Vanished

It seemed an eternity before she turned and looked at him, but when she did, it was obvious that she hadn't seen him. She lit four candles, and slipped some money into the collection box, and then she stood and stared at the altar again, and there were tears on her cheeks too. And then, head bowed, she pulled the fur coat more tightly around her. She began to walk slowly between the pews, as though her whole body ached, and her soul with it. She was only inches from him, when he gently reached out a hand and stopped her. She looked startled when he did, and she glanced up at him with a look of astonishment, as though she had been wakened from a distant dream. But as she looked into his eyes, she gasped and stared at him. Her hand flew to her mouth, her eyes brimmed with the tears she had shed at the altar.

“Oh my God …” It couldn't be. But it was. She hadn't seen him in almost seven years. It was impossible to believe it.

He touched her hand without making a sound, and as he did, without hesitating she melted into him, without a thought, without a word, and he put his arms around her. It seemed right that they had both come here, that they should be together today, and they clung to each other in the church like two drowning people. It was a long time before she pulled away, and looked up at him. He looked older than he had before, more battle worn, more weary in many ways. There were small scars on his face, a bad one she couldn't see on his arm, the leg of course, and gray in his hair, and yet as she looked at him, she felt eighteen, and her heart pounded as it had when she was a girl in Paris. She had known for years that there was a part of her that would never release Charles Delauney. She had known that for a long time, and she had come to live with it. It was something she had to accept, like pain, like the leg he had to drag at times, or that irked him so much when the weather was cold or damp. It was a pain like the others she had learned to carry. “I don't know what to say,” she smiled sadly at him, wiping her own tears away, “after all this time, 'how are you?' seems so stupid.” It did, but what else was there to say? She had heard echoes of him from time to time, but nothing in many years now. She had known for some time that his father was ill. Her own parents had died, within months of each other, before she'd come home from Europe. But Charles knew that.

“You look incredible.” He could only stare at her. At thirty, she was even more beautiful than she'd been at eighteen when they were married. It was as though her promise had been fulfilled, and yet her eyes were still so sad. It hurt him just to see them. “Are you all right?” He meant it in a thousand ways, and as she always had before, she understood him. Eventually, they had become like one dance, one song, one movement. He would have half a thought and she could finish it without saying a word. They just knew each other so well. It was as though they were the identical halves of a single person. But no more, they were two halves now … or were they whole? He wondered as he watched her. She was expensively dressed, and the sable coat was incredible. The hat had been done for her by Lily Dache, and made quite an effect the way she wore it. She was certainly more sophisticated than she had been as a young girl. Like this, she might have frightened him then, he smiled to himself, or perhaps not appealed to him in the same way. But she didn't frighten him now, she tore at his heart, as she had for years. Why had she been so damn stubborn the last time he saw her?

“You look so serious, Marielle.” His eyes seemed to bore into hers, wanting the answers to a thousand questions.

She tried to smile, and turned away before she looked at him again. “It's a difficult day …for both of us …” If it were otherwise, they wouldn't have been there. It still seemed remarkable to her that they were standing here together, after all these years, in Saint Patrick's Cathedral. “Have you come home for good?” She was curious about him. He looked bigger and stronger than he had before, more powerful, and as though he would tolerate even less nonsense. And difficult as it was to believe, his nerves seemed even closer to the surface.

He shook his head, wishing they could slip into a pew and talk all day. “I don't think I could stand it here. I've been back for three weeks, and I'm already itching to go back to Spain.”

“Spain?” She raised an eyebrow. His life seemed so integrally interwoven with Paris and their memories there; it was hard to imagine him somewhere else now.

“The war there. I've been there for two years.”

She nodded then. It made perfect sense. “I wondered once if you were there.” It was his kind of battle. “Somehow I had a feeling you would go.” She'd been right, and he had no reason not to. Nothing to lose. Nothing to gain. Nothing to stay home for.