No Sweeter Heaven: The Pascal Trilogy - Book 2 (27 page)

And then she noticed something else in that light, a tinge of silvery pink, and she realized that it was coming from around the baby’s heart. The infant stirred and gave a sudden hiccup. His skin turned rosy, first around his chest, then spreading outward into his limbs until he was pink all over. His little hands and feet began to flail around in the air, and he gave out a loud and healthy cry.

Life,
Lily thought, stunned by what she had just witnessed.
I’ve just seen life taken and given back again. And he did it. He did it with his love.

Tears poured down her face, tears of gratitude and joy. She didn’t understand any of it, but it didn’t seem to matter.

Father Chabot dropped to his knees, his hands pressed together in prayer, his eyes closed, his lips moving soundlessly, an expression of profound gratitude on his face.

Pascal bent his head and kissed the child’s brow. “Welcome to the world,” he said softly, the golden light fading now, like ripples being absorbed into a pond. “Make good use of it. Be well and strong.”

The baby stared into Pascal’s eyes, long and hard without blinking, and Lily could have sworn that pursed little mouth turned up in a sweet smile.

Pascal smiled back. “You’re on your own now, friend,” he murmured, then handed the infant to his mother, who gazed at Pascal wide-eyed, tears streaking her face.

“Give him a strong name, Emelie,” he said. “Your child is a worthy fighter. Be grateful for him and for the grace God has given him. He will do fine things.” He caressed the infant’s fragile cheek with the tip of his finger before stepping back. “Now put your warrior to your breast. We must finish things and nursing him will help.”

Pascal showed Lily how to deliver a placenta, as if this had been a most usual birth with the usual sort of finish.

“Clean up here, would you, Lily?” he said quietly. “I’ll see you later.” He abruptly left the room, only briefly glancing at Father Chabot as he went, accepting the effusive thanks of the new father with distraction.

She stared after him, torn between doing as he asked and ministering to the need she sensed in him. Pascal was usually so warm and good with his patients, laughing with them, or reassuring them, never in a hurry. And he was always strong and in control, not like this—so obviously vulnerable, so weary and drained.

With a sigh of defeat she cleaned up mother and child and the room, packed the medical bag, and tried to make up for her husband’s quick exit by admiring the baby, soothing the mother, complimenting the father on his forbearance, and settling everyone down. But the first moment she could, she said her farewells and left.

She was desperate to find Pascal, but no sooner was she out the door than Father Chabot was there behind her.

“Lily,” he called, using her private name. It caught her attention as nothing else would have done, and she spun around.

“Father?”

He steered her away from the house. “You did very well. The child was truly a gift from God, was he not?”

Lily shook her head. “Father … I have no words for what happened. Did you see? Did you see what Pascal did?”

“Yes,” Father Chabot said, smiling peacefully. “And I feel blessed to have been there.”

Lily frowned. “I don’t understand it. Such things aren’t possible. That baby was dead. There wasn’t a whisper of life in him. I don’t think there had been for some time, if Pascal’s expression was anything to go by. How did he
do
that?”

“Your husband is a special man, Lily—I may call you Lily?”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “I like being called Lily.”

“Good. I feel we are friends, and after this evening, we share an even more special bond. Given that, I thought it wise to speak to you tonight, before you go to him.” He took her firmly by the elbow. “Shall we take a little stroll?”

Lily had no choice but to walk alongside him.

“Yes, indeed,” he said conversationally, “your husband is a very special man, but you probably know that.”

Lily didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t the first time she had heard Pascal described as special. Charlie had said the same thing months before, and she was beginning to wonder if there wasn’t something to it.

“You realize, of course, that he is the man I told you of at St. Christophe?” he asked.

Lily nodded. “A maker of miracles, you called him. But I don’t believe in miracles, Father. I don’t even believe in God.”

“No? Then what did you see tonight?” Father Chabot smiled at her, his eyes merry.

Lily’s brow furrowed. What had she seen tonight in that bright, still room? Medicine hadn’t brought a dead child back to life, she knew that. It had been Pascal. Pascal and that wondrous light that filled the air and felt like the touch of a heaven she hadn’t believed in for a very long time.

