Peach by Elizabeth Adler Read Free Book Online Page A

lust for power both personally and in business that had motivated Monsieur.
    Leonie held his hands tightly in hers. “Peach is still gravely ill, Gerard,” she said quietly, “but she’s been the same for over a week now. It’s a sign of hope.”
    Peach knew as soon as he took her hand that it was Papa, even though she couldn’t open her eyes. When he bent over to kiss her she could smell his cologne and feel the slight roughness of his face against hers. It would be all right now. Papa was here.
    Doctor Marnaux seemed surprised by the improvement in Peach’s breathing. He had been confident she would not last the night—but then, he’d thought that every night for nine days as he’d watched the grandmother sitting there, holding the child’s hand in hers, talking to her in a low murmur, sometimes even singing to her, as though she were well and quite normal. And the improvement didn’t stop there. The next day Peach opened her eyes. The following day she was pronounced out of danger.
    “The only thing left,” said Dr Marnaux at a conference in his efficient book-lined office, “is to assess the damage.”
    They gazed at him enquiringly.
    “To the limbs, you see,” he added apologetically.” The disease has attacked the muscles and now we must see what is affected.
    “You mean Peach may be
crippled?
” Lais’s voice was filled with horror. “But that can’t be.
She’s only five years old
.”
    Dr Marnaux shrugged. “We must hope for the best.”
    Leonie was beside Peach’s bed that night when she awoke, just as she had been every night of her illness. Her own face looked tired and worn but she managed to smile for the child. “Hold out your hands to me, Peach,” she murmured, “let me catch them.”
    The child smiled and lifted her arms, feeling Leonie’s secure grasp on her small hands.
    “Now,” murmured Leonie, “you’ve been in bed so long, your muscles have become tired. Let’s give them a little test, Peach. Wiggle your toes for me.”
    Peach tried and tried, but the toes wouldn’t wiggle. Her high, childish laugh cut through the silent room, a sound that gladdened Leonie’s heart, only to turn to stone again. “I think they’re too tired, Grand-mère Leonie,” whispered Peach, “I expect tomorrow they’ll be all right.”
    *  *  *
    The day they clamped the steel braces with the ugly black leather straps around Peach’s small wasted legs was the day that Gerard was summoned to Paris by the wartime government of France. “It’ll just be a few days, sweetheart,” he promised her, “and then I’ll be back with you.”
    “But what will I do without you, Papa?” Peach’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Why have they put these things on my legs? Why can’t I run and skip any more?”
    “You will, Peach, you will,” cried Leonie, throwing her arms around her. “We just have to teach those muscles how to work again. They are still there, you know, but they’re just being lazy.”
    “Promise me, Grand-mère,” begged Peach. “I want to chase the little brown cat so badly.”
    Leonie managed a laugh. “I promise,” she vowed.
    Gerard’s few days stretched to a week, and then two. He managed to call them to say he was being sent to Valenciennes to meet with the management, that things were chaotic and he would call as soon as he could. Then for a month there was silence.
    Leonie worked every morning with Peach. And every afternoon and again in the evening. She fastened small weights to the child’s legs and lifted them up and down, she massaged them, she hauled Peach to her feet and forced the legs out in front of her until Peach was close to tears. And then one day Leonie carried her into the warm, blissful sea and Peach felt her legs floating with her like they used to, freed from their cruel steel braces.
    Gerard returned in the uniform of a major in the French army with the news that he must go back to Paris in two days’ time. He had spoken with Amelie who, though