Forgiving Paris Read online

  Faster, she told herself. Move your feet.

  And she did, as fast as she could until the group of tents came into view. Dirty, dilapidated, rain-beaten and sun-bleached. Yes. She was almost home. The only home she knew these days.

  Already she could imagine the relief, sense the way her body was about to come to life again. Because someone would have the drug for her. The people of the underpass shared. Last week she’d bought the junk, so today her tent friends would step up. They all swapped needles, so Alice didn’t need one of those, either.

  She’d take the hit anyway she could get it.

  Anything to feel alive again—normal… even for a few hours.

  Alice carried a bag with her, a crocheted bag with a long strap that once was the colors of the rainbow. Now it was the color of dirt, like everything about her existence.

  Push, she told herself. Get to the tent. Just… a few… more… steps. Alice pushed herself until she dropped to the mouth of a crowded tent. Three girls were passed out near the back. Another two—a married couple—were nodding, succumbing to the rescue of their latest dose of heroin.

  “I need it.” Alice’s entire body convulsed now. She pulled her knees to her chin and rocked. “Please, someone. Hit me up.”

  Needles lay scattered on the torn tent floor. Tonight, sweet, handsome Benji was the most alert of the group. “I got you.” He grabbed a needle from a filthy bowl and grabbed Alice’s hand. “Hold out your arm, Alice.”

  It was all she could do to obey. Her muscles were tense, cramping. Benji looked a little high, and he wobbled as he crawled to her with the needle. But the sharp silver point found its mark, somewhere along the tracks of heroin memories that made up her arm.

  “There, Alice, baby.” The minute the needle was out of Alice’s skin, Benji used the syringe to fill the vial again. “My turn.”

  With every heartbeat, heroin flooded Alice’s veins and pumped through her body. And as it did, the aching stopped. Her arms fell to her sides, no longer shaking, and her legs stretched out in front of her. “More, Benji.” She closed her eyes. “Give me more.”

  “No.” He leaned back against the tent pole. The drug was working for him, too.

  “I need it.” Alice leaned closer and put her hand on Benji’s arm. “The sick… it’s worse today.”

  Benji shook his head. “This is strong stuff, baby. That’s enough.” Benji used to be a med student with a dream of being a surgeon. The druggies in the camp trusted him.

  “It’s not that strong.” Alice stared at the man. He was twenty-five, maybe thirty. No telling with heroin. Addicts aged a decade overnight. Alice had asked him once, but Benji said he didn’t know. “Too many years.” That’s what he had told her. Too many since he’d checked out of life and given himself to the drug. Everything about his old self was gone. All he had these days was the needle.

  By now Alice’s headache should’ve let up. But instead her temples pounded. She stood on her knees and looped her arms around Benji’s neck. The two of them had found solace in each other’s arms more than once. When they were sober. When they weren’t sick or high. She kissed his dry lips and stared into his droopy eyes. “I need it, Benji. Give it to me.”

  If he were sober, Benji never would’ve agreed. He knew when a batch of heroin was strong, and he knew when it was maybe laced with fentanyl. Peppered, he called it. But tonight, in this moment, Benji was too high to care. He returned the kiss and worked his hands into her hair. “You’re beautiful, baby.” His words were slurred. “You know that?”

  “Give me more.” She pressed herself against him. “Please, Benji.”

  And then, as if he was as intoxicated by her presence as he was by the drug, Benji did as she asked. He leaned back and felt around for the still half-full syringe. She helped him stay steady long enough to find her arm, to find a vein strong enough to take the jab.

  “I’ll do more, too. We can find the high together.” Benji kissed her cheek and aimed the needle. And just like that he was feeling the same euphoria she was feeling. She knew because she could see it on his face.

  In a rush the second hit overtook her, warming her and offering a peace she only knew after a hit. Her headache faded and she fell against Benji’s chest.

  “You okay, baby?” He ran his hand over her matted hair. “You okay?”

