CHAPTER 14
Gloria
Where was I? Billowy clouds surrounded me and the sun, so big and close, looked like the star it was, its spokes intersecting the sky and bathing it in a soft pink glow. A distant, familiar song faintly filtered into my ears. “Gloria.” A muted chorus was singing my name, but it was more like a quiet hymn and not the blasting, fast-paced Laura Branigan song that had always been my signature. As I took in my strange surroundings, winged angels rose from the clouds. And then it dawned on me. Of course. I was in the middle of a Gloria’s Secret Fashion Show. But wait—these angels weren’t supermodels. They were ordinary people, every shape, every color, every age. Clad in white gossamer robes that sprouted broad wings of feathers, they looked ethereal as they danced among the white puffs of air. The sun’s rays beamed down upon them, creating golden halos around their heads.
“Where am I?” I asked.
“Bienvenue, ma chérie.”
I gasped. That husky, accented voice. I recognized it instantly. It was my beloved mentor. Madame Paulette.
My unblinking eyes stayed as wide as saucers as she broke away from the dancing pack of angels and floated toward me. I raced toward her as fast as I could, my bare feet skimming across the cloud. I was stepping on air.
“Madame!” I cried out, tears brimming.
I met her halfway and wrapped my arms around her. Expecting to feel her frail bones, I felt nothing. Not even a heartbeat. It was as if I was hugging the air I breathed.
I held her in my gaze. She was as stunning as ever to me. Perhaps even more stunning. Her cappuccino eyes twinkled likes celestial stars and her loose waist-length silver hair cascaded over one shoulder like a comet’s tail. She looked different to me. In a beautiful, good way. While she’d been alive, there’d always been a haunting sadness to her. A hardness in her face that complemented the tight chignon she always wore. But now serenity washed over her ageless, strong features. She looked angelic.
And then it hit me. Like a meteor crashing to Earth. “I’m in heaven with you?” I gasped.
She stroked my face with her hands, but I couldn’t feel her touch. Panic mixed with disbelief. She nodded and then held my hands. Again, no feeling.
Before I could utter a word, she whispered, “Ma chérie, I want you to meet someone.”
I followed her gaze as she turned her head. Gliding toward us was an extremely handsome man in his early twenties—with a strong, sturdy build, even features, and a headful of golden curls. As he neared us, his emerald eyes met mine, and a smile curled on his full lips.
“This eez Henri.” Madame’s raspy voice was soft but full of pride and passion.
Henri Lévy. Of course, Madame’s beloved husband, the French Resistance fighter, whom she’d lost in World War II. The man she’d been buried next to in Paris.
He held out his hand. It was badly scarred, but the scars did not mar the beauty of his long, graceful fingers. Perhaps, once upon a time long ago they had played the piano.
“Enchanté,” he said warmly, taking my hand in his.
“Enchantée,” I repeated, shocked that I couldn’t feel his hand in mine either.
“Paulette has told me so much about you. You are like zee daughter we never had.”
His words struck a harsh chord inside me. Another bolt of panic assaulted me. What about my daughter? My son? My husband? Tearfully, I asked the inevitable: “So, I’m in heaven with both of you?”
Madame smoothed my hair. “Ma chérie, only if you choose to die.”
My heart skipped a beat. And at that very moment, I realized—I still had a heart. It was beating. I was alive!
“What do you mean?” My voice quivered.
Madame responded. “You have a choice. You can choose to fight and live on Earth, or you can give up and live with us.”
“How do I make that choice?” I felt so weak, so exhausted, so unable to battle the fate I’d been given.
Madame turned her head and I followed her gaze. It led to an angel, whose face I couldn’t see, who was painting clouds. The sky was his canvas and his fingers were his magic paintbrush. I watched him, mesmerized. My mind flashed back to that fateful day at Jaime’s beachfront property when he’d first declared his love for me. A cloud just like the one this angel was creating had magically appeared above us. A heart.
The angel finished his painting and turned to face us. My jaw crashed opened. Perhaps as far down as Earth. Floating our way was a magnificent man—about six-foot three, all lean and muscled, with sparkling eyes as blue as the sky. Oh my God! It was my Jaime. Had he somehow gone to heaven too? Tears fell from my eyes as I uttered his name.
“Jai—”
Madame cut me short. “No, Gloria. Eet eez Payton. Jaime’s papa.”
Though I’d seen photos of his father with Jaime as a youth as well as self-portraits, I wasn’t prepared for how much they resembled each other. They even shared the same dimpled chin. I couldn’t stop trembling.
Payton held me in his arms. I rested my head against his chest and felt my beloved Jaime. Tears fell from my eyes, but they disappeared into the gauzy fabric of the white robe he was wearing. He gently tilted up my chin and brushed my tears away with his magical fingers. Long, tapered, and beautiful just like Jaime’s.
