Crossings Read Free Page A

left with no regrets, except that she had had no children who would care for Armand. She had put that trust in Liane.
    The first months were a nightmare for Armand. He managed to carry on his work, but barely more than that. And despite his loss, he was expected, to some extent, to entertain visiting dignitaries to San Francisco with small diplomatic dinners. It was Liane who did everything for him, as she had for so long for her father. She carried a double responsibility then, despite the excellent staff at the Consulate of France. It was Liane who oversaw everything for Armand. That summer, her father scarcely saw her at Lake Tahoe, and she refused the offer of a trip to France. She had a mission to attend to, a promise she had made, which she fully intended to live up to—an awesome responsibility for a girl of nineteen.
    For a time Harrison wondered if there was something more to her work and efforts, and yet after watching Liane more closely for a time, he was certain there was not. And in a way, he knew that what she did for Armand helped her cope with her own sense of loss. She had been deeply stricken by the death of Odile. Never having known her own mother, there had always been a hunger in her soul for a woman she could relate to, someone whom she could talk to in a way she couldn't talk to her father, her uncle, or their friends. As a child, there had been governesses and cooks and maids, but few friends, and the women Harrison dallied with occasionally over the years never saw the inside of his home, or met his child. He kept all of that far, far from Liane. So it had been Odile who had filled that void, and then left it, gaping open, a dull ache that never seemed to dim, except when she was doing something for Armand. It was almost a way of being with Odile again.
    In a sense both Armand and Liane were in shock until the end of the summer. Odile had been dead for six months by then, and they both realized one September afternoon, as they sat in the garden at the Consulate, looking at the roses and speaking of Odile, that neither of them was crying as they spoke of her. Armand even told a funny story at Odile's expense and Liane laughed. They had survived it. They would live through it, each one because of the other. Armand had reached out a hand and taken Liane's long, delicate fingers in his own and held them. The tears sparkled then in his eyes as he looked at her.
    “Thank you, Liane.”
    “For what?” She tried to pretend she didn't know, but she did. He had done as much for her. “Don't be silly.”
    “I'm not. I'm very grateful to you.”
    “We've needed each other for the past six months.” She said it openly and directly, her hand comfortable in his. “Life is going to be very different without her.” It already was, for them both.
    He nodded, thinking quietly to himself over the past six months. “It is.”
    Liane went up to Tahoe for two weeks then, before going back to college, and her father was relieved to see her. He still worried about her a great deal, and he was still concerned about her helping Armand constantly. He himself was only too aware that it was too much like her constant devotion to him. And Odile de Villiers had long since convinced Harrison that Liane needed other pastimes than caring for a lonely man. She was a young girl, and there was much that she should do. The year before, she had been scheduled to make her debut, but when Odile fell ill, she had refused.
    Harrison brought it up to Liane again in Tahoe, saying that she had mourned for long enough and that the debutante parties would do her good. She insisted that they seemed silly to her, and wasteful somehow, all that money spent on dresses and parties and dances. Harrison stared at her in amazement. She was one of the richest young women in California, heiress to the Crockett Shipping lines, and it seemed extraordinary to him that the thought of the expense should even cross her mind.
    In October, when she went