  Suddenly a sense of panic came over her. Because she couldn’t make her mouth work, couldn’t find the words. And something else. She couldn’t draw a breath. “Ben… Ben…”

  He was up on his knees now, taking her by the shoulders. “I told you… not to, Alice!” His voice was loud, frightened. “This stuff is peppered. It’s too strong.”

  Alice could feel herself losing consciousness, her breathing deep and labored. Why couldn’t she fill her lungs? What was happening? Then she remembered. This had occurred before when one of the heroin batches was laced. When it was peppered. That time one of the tent people had shot her up with Narcan and she’d lived.

  It was her last hope. “Narc… Narcan.”

  “I don’t have it, baby. It’s all gone.” Benji shook her again. “Stay with me, Alice. Stay with me.”

  Alice was in a whirlpool. A deadly, dark horrific tunnel, and she was falling down… down… into the thickest, dankest liquid. And she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t take another breath.

  She remembered how she really loved Benji and how the man had turned to illegal pain meds when he tore his meniscus playing football with a few friends, and how he’d gotten caught stealing from the hospital where he was doing his residency and how they’d fired him. He would never work in the medical field again, Benji had told her. And in a thick fog of shame and addiction, Benji had left home and never looked back.

  His family still didn’t know where he was.

  I love you, Benji. I’m sorry. M’man, if you’d only opened the door. She was out of oxygen, and she felt herself fall to the cold tent-covered ground.

  “Baby, stay with me!” Benji shouted at her and shook her again and again. But his words began to fade until eventually her heartbeat stopped. And then there was nothing but eternal darkness and one final thought before death had its way with her. The thought she couldn’t bear to admit to Benji or even herself.

  Alice was pregnant.

  * * *

  THE BEEPING SOUNDS must’ve been some part of hell. That’s all Alice could imagine. Because she had died. She had felt her heart stop beating.

  But like the wings of a butterfly spreading on the first warm day of spring, Alice finally blinked her eyes open and looked around. She was in a hospital, hooked up to machines. Her hand instinctively grabbed at her throat. If she’d survived, she was surely on life support. But her neck was soft and whole.

  No tubes in her mouth or esophagus.

  I’m alive. How could I be alive?

  Then she remembered the baby, and her hand moved to her abdomen. Surely the tiny life inside her had died in this ordeal. All because Alice wouldn’t listen to Benji. Her eyes scanned the monitors and machines around her until she saw the nurses’ button. She pressed it and called out at the same time. “Help me! Someone, please!”

  An older uniformed woman rushed into the room. “You’re awake!”

  Panic welled up in Alice’s heart and limbs. “I… I don’t feel well.” Of course she didn’t feel well. How long had it been since she’d had a fix? “I need… I need more.”

  “Shhh.” The woman stood at her bedside. “I’m taking care of you.” She put her hand on Alice’s shoulder. “You nearly died. Do you know that?”

  “Y-y-yes. What… happened?”

  The nurse hesitated. “I believe it was a miracle.” She sat in the chair next to Alice’s bed. “What’s your name?”

  Why should she tell the woman? She needed to get back to her tent, back to Benji. She had survived the heavy stuff, lived through the pepper. She wouldn’t push it so hard next time. She started to sit up, but a wave of pain hit her head and slammed
her back to the pillow. “I need more…”

  “You need to rest.” The nurse looked straight at her. “My name is Fran. And you’re at a rehab facility just outside Paris.” She was kind and soft-spoken. “We can’t get far without your name.”

  Alice squeezed her eyes shut. The pain in her head was getting worse. Her arms and legs throbbed. She didn’t ask for this, didn’t ask to be rescued. “Take me back.” She had no memory of life before heroin. There was no returning to who she used to be.

  “You’re not going back.” The woman stayed in the chair. “Just your first name. Then I’ll tell you how you got here.”

  Her head was spinning now. What would it hurt to tell the woman? “Alice.” She pressed her thumb and fingers into her temples. “My name is Alice.”

