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Chiaroscuro: love & dark — Julia Gabriel
American Lover is the conclusion to Julia Gabriel's Drawing Lessons Duet … with second chances, surprises, and -- finally -- redemption.
The pain was its own anesthesia. I fought to stay alert as the gurney sped down the hallway. A tornado of French swirled around me, with the occasional lapse into English to speak to me. Valerie Marchand clutched my hand as she ran alongside. It wasn't supposed to be her hand, though I was most grateful that she had been home when my water broke. Eternally grateful for all she'd done for me in the past nine months. Housed me, fed me, cried with me.
When the gurney hit the doors to the operating suite, her fingers fell away. “I'll be waiting outside. You're doing great. She's almost here.”
I wasn't doing great. Not generally and certainly not at the present moment. Instead, I was headed into surgery alone -- in a foreign country where I still barely spoke the language -- to have my daughter cut out of me. They might as well cut out my heart while they were at it. It was a dead organ, and I had no more use for it.
Even then, I was certain he would burst through the doors at any moment, call my name, grab my hand. There would be apologies for being late and I would tearfully forgive him.
But when I felt the tugging sensation in my abdomen and heard the startled cries of my daughter, I knew.
Luc Marchand -- my lover and friend, my teacher, the only person who had ever really seen me, father of my child -- wasn't coming back.
American Lover is the emotionally gripping conclusion to the Drawing Lessons duet … with a guaranteed HEA!
(American Lover was previously published as Chiaroscuro.)
The pain was its own anesthesia. I fought to stay alert as the gurney sped down the hallway. A tornado of French swirled around me, with the occasional lapse into English to speak to me. Valerie Marchand clutched my hand as she ran alongside. It wasn't supposed to be her hand, though I was most grateful that she had been home when my water broke. Eternally grateful for all she'd done for me in the past nine months. Housed me, fed me, cried with me.
When the gurney hit the doors to the operating suite, her fingers fell away. “I'll be waiting outside. You're doing great. She's almost here.”
I wasn't doing great. Not generally and certainly not at the present moment. Instead, I was headed into surgery alone -- in a foreign country where I still barely spoke the language -- to have my daughter cut out of me. They might as well cut out my heart while they were at it. It was a dead organ, and I had no more use for it.
Even then, I was certain he would burst through the doors at any moment, call my name, grab my hand. There would be apologies for being late and I would tearfully forgive him.
But when I felt the tugging sensation in my abdomen and heard the startled cries of my daughter, I knew.
Luc Marchand -- my lover and friend, my teacher, the only person who had ever really seen me, father of my child -- wasn't coming back.
American Lover is the emotionally gripping conclusion to the Drawing Lessons duet … with a guaranteed HEA!
(American Lover was previously published as Chiaroscuro.)
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