“Are you saying that what I saw was God?” she asked. If that was God, He bore no resemblance to the God of her childhood, who punished without mercy and condemned rather than comforted. Father Mallet had never told her about a God of hope and love and life, a God who lived in light and joy rather than in a dark and cold stone chapel filled with the sound of tears.

“You saw your husband doing the Good Lord’s work, child.”

“Well, I don’t know what Pascal is doing rubbing shoulders with the Good Lord,” she said with a shrug, “but it worked when nothing else did. Father, I honestly don’t know what to think…”

“You shouldn’t think at all. What does your heart tell you?”

“My heart—my heart tells me that what I saw, what I felt, was a miracle. My head tells me that such things don’t exist.” She let out a long sigh. “But I felt so much love, so much joy and peace when Pascal was holding that little boy. It was as if a life force was going straight from Pascal into the baby. It was so beautiful, all brilliant gold.” She gave the priest a sharp look, realizing he was regarding her with grave interest. “You did see the light, didn’t you? It lit up the whole room.”

He lifted a shoulder apologetically. “I saw something, yes, something faint around your husband’s head. It made me think of a halo.”

“Well, yes, I suppose you could call it that, only it’s much bigger and brighter. I’ve seen it once before, all around him like that, but that was another sort of light, although it did have something of the same feel to it.” Lily’s mind raced, trying to put all the bits and pieces together. “There are usually colors when he works,” she added, “healing energy, although he says not many people can see it.”

Father Chabot nodded thoughtfully. “How very interesting that you do.”

“It seems so obvious—though I have to admit at first I didn’t see as clearly as I do now. Practice, I suppose.”

“Did you see this—this light coming from him from the very start?” he asked, fascinated.

Heat climbed into Lily’s face. “Oh, no. I had no idea who Pascal was. It was an accident, finding him the way I did.”

Father Chabot chuckled. “Yes, I heard about that. It didn’t sound like the usual way to go about locating a botanist, climbing about on an abbey wall.”

“He told you?” she said, glancing at him anxiously. “You didn’t tell him why I’d really gone to St. Christophe, did you? I mean, that I’d gone to find him? Well, not him, exactly, since I didn’t know who he was.”

“That is your story to tell, Lily. To be honest, I felt guilty enough about my part in the matter. However, I have come to think that everything has happened just as it ought, bringing us right to this night, with a newborn baby whose life was given back to him, and a man who very badly needs his wife.”

“He—you think he needs me?” Lily said, her hand clutching Father Chabot’s sleeve. It was suddenly the most important question in the world and she desperately needed an answer. “Why would he need someone like me? I’m odious!”

“You are not odious in the least,” Father Chabot said. “You are a sweet, warm, loving woman who has never been loved or appreciated as you ought, so you do not think yourself worthy. Yet the most worthy of men loves you with everything he has in him.”

She stopped dead in her tracks. “That can’t be,” she said, her voice shaking.

“It is true. He has waited and waited for you. He is only half a man without you, alone in this world and frightened.”

“Pascal, frightened?” she said with disbelief. “That’s ridiculous. He’s the strongest, most forceful person I know.”

“Lily, my child. You saw him tonight. You saw that he is not as other men.”

She looked away. She didn’t want Pascal to be different. How could he love her if he were, when more ordinary, flawed people found it so difficult?

“Can you not imagine how lonely he is? Can you not imagine his fear that you will not be able to love him for who he is, now that you have seen what he is?”

“He is just Pascal, a man like everyone else!” she cried desperately.

Father Chabot took her hands between his. “Child. You know the truth. I suspect you have known it from the very beginning, which is why you convinced yourself that he was a depraved devil. It was far safer to think that than to acknowledge the other.”

“He—he told you that?”

“It has bothered him, Lily, this vow you made to hate him. I am not surprised that you have fought so hard against him. But it is time to acknowledge the truth.”

Father Chabot’s gentle compassion broke through Lily’s defenses and landed in that soft, vulnerable place in her breast, that place that Pascal had shown her, where only truth spoke.

Truth. Awful, wrenching, heartbreaking truth.