  “One more question.” The nurse took a chart from the bedside table. “How old are you, Alice?”

  She didn’t want to say, didn’t want the horrified, pitiful look from Fran. But what did it matter? “I’m… eighteen.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Fran made a note in the chart.

  For the first time since Alice started using, she didn’t feel judged. She relaxed into the bed. This nurse probably saw people like Alice all the time. Her feet and hands started shaking. Or maybe they’d been shaking. “Please… can… can you give me a… a hit? Just… just one.”

  Nurse Fran stood and touched the side of Alice’s head. “You know I can’t do that.” She smiled, and there was something different about the woman. A light and certainty. “We’re going to get you better.”

  Alice wanted to throw up. No more heroin? She would have to find a way out of here, slip through a window maybe. She wouldn’t feel okay until she got the next needle. The nurse couldn’t possibly understand.

  “Is there anything you’d like to tell me, Alice?” Fran held Alice’s chart to her chest. She waited.

  Then Alice remembered and her shaking hand returned to her belly. “I…” If the baby had lived, it would’ve been Benji’s. He was the only one. She closed her eyes again. “I was pregnant. Before… before I overdosed.”

  Fran nodded. “You’re still pregnant, Alice.”

  A wave of nausea rushed through her gut and her head pounded. “I’m… I’m still…?”

  “Yes.” Fran put her hand on Alice’s shoulder. “You’ve been here five days, Alice.” The woman paused. “Would you like to hear what happened that night?”

  Not really, Alice thought. But maybe she should. “Yes. Please.”

  “Your friend must’ve known you were overdosing, because he was experiencing the same thing.”

  Benji had overdosed, too? Alice’s heartbeat picked up speed. And how had he gotten a cell phone? Must’ve been one of those cheap throwaways. “I… I remember taking my last breath.”

  “An officer was fifty feet away, about to check out the homeless camp. He heard your friend yelling and he rushed up in time to give you Narcan. Your friend wasn’t doing well, but he pointed at you. He wanted you to have it.”

  Alice sat up straighter. “What happened to him? To Benji?”

  For a few seconds the nurse didn’t say anything. She looked down at Alice’s chart and then back at Alice. “He didn’t make it. I’m… I’m so sorry. The officer had just one dose of Narcan on him and by the time backup came… It was too late.”

  “No.” Alice was screaming on the inside, but her voice was only a whisper. “Not Benji!” She rolled onto her side and buried her face in her pillow. “Not Benji!”

  “He had identification on him. We… were able to notify his parents. Benji is home, Alice. He’s finally home.” The nurse stepped away from the bed. “I’ll leave you alone for a bit. When I come back, we’ll make a plan to get you better.” She hesitated. “Your baby needs you, Alice.”

  Benji’s baby. The child who would never know a father now, all because Benji had asked the police officer to save her life over his own. She pictured Benji, holding her, caring for her. He would do anything for her, and he had. He had given his life for hers. For hers and the tiny baby he had known nothing about. Alice’s tears came then, and sobs took over until her sides heaved. Poor Benji. He had never made things right with his family, never found his way past the drug.

  But there was something Alice hated even more than that. The man who had been her friend and lover had died without hearing the words Alice had always meant to say. Her true feelings for Benji.

  She loved him, she did. But she had never told him.

  And now it was too late.

  CURRENT DAY 3

  Ready or not, Ashley Baxter Blake was finally going to have an art show in Paris. She and her sister Kari had been out shopping for a suitcase, and now they walked up the front porch steps of Ashley’s Indiana home and made their way inside.

  “All you have to do now is get those paintings shipped and pack.” Kari’s eyes sparkled. “You must be practically bursting, Ash. Paris! Can you believe it?”

  Ashley didn’t say anything. She led the way into the kitchen and leaned against the counter. Then she turned to her sister and made a few circles in the air with her index finger. “Yippee.”