“My son loves you very much, my dear.” His voice was soft and melodic.
“How do you know that?” My voice was watery.
“I have watched over you. You have given him everything. You have given him the love he’s never had from a woman. The love I never knew. And you have given him a family. But you made a promise to him.”
My tearful eyes searched his. They were cerulean and soulful. Wise eyes that had once known pain and suffering.
“I did?”
He nodded. “Gloria, my dear, you vowed on your wedding day you would never leave him.”
My exact words whirled around in my head. “Mon amour, I promise I will love you forever. No matter what life throws at us, we will always be toi et moi. I shall never leave you. My tears are my witness.”
“You were at our wedding?” I asked incredulously.
A warm smile lit his face “Indeed, I was. I saw it all.”
I absently fidgeted with my toi et moi ring. It was still on my finger! I glanced down at the two entwining heart-shaped diamonds, the symbol of our eternal union. The two glittering stones putting me into a hypnotic state. “Toi et Moi.” The Charles Aznavour song played in my head. The words so poignant.
Suddenly, the sound of babies wailing cut into the lyrics and catapulted me into the moment. Panic seized me. Oh no! Had our babies died in childbirth and gone to heaven?
“My babies! They died!” I sobbed out, clapping my hand to my mouth. The pain that ripped through my heart was greater than any gunshot or contraction.
Madame wrapped her arms around me one more time. “Shh, ma chérie,” she whispered, stroking my hair, her voice more comforting than her touch. “They are not yours, and they are crying because they want the chance to live. Paulette and Payton are on Earth. They are zee most beautiful children in zee whole world. Healthy and strong.”
Henri and Payton nodded in unison.
“What do they look like?” I asked anxiously, butterflies beginning to leave my stomach.
“Paulette eez blond and fair like you. So stubborn…a petit peu feisty comme moi.”
“Does she have one blue eye and one brown one?” I had a rare genetic idiosyncrasy known as heterochromia that could be passed down.
“It eez too early to tell.”
“What about Payton?”
Jaime’s father chimed in. There was a melancholic glint in his eyes. “He’s a handsome devil if I must say so myself. He looks just like Jaime did when he was an infant.”
Oh, how I longed to see them both! Hold them in my arms! Kiss their little heads. Be with my Jaime. My love. My eternal love. Yes, Payton was right. I’d promised I’d never leave him. Another rush of tears poured down my face, vanishing into the vapors that shrouded us.
“I want to be with them,” I wept, overcome with emotion.
“You have that option, ma chérie,” Madame said softly.
My lips quivered. My eyes bore into hers searchingly. I managed one word. “How?”
Henri gripped my shoulders. “You must fight for your life with all your might.”
“And tell yourself you want to live,” added Payton. Sadness swept over his face. His thick-lashed eyes lowered. “I was a coward. I didn’t fight for my life. I didn’t want to live. I let my son down.”
The guilt this man felt sent a thick wave of compassion through me.
I shifted my gaze to Henri. “But you were brave, and you died.”
“I chose to die. I died for my country.”
“And I died because eet was my time,” chimed in Madame, joining hands with Henri. They exchanged a loving glance that warmed my soul.
Madame continued. “Ma chérie, you are a fighter. You defied death twice.”
Yes, I had survived Boris’s life-threatening gunshot wound when I was eighteen and his vicious attempt on my life at the Beverly Hilton less than a year ago. But now, I was tired. So, so tired. I wasn’t sure if I could survive a third time.
“You can do eet again, Gloria.”
“Honor your vow,” said Henri, his vibrant eyes never leaving me.
“Honor them,” said Payton pleadingly.
Oh, my Jaime! My babies!
“Tell me. What do I have to do?” My tearful voice was just above a whisper. Madame responded.
“All you have to say eez: I want to live.”
“I…”
“I…”
Oh God! Why couldn’t I get past the first word?
Numbness seized my lips. My limbs. My inners. Oh, no! My body was shutting down. Leaving me. Please, God. Oh, please, please listen to me!
“I…”
Two “Gloria” songs clashed in my head, one calling me to Earth, the other begging me to stay here. I was fading. I desperately needed something, someone to make me feel alive.
Jaime.
“Angel.” I heard his velvety voice.
All the wonderful times we had danced in my head. From New York to Paris to Los Angeles to Tuscany. I felt the warmth of his lips on mine and the power of his magnificence inside me. Awakening every ounce of my being. No, I can’t leave him! I can’t!
“All you have to say eez…” Madame’s voice echoed in my ears.
As all life drained out of me, I forced my lips apart one more time. “I…”