Chapter 335: Patty XXXVIII—Fogged Memories
“You know, Patrick you really should come in for mass, you said yourself that your team doesn’t have practice tomorrow morning, and you would have time before your game.”
Patrick smiled and laughed. “I’m already a Catholic, Andrew,” he replied and he doused oil and vinegar over the French fries on his plate. “You act like I’m in need of conversion, which I’m not.” He popped a fry into his mouth. “How can you say these are better than McDonald’s? What a joke!” These fries had no taste; they were fat, starchy, hunks of potato, no personality to them at all.
Father Sullivan laughed. “Forgive me for trying to better your tastes, Pat, but I thought you would appreciate better dining than a tacky fast food joint. I brought you here hoping you might be tempted by the steak or the lobster and of course you would find a way to come here and order, a hamburger and fries.”
Patrick grinned, “Well the hamburger is good, and I’ll give you that.” He picked up the fat burger and took a huge bite, savoring the seasoned pink flesh of the meat on his tongue, the mayonnaise and ketchup, the toasted bread. “But you can have the fries. I’ll stop at McDonalds later.”
Sullivan lifted his eyebrows. “You think I would eat those fries after the slop you just poured on them?”
Patrick sniffed looking at the drowned fries. “They should serve malt vinegar.” He looked at Sullivan’s smile. “So how have you been doing, my friend? Stephane asked about you just the other day. It worries me.”
Father Sullivan laughed. “Why would that worry you?”
Patrick nodded. “The last thing I want him doing is joining the Church.”
Andrew grinned. “If God wants your brother, He will take him.”
Patrick half smiled. “God has never dealt with me before.” The sigh from Sullivan tickled him. Exasperating the clergyman wasn’t top on the list of Patrick’s goals, to be honest, but it came so naturally, ingrained from years of being a torturous youth.
“Hehehehehe…. You can’t catch me I’m the Runner Road Man!”
The meat dried in Patrick’s mouth. Memories of his sister as a four year old flooded his mind, how she consistently parroted the wrong words to every nursery rhyme and fairy tale she ever heard. Everyone thought Alexandra shy and somewhat feeble minded as a small child, Patrick had known better. She just liked to antagonize. Why would he be jogged into such a vivid reminiscing like that?
“
Patrick looked at Father Sullivan who squinted and scanned the patio, at the people around them. Well at least he knew he had heard an actual girl right now. “Have you heard at all from Corinne?” Andrew said without making eye contact.
Patrick grimaced. “Volanges’ wife?”
Sullivan nodded slowly.
“No, I do not even know where Volanges is, much less Corinne. I assumed that you would have had that in order when you helped her, like you usually do.” Patrick didn’t think too much about Corinne Volanges or her daughter. He trusted Sullivan enough to decide that not prying into that poor woman’s fate was none of his business.
“Well last
I heard,” Sullivan said, still in that cautious voice. “She was dating a
policeman from
“Why bring her up now?” Patrick asked. He didn’t like the haunted expression on Father Sullivan’s face at all. Goosebumps pricked his skin and he even had an urge to cross himself.
“Because right over there, that little girl behind you with the ball is a dead ringer for Katrina, but it can’t be her, she’s too young. Katrina would be six or seven now wouldn’t she?”
Patrick felt relieved that nothing more serious bothered Sullivan and he turned around to see the little girl. His eyes widened, not a girl, a kitten. Sullivan was right, the ebony haired, round cheeked little girl standing there with a jack o’lantern grin, looked exactly like Corinne’s daughter.
“I’m the Runner Road Man!” The little girl giggled.
Patrick looked around for Corinne perhaps, or any other could be parent. He didn’t see any adult looking to their direction.
“Don’t you mean Ginger Bread man sweetheart?” Andrew asked in a pleasant voice. “Where is your Mommy?”
“Mommy’s goooony!” The little girl
declared in a pipsqueak voice, and Patrick felt a pain in his chest thinking of
how much he missed being a young boy, goading his little sister into giggles
and shrieks. “Goony Goony!
Mommy goony! GONE! I runner away away
like the Runner
“Well she can’t be Katrina,” Patrick said. “Asides from being too small, she’s actually happy.”
The little girl wrinkled her nose. “Baby talk! You talk baby talk!”
Sullivan beamed from ear to ear, and Patrick wondered how the man could stay a priest when he obviously would be much better off with a wife and daughters. He left his seat and went down on one knee in front of the little girl. “Not baby talk, sweetie, French. My friend is only speaking in a different language. How old are you sweetie?”
The girl giggled and held up her chubby baby hand, “Four, I’m four shut door four four four! I was four yesterday!”
“Where’s your daddy? Honey?”