From the very beginning … Lily couldn’t help thinking of that devastating moment when she had first seen Pascal’s face, the haunted look of a fallen angel in his eyes. And she’d been right. Yet he was not like Satan, fallen from God’s grace, but simply an angel fallen to earth, as if he’d misplaced his wings and tumbled out of heaven quite by mistake. Tonight he’d even had a halo. Tonight he’d made a miracle happen.

Oh, God. It really was true.

“Father, I can’t,” she wept, terrified. “I don’t know how to do this. I’ve never seen his God.”

“Haven’t you?” Father Chabot asked softly.

“No! All I have seen are dark, damp walls and cold anger and ugliness. If such a God exists, He has not shown Himself to me.”

“He has shown you what few others have ever seen, Lily. He has shown you His light.”

Lily’s scalp prickled. “Why?” she whispered.

“I imagine for the same reason He sent you to Pascal.”

“Why would God have sent Pascal an atheist?” She looked at Father Chabot, unblinking, needing to see the truth in his eyes.

“You are no more an atheist than I am,” Father Chabot said with a gentle smile. “You’ve just had your head filled with nonsense.”

“But I drive Pascal to distraction—I’m impossible, and stubborn, and disgracefully spoiled—all of the things he has no use for.” She trembled from head to toe.

“You are who he needs. You, just as you are, complete with shortcomings. You are the woman he loves, the only woman he has ever loved in this way.” Father Chabot looked at her intently. “Did you not hear what he begged you before he laid his hands on that child? He
needed
you. It took tremendous courage for him to do what he did tonight, knowing he might lose you once you witnessed the truth. Did you not see how he hesitated out of fear, for that very reason? But he could not deny God, even for you. That is the measure of his love.”

Lily turned away from the priest and stared toward the cottage she shared with Pascal. Pascal … a special man, touched by God. Chosen by God. Her heart felt as if it might be ripped from her chest any moment.

“What can I do?” she asked, her voice no more than a faint whisper in the night.

“Love him, Lily.” Father Chabot’s voice came clear and strong behind her. “Let him be the man he needs to be, in body as well as in soul. God has given you a great gift, child, and a great responsibility.”

Lily mutely shook her head, tears streaming down her face.

“Take good care of him, Lily.”

He said a quiet prayer behind her. When she next looked up, he was gone.

Lily took her time walking home. She had no idea what to say to Pascal when she got there, no idea of what he would say to her. But she understood why he had left so quickly. She understood the fear of rejection and the measures one took to avoid it. She’d been doing just that all of her life.

“Pascal?” She pushed the door open. The house was dark. No noise. No lamps. No Pascal.

She opened the door to the barn, and Bean flew out, wildly leaping around in canine joy.

“Hello, little Bean,” Lily said, bending down and scratching her ears, calming her. “I’m happy to see you too, but I wish I hadn’t, because it means Pascal hasn’t been home, has he?” Bean washed her face in reply.

Lily sighed. Wherever he’d gone, he’d gone alone.

“Oh, Bean, he shouldn’t be alone, imagining all sorts of dire consequences, just because of what he did tonight. He ought to be with me, so that I can tell him that I’ll never go away from him. Never. I don’t ever want him to feel alone again.”

Bean wagged her tail and ran over to the door, asking to be let out, and Lily opened it for her. The house felt oddly empty and silent, and Lily lit the oil lamps, another gift from a grateful patient. Looking around, she realized that Pascal had finished cleaning up when she’d gone to see Jean-Jacques.

Her hands clenched into fists. Her beloved brother. He wasn’t the person she’d loved and trusted all of her life. The person she’d loved would have taken her into his arms, no matter how she looked. He would have introduced her to his friends and taken pleasure in her hard-earned accomplishments. He would never have turned her away.

She looked up toward the chateau. Lights twinkled in the windows, and the faint echo of raised voices and laughter drifted down through the warm night. Jean-Jacques was probably having yet another party for his precious friends, celebrating his good fortune with not a care to what she might be feeling, not a thought to his sister in the hovel he’d given her.

“Damn you, Jean-Jacques!” She turned away abruptly, not wanting so vivid a reminder of what a fool she’d been.