REMI, 1879

On her seventh birthday, Remi’s papa bought her a pair of custom silk ballet shoes. They weren’t anything like what the ballerinas wore at the opera house, though, for she was too small to dance pointe. Still, they were pink and perfect. Above all other things, Remi considered them her most prized possession. The day she found the box on her bed was the day she condemned her beautiful dolls to a lonesome corner in the playroom, clearing the floor for her to imitate the dances she saw on stage.

“Beautiful.” Her father praised her at breakfast. “Ma petite, you will put all other ballerinas to shame.”

It was the highest compliment he could have paid her.

Her father always doted on her, humored her at the best of times, and spoiled her endlessly. He could never bring himself to say ‘no’ to her, though he tried.

“The girls will be delighted,” her mother announced. They would be visiting the opera house for an early rehearsal, and Remi intended to wear her new ballet shoes.

The other performers, particularly the ballerinas, enjoyed Remi’s loveliness and childlike wonder as she ‘ooed’ and ‘ahhed’ from the audience. Sometimes, they even taught her the steps, despite how difficult the footwork could be at times. With her new shoes, it would be easier than ever.

“A lark!” They said when they saw her.

“What pretty shoes for a jolie fille.”

Remi drank up their compliments with great aplomb. The visits to the opera house were the highlights of her youth. She loved to watch the performances and the practices that led up to them. That morning, while her father attended to business and her mother worked on scales and final fittings, Remi was left in the care of the corps de ballet.

“Mademoiselle Manon will look after you for me, ma cherie,” her mother instructed.

Then the director, Monsieur Deschamps, appeared and walked away with her mother. Remi liked him. He’d always been kind to her, spared a smile or two, and favored her mother the way her father did.

Not to mention he often snuck sweets into her waiting hands.

“Come along then!” Manon, the ballerina from the corps, clapped. “Let’s break in those new shoes of yours.”

For what seemed like hours, Remi danced along with the girls in the wings. They were all graceful dancers, thin and tall, as they swayed elegantly to whatever tune was played on the piano.

“I wish to be like you when I am older.” Remi had said to Manon during a break.

“Me, ma petite? You could be a star, like your maman.”

Remi’s eyes widened at that. It was impossible. “My papa says that she is one of a kind.”

“And so she is.” Manon agreed.

The other dancers stirred from their spots on the floor, and Remi’s feet ached with the idea of moving again. She pulled at Manon before the music started.

“Could we play a game of hide and seek?” Remi asked.

Manon laughed, sensing Remi’s hesitance to continue dancing. “Absolument!”

They wandered away from the stage to the space behind the red velvet curtains, which better suited Remi’s needs. She liked the extra doors of the dressing rooms and the colorful costumes that hid behind the curtains. There were many places to hide away where one as little as Remi could not be easily found.

“Un, deux, trois, quatre…” Manon counted, turning away from Remi as she fled.

Running backstage, Remi dove deeper and deeper until the sound of Manon’s voice could no longer be heard above the racket of the stagehands. She jumped from room to room until one door stood open. Running inside, she hid in the corner behind the skirts of hanging costumes. They were large and billowy enough to cover her. A little space between the dresses gave Remi a perfect hole for peeping.

I am so clever, she thought, covering her mouth to keep from laughing. Manon will never find me here.

A beat passed before any footsteps were heard.

Here she comes, Remi thought delightedly.

But it was not Manon. She was surprised to see her mother and the director. The weariness in her mother’s figure was evident, and there was a strain on her face that had not been there earlier. Remi would have jumped out but was too afraid that her mother would be furious.

“I’m tired, Claude,” her mother said with a sigh.

The director, Monsieur Deschamps, ran a hand over his silver-blonde hair as he closed the door behind him. “Shall I move the date again?”

“No!” her mother said quickly, seizing his hands.

Remi watched, confused.

“I only need a rest. Perhaps a day to gather my wits.”

“Do you still plan to leave him?” Claude asked. He pressed a very gentle kiss to her fingers, watching her with an odd softness that Remi only ever saw in her father.

“I want to…”

“But?”

A sob bubbled out of her mother as she crumpled into his arms. He wrapped her in an embrace, hushing her as quietly as he could.

“I am with child again.”

A baby sister? Remi felt giddy at the notion. She already had two brothers, one two years younger than her, the other still a baby. They were both with their nurses at home, too young to be brought along. Remi liked them, but they were not little girls, and she so dearly wanted a sister.

“Is it his?” the director asked, his voice pinched.

“You know it is, Claude.”

“And the boys?”

Her mother sobbed woefully. “How can I leave them?”

“We bring them with us,” the man said, forcing her mother to look at him. The determination in his expression was fierce and intimate. “And the girl, Remi, too.”

Her mother was quiet for a moment longer, silent in her contemplation. “She is yours, Claude. The only one that has ever been yours.”

“I know, mon amour.” A smile spread on his lips, but Remi did not understand. She belonged to her Papa and her Mama, not to Monsieur Deschamps. An icky feeling spread throughout her, blooming from her like a bad stomach ache. Remi did not like the way the man held her mother or the way her mother held him. Before she could understand the depths of their betrayal, her mother kissed Monsieur Deschamps.

It was not a chaste kiss.

Maman? Remi thought, tears in her eyes. What about Papa?

She could not keep herself from watching as their hands wandered, kisses exchanged in a heat that seven-year-old Remi could not describe. She was utterly petrified, unable to make her feet move or her voice work.