The girl’s smile disappeared, her pink mouth turned down at the corners and the color vanished from her skin. Large tears dripped from her eyes. “Daddy!” She squealed. “I want Daddy!”
The people around them began to notice them now, some standing up and looking over. Patrick looked around for a waitress and gasped when the girl grabbed onto his legs, crying into them. “I want Daddy!” She looked up at him with beautiful eyes. “I want Daddy!”
Patrick touched her cheek, feeling bad for the poor thing. “What’s your Daddy’s name?” He asked and he picked up the girl. “We can find him.”
The girl shook her head. “Nooo…”
“What’s his name?”
“I want Daddy!”
“Aw Christ,” Patrick muttered in French and he looked helplessly at Father Sullivan. “What do we do with her?”
“CECILIA!”
The girl leaped off Patrick and scrambled under the table. “NOOO!” she squealed.
“Cecilia is that you?”
The pale skinned, dark eyed woman who appeared at the table took Patrick’s breath away. He even saw Sullivan blink in amazement as the woman leaned her curvy body over and reached for the girl. “Cecilia come here.” The woman said her voice accented and husky.
“Are you her mother?” Patrick asked.
The woman looked at him, stunning features, sculpted delicately like an angel. “No,” she said. “I help take care of her. Cecilia, darling, come here now.” Crawling like a tense kitten, Cecilia obeyed, hugging the woman tightly as she lifted her up in her arms.
“You should take her to her father,” Sullivan said in a voice far too high to be taken seriously. Patrick grinned. Andrew was smitten with her! “The little girl asked for her father.”
The woman shook her head. “She does not have a father, the unfortunate creature; she looks for her father all the time though she has never seen him. She has a habit of running into strange men’s laps in hopes of finding him. A habit that I hope to break out of her before something irreparable happens.” Sultry, sulky… if that’s what nannies looked like nowadays, Patrick wondered how Michele would feel about having a baby…
“Cecilia! Do you have her, Monique?”
The voice alone crashed into Patrick’s memory and he felt confused and elated at the same time when he saw Pauline Danceny run onto the restaurant patio. What struck Patrick immediately about was how emaciated she had become since the last time he had seen her. Her arms and legs spindled into a frail torso that hid underneath gauzy, fluttering clothing. Her once voluptuous gorgeous frame wasted now, not even a sign of the swell of her vivacious breasts, now hanging under an empty bodice. She did not even look at him; her hungry green eyes went straight to the nanny and Cecilia.
I’m pregnant…
How far along?
Recent, so recent.
How recent? Less than two months… less than one?
Oh yes, certainly.
So this was the child she had carried in her belly? Patrick had always been curious about what Pauline would bear. He remembered hearing about Danceny’s suicide, but he never heard what happened with Pauline. He wished he hadn’t seen her now, not like this. It embarrassed him to see that she had wasted the wealth of her beauty, transferring all of it into a tiny daughter. And so she had named her in honor of a saint after all!
“Hello Pauline,” Patrick said in French, he couldn’t stand her not looking at him.
You’re the only one who never came back, why?
Pauline looked at him, her eyes wide, searching, wild…empty. She looked at him without a trace of recognition. “Hello? Who are you to refer to me as anything but Ms. Danceny, young man! I don’t care if you do speak French.”
Patrick scowled, feeling hurt and angry, “You know me well enough.”
Pauline crossed her arms, fingers like claws, red painted and sharp. “I would never make an acquaintance with a strange young man, what were you doing with my daughter? Who are you?”
“What happened to you?” Patrick asked. Now he simply felt horrified. The more he looked into her eyes, the more vacant, death he could see. And he could sense, that she honestly did not recognize him. “Who did this to you?”
“I never!” Pauline declared. She snatched Cecilia from the nanny’s arms. The little girl squealed and then buried her face into her mother’s neck. “Monique, we’re leaving!” She stormed away.
Patrick frowned and then looked at Monique who pressed her hand into his forearm. “Do not think anymore on her,” she said in a velvety voice. “She does not remember a lot of things, bad things have happened, she took certain treatments for a little bit. If you were a friend of hers, well, do not worry she is better but, not the same. Do you understand? Just forget her.”
Patrick nodded and the woman smiled and walked away from them. A more convenient way to abandon your past could never be found Mrs. Danceny, he thought, all you have to do is say you do not remember.
“Who was she?” Sullivan asked. “You knew that woman?”
“You spoke of Katrina,” Patrick said.
“Yes?”
“That little girl, Cecilia, is her cousin.”
Sullivan gasped. “Are you certain Patrick?”
Patrick shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Pauline never liked anyone anyway, and she never spoke nicely about her sister.”