  “No.” Kari’s smile faded. “Not again, Ashley. Please.” She set her purse down and came closer. “You and Landon are celebrating eighteen years. This trip, the art show, it’s all happening at the perfect time.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” Ashley sighed. “Maybe if I get the paintings shipped.” She motioned for Kari to follow her. “Come look at my paintings. I have to send twenty of them out tomorrow.”

  “Yes.” Kari sounded optimistic. “That’s the spirit. You need this trip, Ash. You do.”

  Ashley nodded. She’d been dodging the issue of how she felt about Paris ever since the gallery called and asked her to do a show. She could still hear the woman’s voice.

  This is Emilie Love, owner of Light of the Seine art gallery in Paris. The woman had explained that the shop used to be called Montmartre Gallery, where Ashley had worked twenty-three years ago. Now it was in the Marais district in the fourth arrondissement. We’d love to showcase your work.

  They were words she hadn’t heard since she had lived there. Montmartre… Marais… arrondissement. Ashley had taken the call out to the front porch, so she could catch her breath. The woman continued talking, her English perfect. Something about how the Montmartre Gallery had a different name now. Light of the Seine. A nod to the City of Light. “I’d be honored to showcase your work, Ashley. You are very, very talented. I’ve been through your offerings.”

  Of the hundred questions that had raced through Ashley’s mind, only one mattered. “How… did you hear about me?”

  “My customers ask about you.” There was a smile in the woman’s voice. “Several have requested a show.” She paused. “You paint from the heart. Everyone can see that.”

  You paint from the heart? The previous gallery owner had told Ashley that she had no talent, that she’d never make it as an artist. She had been forced to gather her few paintings and take them back to the small room she had rented that year. So they wouldn’t mar the good work of true artists.

  That’s what she’d been told.

  “You’re thinking about it again.” Kari followed her to the basement. “Trying to remember why you said yes in the first place.” She tapped Ashley on her shoulder. “Am I right?”

  Ashley looked back and allowed the slightest laugh. “Okay… maybe.”

  “You said yes because the people of Paris love your work.” Kari reached the basement floor and waited until Ashley faced her. “Your work, little sister.”

  “Right.” Ashley nodded, but her anxiety pressed in. She walked Kari to the first of a line of paintings. “This is what I’m sending. At least I think I am.”

  “These?” Kari looked down the row of art pieces lined against the wall. “Ashley… you can’t sell these. I want them.”

  This time Ashley’s laugh was genuine. “That’s the whole point of a show. You sell the wo
rk and start over again.”

  Kari shook her head. “Please… tell me you aren’t selling the one of Mom and Erin and the girls.”

  That particular painting hung just outside the bedroom Ashley shared with her husband, Landon. Where it would always remain. Ashley’s tribute to the people she loved, the ones who were in heaven together. “No, Kari. That one’s mine.”

  Ashley had given a version of the work to each of her siblings. Kari and Ryan kept theirs in their office. Brooke and Peter had theirs in a spare bedroom, Luke and Reagan’s hung near the front door. And Dayne and Katy kept Ashley’s heaven painting in their California house.

  Some things would always be too sacred to sell.

  “Look!” Kari walked slowly down the line of paintings. “You can’t sell these, either. There’s the old Baxter house back when Mom and Dad still lived in it.” She stopped and touched the framed piece. “I remember when you painted this. When you thought Landon was never coming home again.”

  “True.” Ashley stopped and bent down, studying the work. She could still remember standing in what had been her parents’ massive front yard, looking at the pretty house, getting the lighting just right, working on the sky and suddenly feeling someone behind her. And turning around to find Landon there. Home… forever home to her. “Maybe I shouldn’t let that one go.”

  “I mean.” Kari looked around the basement. “You must have a hundred paintings. How about you only sell the ones that don’t make me cry when I look at them.”

  She had a point. Ashley stared at her work. “But shouldn’t they get my best work?”

  “Listen.” Kari put her hand alongside Ashley’s face. “Everything you paint is your best work. Let’s pick out the twenty we can actually live without.”