Love Hate Whiskey

Valrita Fournier

Description

If you like Downton Abbey and other 20th century family ensembles, with memorable characters who meet ironic twists in situations of love, conflict, and growth, you will find lots to enjoy in this first volume of the Love, Hate, Whiskey saga.
Liesse Bennier meets her first love at a Réveillons de L’An, the traditional French Canadian New Year’s Eve celebration. Upon his return from WWI, they marry. But by the time Liesse is twenty, she moves back in with her parents as a young widow with a disabled son. The Benniers, farmers living in Southwestern Ontario on the shores of Lake St. Clair, across from Detroit, make plenty of money during the Prohibition years, by producing good whiskey for the Rumrunners supplying thirsty Americans.
Fiercely protective of her adored son, Liesse sets aside all thought of finding love again until her father brings a special teacher for the child into their home. Fear sparks condemnation towards the family when religious leaders discover the teacher belongs to a group antagonistic to French Canadians and Catholics. When the teacher leaves, the family finds their unity destroyed. Hate, anger, and obsession take its place. They suffer great tragedies and face financial ruin.
On another New Year’s Eve, away from home, with no Réveillons to cheer her, Liesse faces and accepts her authentic self. With a new, deeper understanding of her own heart and mind, will she allow herself to love again, and will she dare to do what few women have done in the male domain of whiskey?

Sujets

• Romance historique
• Fiction
• Romance
• Mental disorder
• Religious intolerance
• Women in business
• Historical
• 20th Century

Informations

• Publié par: Archway Publishing
• Date de parution: 27 juillet 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781665725859
• Langue: English

Extrait

LOVE HATE WHISKEY
 
LE RÉVEILLONS: THE AWAKENING
 
 
 
 
Valrita Fournier
 
 
 

 
Copyright © 2022 Valrita Fournier.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
 
Archway Publishing
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.archwaypublishing.com
844-669-3957
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6657-2586-6 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-2585-9 (e)
 
