This fanfiction is intended for mature readers due to sexual situations
and violence.
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“I couldn’t put enough
distance between me and my New Orleans home.
It had been a miserable place for both me and my sister Amélie.” Kitty was nearly breathless after reading
the dark truths contained within her aunt Océane’s journal; her thoughts were
spinning at all she had been forced to absorb in such a short period of
time. She laid her head limply back
against the chaise lounge and stared out the window at the sunset, shivering at
the chilly breeze fluttering the lace curtains.
As she contemplated the early circumstances of the two sisters, her
heart grew bitter at the sad choices left to so many women just like them, living
in this man’s world. She could unhappily
count herself, her aunt, and her own mother among the victims, according to Océane’s
account within the pages of the slim volume she now held in her hands.
Kitty coughed wretchedly until a tear rolled down her
cheek. She was so tired. It’d been a long day, her first out of bed,
if you could count three feet across the room, lying on a chaise as out of
bed. And now she’d been confronted with
this overwhelming news. Funny thing…it’d
actually happened in the distant past, the participants probably all long dead
by now, but it was fresh to her, and the hurt in her heart was fresh, too. Her
poor mother...
The bedroom door creaked a bit as it opened, and the soft, yellow
glow of lamplight spilled into the room.
“Kitty, you awake?” Matt’s
footsteps stole lightly across the polished wooden floor. “Surely you aren’t readin’ in the dark?”
She swallowed hard to keep more tears from escaping and
cleared her throat so that her voice would not betray her. “No…” Hastily
swiping at the tear stain on her cheek, she answered, “I think I’m finished
reading for tonight though.” The small
laugh that came out of her mouth sounded forced even to her own ears.
Matt set the lamp on her bedside table and perched gingerly next
to her. He kept his voice low in the
shadowy room. “What’s the matter,
Kitty? You sound upset.”
“Oh, Matt…” Kitty bit her bottom lip and tried to steady her
voice. “I’ve just… I’m just a little shaken up by what I’ve
read.” She couldn’t look at him or she
knew she’d crumple and burst into tears under his sympathetic gaze.
He somehow sensed this and didn’t touch her, just sat
quietly and waited for her to continue.
“My entire life with her, my mother seemed perpetually
melancholy. I had always thought it was
because my father had left us.” She
tucked her hair behind an ear and continued, not daring to look at him still. “But maybe there was something more to
it…”
Matt sat, not uttering a word, allowing her time to unburden
her heart.
She took a deep, steadying breath, almost whispering the
words, “Matt, there were bad things going on in her life, from the time she was
very young… To both of them, Océane and
my mother…”
“Bad things?”
“Things that shouldn’t happen to a little girl.” Her voice was flat and emotionless, but the
expression on her face, as she stared out into the dim room, was anything but.
Matt’s stomach churned at her implied meaning. “Who was it, Kitty? Who did those…things to them?”
“I never knew him. I
didn’t know it until just now, but my grandfather, Sennett Arcenaux, was
married before he met my grandmother. He
had a son, Lucien.” Kitty worried the
cuticle of her thumbnail until it bled.
“When his first wife died, he married my grandmother Bernadette and the
son came to live with them.”
Matt continued softly, “And then your grandparents had two
more children…”
“My mother Amélie was the oldest. Océane came along three years later.”
“Then it was their brother…” Matt stated, his voice hard.
“Lucien…he hurt them, Matt.
He hurt my mother and her little sister.” Kitty commenced to bitterly describe to Matt
what she had learned within the pages of Océane’s diary. Dark secrets of a family in denial. Unspeakable happenings behind closed doors
where a good family supposedly lived.
Tormented little girls, sexually abused by their older half-brother
until they were young ladies of society and could stand it no more.
Amélie, the oldest,
chose to marry the first charming man who came along when she was of
marriageable age, in spite of her parents’ objections that Wayne Russell was a
scallawag and a scoundrel. Océane,
fearing Lucien’s isolated attentions, chose to run away where no one would ever
find her. And so she had made her way
West in this world, making a living the only way she knew how, in one of the
few occupations available to women.
Sitting in the dimly lit bedroom where Océane may very well
have spent her last hours, Kitty revealed to Matt her family’s secrets in a hushed
voice, tears streaming slowly but silently down her face. She cried for her mother’s and aunt’s private
pain. She cried because she could never
tell them how sorry she was. She cried
because she would never see her mother again, her grief at Amélie’s passing
renewed even after all these long years without her.
Why hadn’t she
known? She could have helped her
mother. She could have. Kitty hadn’t even realized she’d spoken these
last thoughts aloud until Matt wrapped his long, comforting arms around her at
last and stroked her hair and her shuddering back as she sobbed quietly against
his chest.
“Shhh….” he murmured against
the top of her head. “Shh…Kitty, it’s
not your fault, honey. It had nothing to
do with you. It was all over and done
with before you were even born.”
“But…” she looked up at him with liquid blue eyes, face
flushed and tear-swolllen.
He held a finger gently to her lips. “But nothing, Kitty… You were so young when your mother died. There was nothing you could have done to help
her. You were just a kid, honey. Don’t beat yourself up over this. None of it is your fault.”
She laid her head against his sturdy chest, thankful for his
presence, grateful for his understanding.
Matt slipped an arm under her knees and swept her up, depositing
her gently on the bed. He pulled the
covers over her legs and sat down beside her, tugging a hankie out of his
pocket. He wrinkled his nose. “Sorry, this one smells like Doc’s fish. Wait a minute…”
Kitty couldn’t help but smile through her tears as he dug in
his other pockets one by one until he located a clean handkerchief. He shook it out and wiped her face dry,
afterwards instructing, “Blow.”
While Matt fussed over her, she once again wondered what she
had ever done to deserve him, after the sordid lifestyle she had led. She was overcome with gratitude that she had
found her Solomon Pierce right here in Matt Dillon.
“Kitty, you need to eat to keep your strength up. You want to come eat with Doc and me in the
kitchen?”
“Oh, Matt, I’m a mess.
I don’t feel very sociable right now, to tell you the truth.”
“How ‘bout I bring your supper in here?”
She answered quietly, “That would be nice, Matt. I’d appreciate it.”
Matt took her face in his hands, rubbing his thumbs under
her eyes to dry the remainder of her tears, then touched his lips to her
forehead for a long moment. “I’ll be
back in a jiffy,” he murmured softly, closing the door quietly behind him.
Kitty lay on her side, hot tears trickling anew onto her
pillow as her fingertips absently stroked the silky fabric of Océane’s
nightgown. She looked across at the
leather journal still lying on the chaise lounge and wondered what other
secrets might lay buried inside.
tbc
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