He turned to Sabrina again. “Get dressed.” His voice was harsher with her than with the man. He knew now why she had come. He had seen a place like this in Paris once, when he had been very young, with a girl he had fallen in love with when he was twenty-one. She had lived through it, but he had sworn to himself that no woman he loved would ever go through that again, and none had. He saw out of the corner of his eye that Sabrina was dressed at last. And he waved her toward the door, and looked at the man again. “I do not know your name, and I do not wish to know. We will never tell anyone that we were here.” He pushed Sabrina toward the door, and the doctor hesitated and lowered the gun, letting her pass, but he looked at André. He admired his guts, and wanted to help them out.

  “I’ll do it while you wait outside, if you want. It won’t take me long.” André wanted to gag, but thanked him politely and then dragged Sabrina down the stairs without a word. He tore open the door through which they’d entered from the street, and pulled her outside. There was no sound from the building they had left, and he took a big breath of air and then pulled her wordlessly toward his car, still parked crazily where he had left it ten minutes before. It had been no longer than that, and if he had come five minutes later than he had … or ten … he shuddered at the thought … and didn’t look at her as he dragged her to his car, pulled open the door and shoved her roughly inside.

  “André …” Her voice was shaking as badly as his would have, if he had spoken to her.… “I have my car … I can—”

  He turned to her, deathly white. “Don’t say a word to me!” His voice was as tight as wire, and she was too frightened to even cry as he drove her back to Thurston House, parked, and walked to the front door, and her hands were shaking so badly, she couldn’t even unlock the door and he took the keys from her, stepped inside, waited until she had followed suit and closed the door and then suddenly his voice roared at her as they stood in the hall beneath the dome. “My God, what in hell were you doing there?” No words were strong enough, there was nothing to tell her the full measure of what he felt. “Do you know that you could have died on that table in that filthy little place! Do you know that he was drunk! Do you know that?… Listen to me …” He grabbed her shoulders with both hands and shook her until her teeth rattled in her head.

  “Let go of me!” She pulled away from him, sobbing now. “What choice did I have? What did you want me to do? Do it myself! I thought of that! I don’t know how.…” She sank to her knees in the hall, her head bowed, the full impact of what she had almost done crushing her, and now he knew. She l
ooked up at him, her face contorted in tears, her voice devoured by sobs, and suddenly he bent down and pulled her into his arms, pressing her to him, tears running down his face too, holding her, crushing her, his hands in her hair.

  “How could you do a thing like that? Why didn’t you tell me?” So that was what it was … he looked down at her, heartbroken that she hadn’t trusted him enough. “Why didn’t you tell me? How long have you known?” He pulled her to a chair and sat her on his lap like a child. She looked as though she were about to faint in his arms, and he didn’t feel much better than she.

  “I found out last week.” Her voice was small and sad, and he could feel her whole body shake. She wondered if she would ever feel the same again, and wondered how she would have survived if he hadn’t come … now she knew how wrong she had been.… “I just thought … I had to solve it for myself … I didn’t want you to feel pressured.…”

  The tears rolled slowly down his face. “It’s my baby too, don’t you think I had a right to know?”

  She nodded, aghast, unable to speak. “I’m so sorry. I …” She couldn’t go on, and he held her tight again as she cried. “It’s just … I’m too old … we’re not married … I didn’t want you to feel …” He suddenly pulled away and looked at her.

  “Why do you think I’m building that house? For Antoine? What did you think I was doing that for?”

  She stared at him stupidly. “But you never said …”

  He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t think you were that dumb … of course I want to marry you. I thought we’d take our time, and do it sometime this year. I thought you knew that.”

  “How could I know?” She almost choked. “You never said anything to me.”

  “Merde alors,” he stared at her in disbelief, “you are the smartest woman I know, and also the most stupid sometimes.” She smiled through her tears and he kissed her eyes, and then he looked serious again. Neither of them wanted to look back to an hour ago. It was the most frightening experience of her life, and perhaps his as well. A life had almost been lost, a life they both cared about, and she would never have been the same again, he was sure of that, mentally or physically. He shuddered to think of it. “Tell me something now … do you really want that badly to get rid of it?” It was a problem that had to be faced. She must have wanted to get rid of it very desperately to go through that. It had been a nightmare for her.

  But to his amazement she shook her head. “No, but I felt I owed it to you.…”It was true, even her age didn’t seem to matter as much as it had a week before. She had given it a lot of thought and she had been doing it for him, so as not to complicate his life, put pressure on him, force him to marry her.…

  “You would do that for me?” He looked appalled, and felt his hands shake again. “You could have died. Do you know that? Not to mention our child, whom you would have killed.”

  “Don’t say that.” She closed her eyes, and when she did, the tears were flowing down her cheeks again. “I just thought that …” He stopped her right then. Enough had been said.

  “You were wrong. Do you want our child?” The way he said it, who wouldn’t have, and she nodded her head, keeping her eyes on him.

  “Yes. You don’t think it’s ridiculous my being so old?” She smiled sheepishly at him and he laughed.

  “I’m even older than you are, and I don’t feel ridiculous. In fact,” he kissed her neck, “I feel very young and strong.” She smiled at him and they kissed.

  “Do you want the baby, André?”

  “Absolutely. I must ask you sometime though why you felt so sure that this was impossible … it seems to me I recall your telling me that there was no chance of this happening, hmmm.…” He was teasing her now, and the nightmare in Chinatown began to fade quietly.

  “I was wrong.” She grinned. She almost looked victorious now.

