#iamreaching

For the first time, Marius Pontmercy had the pleasure of hosting Cosette and her family for Christmas at his estate just outside Paris. There was plenty of space for the entire Javert clan, even as large as it was becoming. Despite the change in location, however, everything else was ordinary.

Kathleen had resumed her post at her father’s side, though this time he had his youngest grandson to amuse him, a boy who had inherited both his father’s dark hair and cheeriness and his mother’s freckled fair skin and affectionate nature.

Gustave, likewise, kept his eldest daughter close, able to pretend for a few hours at a time that nothing had changed. Little Anne, though she had recovered, was still her immediate family’s shadow—if her grandparents, mother, or father went anywhere, she lurked close behind, looking anxious and pale. Though her health had miraculously retuned, her long illness had broken her spirit.

Everything was quiet and peaceful as it ought to have been at Christmastime; only two couples were missing: the younger Pontmercys, to no one’s great surprise, and the DeLornays.

The latter were in their upstairs suite, having a very uncharacteristic row. The young countess’ cheeks were pink and her eyes rimmed with a bit of red. Her flustered face clashed starkly with the crisp elegance of her appearance.

Rosalie and her sister had done their utmost to enjoy their last two years at home. Their mother and father certainly wanted them to. They were pampered and coddled as they had only dreamt of being before, as the youngest daughters in a family of five; anything they even admired, their father was wont to surprise them with later. His youngest girl ached for him, seeing how tightly he was trying to hold on—wishing she wanted to hold on as well. She adored her father and loved her mother, and she would be sad to leave them. Very sad. She smiled to watch Gavroche play and grow into a handsome young man, but felt detached, no longer a playmate. No logner much of a child, really. She was a wife.

Or she wanted to be. She told herself she was. When she lay in bed with her twin, she closed her eyes and thought of Breandon far away, tried to picture his handsome face, tried to hear his voice. Every day it became a little harder. Just how did this word sound coming from his lips in that beautiful accent? Was his face that long, or was her mind deceiving her?

By the time the twenty-fourth month of their waiting dawned, she was becoming desperate. She felt like she was losing him, her Brean, despite the many letters and little gifts she had stuffed away in semi-secret hiding places. She could not lose him. She must get him back soon. And even though she knew she would, it had been so long and so lonely without him…how strange; to go from kidnapped girl to beloved wife to practically a widow.

She knew Helene was suffering just as badly, and she also knew, despite her selfish desire to be in Breandon’s arms—and bed—once more, that her mother and father would be broken all over again when they lost their little girls, and this time, lost them for good. So she tried to be strong and brave and sweet.

Kathleen and Patrick had been married for just over a year. It had taken a good deal of wheedling after the disastrous Christmas, even after Madeline forgave her daughter and Breandon, his son. When Patrick had come to Paris to properly ask for her hand, Valjean had very grudgingly given his permission, though he looked all the while like he would have strangled the boy happily—but he had never truly given his blessing. It was little comfort to him that his little girl spent almost every waking moment by his side, as if trying to disprove her mother’s hurtful accusation—that she was ungrateful and cruel. He knew there was a ring on her finger, and that in May, as soon as the weather was warm and the seas calm, she would leave him forever.

She had spent time with her mother, too, shaken as she had been by Madeline’s words at Christmas. In truth, cage or not, Kathleen was sad and a little scared to be leaving the house on Rue Plumet, which had always been so safe and warm. She would miss her parents desperately.

But she was also excited. By June, after a wedding whose only truly happy attendants were the groom’s little sister and, of all people, Jaq, Patrick had his ship. It was arranged that he would take Molly to America for a year of school, and they were off.

Now, the following August, Molly was coming home with her cousins. She had not changed much physically during her year in America—she had lost some of her childhood plumpness, perhaps; grown a little taller—but she carried herself differently. The girl who had crossed the sea high-strung and insecure crossed it again more mature and soberer.

She knew, now, that she would never run away to sea, dress as a boy, live like Patrick…and she would not take up a position in America. France was perhaps not such an ill fit after all.

Christmas morning dawned to reveal yet another coat of fresh-fallen snow. The children were more concerned with presents and the goodies left for them by Pere Noel than with the snowfall, however. Erin burst into the room Patrick was being forced to share with Philippe and Jaq. “Patrick, wake up! Presents!” she squealed, shaking him.

Sean went to his parents instead of to Molly, flopping onto their bed and snuggling with his mother. He kissed her cheek. “Happy Christmas, Maman!”

In her room, Molly was already up and pinning her hair. Her eyes flickered between her reflection and the little box that sat on her vanity, waiting to be delivered. It was time she gave him a gift, after all those he had given her…

As they had for years, the whole Javert clan gathered by the sea for Christmas. There was plenty of room for them at the MacKnights’ spacious estate, and more since Jean and his girls stayed in their little house down the road. Perhaps, by the time Cosette and Javert, their children, grandchildren, and Valjean’s own family squeezed in, it was a bit crowded, but not unpleasantly so.

Not for most, at least.

Valjean kept a close eye on his youngest daughter from his chair by the fire. She had changed in the past few months. He did not know how to explain it, even to himself, and Madeline insisted that he was imagining tings, but he knew something was the matter.

Valjean sat close to the fire in the old armchair that had become a sort of second home. His youngest child, now nearly ten years old, sat curled at his feet with a bit of embroidery. She was growing into a pretty thing, pretty like her mother with her mother’s distinctive hair, but every inch she grew and every birthday they celebrated reminded her father how very old he was. Kathleen was now older than Cosette had been when he had taken her from her poverty. She had never known anything but happiness, he had made sure of that, yet sometimes he looked at her and dreaded her beauty, for surely someday she would leave him as Cosette had done. He did not know if he could endure it.

He kept one hand on her head; in the other, he held a letter.

The girl asked sweetly, “Is it from Sissy, Papa?”

“No, princess, from your brother,” he replied distractedly, scanning Jean’s words a second time.

Much had changed in the past six years, but Jean was not one of them; the boy never seemed to get any older, though perhaps taller; his house was just the same, though the family too had grown, and it now rather burst at the seams, but they were happy. Celeste had never endured the same kind of melancholy as after her second daughter’s birth again.

He finally called to his wife in the kitchen: “It seems that they have changed their minds about America….things appear to be uneasy there. The captain thinks there could be war. They are coming to live here, and he thought perhaps Jean could help them find a place.” He scanned the last of the letter. “Cosette will be pleased.”