Chapter Three

Christian’s head pounded. It had been two days since he took Corrine in, and hadn’t had a drink since yesterday morning. Christian felt indebted to Corrine, he felt a special bond to her, maybe she was Satine’s gift to him. Maybe Satine had inspired the fates to bring her daughter to him. Maybe it was her way of telling him to move on.
Corrine had helped him to see past himself, to see beyond the past and into the future. Christian now felt the need to protect the child of his lost love.
He sat her down earlier that day and said, “Corrine, I want you to know Satine was a beautiful person, she had a good heart.” He looked into her eyes. They were Satine’s eyes, but he couldn’t see her soul through them, like he could in Satine. Her eyes hid pain and suffering. They sheltered abuse that Christian could never understand.
Corrine looked down at the floor. “Why didn’t she want me?” She whispered.
Christian didn’t know that answer, he could only guess. “She didn’t live a life that a child could fit in. I know she loved you.” He put a gentle hand on her cheek, “how could she not love you.”
With a tear stained face she looked at this stranger, who had something about him that was comforting to her. Something she had never felt about a person in her life. “Why couldn’t she have left? Why couldn’t she have taken me with her?”
“I don’t know.” He wished he did. He wished he could help her. He wished it had all been different for her.
Corrine wondered what was in store for her. She wondered how long this kind stranger would let her stay. She wondered if he knew of the terrible things that happened to her, he would throw her out. She had lived her whole life in fear, now she was afraid to let the fear go. She was afraid to trust Christian, even though everything in her wanted to.

Christian walked into the local mercantile. He tried to push past the pain that his whole body ached. Oh what he wouldn’t give for a drink. But he thought about Corrine, and he would sober up for her.
He walked up to the counter and said to the middle aged woman behind it, “Madam, I am looking for a job. I will be pleased to do any kind of work you may have.” Christian had survived the past year on some money his father sent him after his grandfather died fifteen months ago. But that money was running out and Christian now had another person to take care of.
The woman looked up from her books and saw the young handsome man standing in front of her. “Are you handy?” She asked. Truth was Christian didn’t know how to fix anything. He had grown up in a family of privilege and had people doing everything for him. But he needed to make money for Corrine. He lied, “yes, Madam. Quite.”
        “Well, we have a sink that is clogged in the WC and a wall in the storage area that can be mended. We had a flood here a few weeks ago, you know?”
        He did vaguely remember Toulouse and Satie briefly talking about a flood while they were putting back shots in his flat. “Yes, Madam, that was quite a rain.”
        The lady looked at him peculiarly, like she was trying to see through him, then replied, “alright, I’ll pay you 30 franks a week and you are required to be here everyday except Sunday until the days work is done.”
        Christian smiled, “thank you, Madam.”

        Christian’s handyman job was working well, and he figured out everything he needed to know, thanks to the patience of his boss and a few trial and errors. It had been two weeks since Corrine had come into his life and he felt she needed to be doing more than sitting in the flat all day. She had no friends, she had no hobbies. She kept the place very well, and cooked tremendous meals for him, but she was a child, and he felt she needed to have a child’s life. So one day, when the local schoolteacher walked into the mercantile, Christian stopped her.
        “Excuse me, Mademoiselle, I am new to the area and I have a young girl I would like to put in school.”
        The young attractive, neat lady smiled, “well certainly. Bring you daughter to the school tomorrow, and I’ll be sure she gets a great education.”
        Christian tried not to be surprised by the reference to Corrine as his daughter. He felt it would not be proper to tell her otherwise. He just smiled and said, “Thank you. I will bring her tomorrow.”

        The next day Christian arose before Corrine. He had bought her a new dress from the mercantile, one that would be fitting for her to wear to school. She couldn’t keep wearing Toulouse’s clothes, even though Toulouse didn’t seem to mind. He took out some flour and buttermilk and began making her pancakes. He wanted her to have a good breakfast before he dropped her off at her new school. They would have to walk quite a ways, since in their small section on Monmartre there were no children, though that was changing a little more now that the Moulin Rouge had closed. It had used to be a town alive at night, people in the streets until dawn. There was no room for children; perhaps that is why Satine didn’t keep Corrine. This was not a place to raise a child. But now it seemed to be quieting down. The streets were quiet at night, and abuzz during the day. But still, there were no children. There was no need for a school, so he had to walk with Corrine nearly 3 miles to the schoolhouse on the other side of town, but it was worth it, he wanted her to have an education, to be off the streets, to be a normal child. He wanted to give her that, he wanted to take care of her.
        Corrine woke up when she smelled the pancakes on the stove. She loved pancakes, especially when she didn’t have to make them. “What are you doing?” she asked, stumbling into the kitchen and sitting at the small wooden table.
        “I’m making your breakfast for your first day of school,” Christian flipped the batter over, revealing a golden brown pancake. She hadn’t been to school in two years, and was excited to be like normal kids, for the first time in her life.
        Christian thought about what the teacher had said yesterday, calling Corrine his daughter. She couldn’t call him Monsieur her whole life and Christian wasn’t suitable for a young girl to call him. He placed the plate of food in front of her.
        “Corrine, I think you should call me Papa.” He just said it, flat out like there was nothing to it.
        She looked at him questionably, “you’re not my papa, are you?”
        “No, I’m not. But I would like to be the closest thing you’ve got to one. I want you to stay with me forever.” The truth was he needed someone to love like a child, and Corrine needed someone to love like a parent. It was a perfect match.
        She smiled, “Yes, Papa,” she said, and took a bite of her perfectly cooked pancake.
        Christian felt a love for her, unlike anything he had ever felt before. He understood now, if even only a tiny fraction, what it meant to love a child.

Chapter Two   Chapter Four

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