  “Apparently. I’ll bet you were surprised. Serves you right.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You will never know how much.” The memory sobered both of them, and he sounded stern when he spoke to her again.

  “Whatever happens in this life, Sabrina, no matter how ugly or frightening or sordid or sad, I want to know about it. There is nothing you have to hide from me. Nothing. Is that clear?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry …” She began to cry again and he held her close. “I almost …” She began to shake again, and he rocked her like a child.

  “Don’t think of it. We were fortunate. I followed you from the house.” She looked stunned. “I don’t know why. I jumped in the car a few minutes after you left. I just had a feeling that something was terribly wrong, and I was right. But that’s over now.” He smiled and looked at her. “We’re going to have a baby, my love. Doesn’t that make you feel proud?”

  “Yes, and a little silly too. I feel like a grandmother.”

  “Well, you’re not.”

  And that reminded her. “Do you suppose Jon and Antoine will be horribly upset?” He suspected that Jon would, but perhaps not Antoine, he wasn’t sure, and he didn’t really care. All he cared about now was her, and their child.

  “If they are, tant pis for them. This is our life, our child. They are both grown men with their own lives to lead. When they have babies, they won’t ask us what we think, so we won’t ask them.” She laughed at the simplicity of it in his mind.

  “That’s simple enough. Well, I guess that takes care of everything.”

  “Not quite,” he laughed at her, “you’re forgetting one detail, a small one, I’ll admit, but nonetheless … perhaps we should do our child the favor of making it legitimate. Sabrina, my darling, will you marry me?”

  She grinned at him. “Are you serious?”

  He laughed again, and pointed at the still flat tummy as she continued to sit in his lap. “Is that serious?”

  “Yes.” She was laughing too now, her eyes still red from her tears, but she looked happier now by far. “Very serious.”

  “Then so am I. Well?”

  She threw her arms around his neck again. “Yes, yes, yes … yes!…” He kissed her hard on the mouth and carried her upstairs to her bed, and deposited her gently on the side where she slept. She had given birth to Jon in that bed, but they both knew that wouldn’t happen this time. She was too old to give birth at home, and he wanted every precaution taken for her. But it wasn’t the birth but the wedding on their minds now.

  “When do you want to get married, my love?” He smiled down at her and crossed his arms, and he had never looked more handsome to her.

  “I don’t know … shouldn’t we wait for spring vacation for Jon? It would be nice if he were here.” But at that, André laughed out loud and pointed at her tummy again.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  She laughed too. “Hmmm … you may be right … I don’t suppose we should wait.”

  That reminded him. “When will it be born?”

  “The doctor said October.” It was only seven months away, and they might still be able to pretend that the baby was premature in the years to come. At her age, a baby born two months early was possible … but not much more than that.…

  “How about this Saturday?”

  She lay back against her pillows and smiled at him, looking lovelier than any woman he had ever known. “That sounds wonderful … are you sure that’s what you want to do though?”

  “I’ve wanted that since the day we met. I’m only sorry we waited this long … sorry that we didn’t meet twenty years ago.” She had thought of that too. They had wasted so much time, but perhaps that was the way it was meant to be. “Saturday almost isn’t soon enough.”

  She was smiling happily. “Shall we call and tell Antoine?”

  “I’ll call him later and tell him everything’s all right, but first,” he scowled at her, “I want you to rest. For a future mama, you haven’t exactly had the ideal day, and I’m going to take care of you now. Do you understand?” He glanced at his watch. It was after eight. “I’m going t
o make you something to eat. You’re eating for two now, you know.” He bent down and kissed her again, and ran downstairs to make her one of the omelets she loved, à la française, but when he came upstairs again, she didn’t even eat for one. Between the exhaustion of what they had been through and the baby growing in her womb, she was sound asleep on their bed.

  33

  When Sabrina and André drove back to Napa on Thursday afternoon, they left her car in town. André had picked it up earlier that day and put it in the garage they rented across from Thurston House, and they drove up in his, and Antoine saw them arrive, as he left the fields and walked toward the house. It was a beautiful sunny day, and Sabrina looked as happy as a young girl as she walked toward Antoine. It was difficult to believe she was the same woman who had left the day before. But Antoine had already heard the relief in his father’s voice the night before when he’d called. He hadn’t explained anything, but Antoine knew instantly that everything was all right and he was sure of it now, and they told him that night as André poured his son a glass of champagne.

  “We have something to say to you.” Antoine was amused, they were like two kids, and he guessed ahead of time what the news would be, or at least part of it. They weren’t going to tell him about the baby yet.

  “Should I guess?” He teased. “Let’s see …” Sabrina was giggling like a girl, and André grinned broadly at his son.

  “All right, you smart aleck, never mind … We’re getting married on Saturday.”

  “So soon?” That was the only thing that did surprise him, he thought they were going to tell him that they were engaged, and then suddenly something dawned on him. He looked at Sabrina guardedly, but he could see nothing there. Perhaps it was too soon, he thought, but if that was true, he was happy for them. He hadn’t even thought of that when she had seemed so ill. And he beamed at them now and kissed them both on both cheeks. André asked him to be the best man, and that Saturday at the little church in town, Antoine stood beside André as Sabrina walked down the aisle alone, their workers were there and no one else, and the minister said the words solemnly as tears ran down Sabrina’s cheeks, and she became Andre’s wife, and afterward they shared a sumptuous meal that the men themselves had prepared and a whole case of champagne, although Sabrina only drank one glass, and Antoine took her aside and gave her a warm hug.