Archway Publishing rev. date: 07/26/2022
Dedicated to the memory of Gerard and Laurette Four nier.
CONTENTS
Introduction
1.November 1919
2.The Family
3.The Family Businesses
4.A Special Child
5.The Irishman
6.The Oticon
7.Child and Mother
8.The Token
9.Storm Clouds
10.Regrouping
11.A Sleepless Night
12.Jean Pierre’s Progress
13.Choices
14.Father and Son
15.It’s in the Cards
16.A Réveillons Revisited
17.Mathilde
18.New Beginnings
19.Missing Links
20.The Fight Begins
21.The Final Straw!
22.Hate
23.The Clinic
24.Medicines
25.The Great Cry
26.Back at the Clinic
27.A Homecoming
28.The Spirit Moves
29.Consequences
30.Remorse
31.One year later
32.A Changing Family
33.The Competition
34.The Mission
35.Obsession
36.A loss
37.A Sad Goodbye
38.Marcel Grieves
39.A New Home for Francine
40.Mariette Resurrected
41.The Mentor
42.Ernest on the Spot
43.Ernest and Hugette.
44.Jean Pierre’s New Teacher
45.Missing in the City
46.Mme Marchand
47.To Love Once More?
48.Home Again
49.Two Come Back
50.The Cost of Return
51.It’s a New Life
52.A Challenge for Liesse
53.The Light of a Smile
54.A Fall
55.Visitation
56.A Family Setting
57.A View of Modernity
58.July 1934: The Wedding
59.Bills
60.A Christmas’ Offer’
61.Le Réveillons/The Awakening
About the Author
Glossary
INTRODUCTION
World War I ended in 1918, with a toll of 20 million recorded military and civilian deaths and 20-22 million wounded. With its crowded trenches and unsanitary conditions, the ‘Great War’ was the perfect breeding ground for typhoid, typhus and the H1N1 virus known as the Spanish Flu. Coming home with the soldiers, the great pandemic infected roughly 500 million people, and caused an estimated 50 million deaths.
As dark as the times were, Sargent Josephat Delaurent was happy and healthy when, in 1918, he returned to his small French-Canadian community nestled on the shores of Lake St. Clair, across from the American state of Michigan and the city of Detroit.
Before enlisting he had met Liesse Bennier, the woman of his dreams during Le Réveillons de l’an, the New Year’s Eve celebration. Soon after, he was fighting in Europe. Upon his return, he and Liesse married and the following year, were looking forward to the birth of their first child.
Josephat intended to go back to farming on the flat and fertile prairie land that he and his bride owned. But first, he would finish his last year in the army by continuing to help returned soldiers get settled.
Everything was going well for the young couple, or so it seemed….
CHAPTER 1 NOVEMBER 1919
“Réveillons!” ‘Wake up, come on, wake up!’ He could hear the New Year’s revellers, and she was there. They were knocking on the Benniers’ door, shouting their merry cry, ‘Réveillez-vous!’ Then the door opened to satin, deep red hair, and bottomless coffee-brown eyes. The strong whiskey the Benniers gave him didn’t burn as much as his heart flamed with the desire to be near her, and now...
“Réveillez-vous Sergent!”
From far away, he could hear a voice calling to him, ‘awaken,’ but his throat burned, and mucus filled his lungs; the voice was dim compared to the voices in his mind.
He remembered, waiting at the altar for her, the smell of melting beeswax, flowers, and incense, warming the church with their fragrance. Her hand was as soft as the touch of the gentle light that came through the Italian windows and fell on her cheek in tiny, coloured diamonds. Then, ever so tenderly, she put it in his as he slipped the gold band on her finger.
He also recalled turning and seeing Dominic Bennier, her father. A desire to laugh gripped him as he watched the man’s mustache twitch restlessly. He knew that his soon to be father-in-law was anxious to get back to his farm and whiskey business.
Delaurent had suppressed his laugh with a false cough, but now a real cough had hold of him and was shaking those precious memories away. No! He must hold on to the picture of her face. He must get home!
“Wake up Sargent Delaurent.”
“Réveillez-tous; C’est le Réveillons de l’an!” In his mind, he and his friends were celebrating New Year’s Eve in the French-Canadian tradition, pretending to wake up a household that was not asleep.
“Wake up, Sargent Delaurent’’.
But he couldn’t wake up now. His body was his no more, so he had to reach his wife, in his mind, in his spirit. ‘Oh Liesse,’ his spirit cried with bitter agony. If he could only get home, just to touch her. Then, he remembered: the child was about to be born; their first child, maybe a boy. Liesse needed him! He had to see Liesse and the baby. ‘I’ll be there for the birth,’ he had promised.
It was an unusually frigid early autumn day when the news came that she was ready to deliver.
“We’ll give you a horse, get on it and go. Come back when you are better,” the commandant told him bleakly. Both were aware that men were dying of the rampant fever.
The cold crystallized in his chest, and when it started to snow, turning his greenish uniform white with clots, his head became unbearably heavy. Nevertheless, he hung on to the horse and lowered himself over its neck to rest a little. At a village a few miles from home, he thought, ‘I will stop at my cousin’s just to warm up a bit.’ When he dismounted the horse, his legs wobbled. He made it through the gate and slid against the door.
“Liesse,” he said, as they dragged him in, “Baby is coming ... got to warm a while….”
His cousin fetched a nurse who was next door. Right away, she knew it was the Great Influenza. The cousins wanted to go and tell Liesse, but the wind was stripping the trees, and the heavy, wet snow kept coming faster and faster. ‘By morning,’ they reasoned, ‘The sun will have melted it all, and the way will be clearer.’ But by morning he was dead.
Liesse waited through most of the night. Sometimes, it seemed the baby was ready to kick its way out, but she held on, hoping her husband would arrive. Finally, Mme. Solange, the midwife, burst into the room, “Mme. Delaurent, stop this nonsense; it’s time to have that baby. Don’t wait for old age. It doesn’t get any riper in there!”
The baby boy was small with large eyes and a cap of dark hair. Mme Solange cleared his airways, slapped him, shook him, and turned him upside down. She blew into his mouth, and finally, he took a breath and cried softly like a cat. There was something unusual about this baby. She moved his legs and arms. His little limbs were hard and cramped on the right, soft and loose on the left.
Mme Solange asked Liesse what she wanted to name the child. Then, with a shiver, the midwife poured a few drops of water on the baby’s head and, signing a cross over him, said, “I baptize you Jean Pierre Delaurent, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Then, she prayed, “Lord, bless this child, and mother” Finally, she heaved a great sigh, and with tears rolling down her cheeks, she muttered, “Help them, Mother Mary, please!”
CHAPTER 2 THE FAMILY
The funeral was well attended. Josephat’s relatives sat on one side of the church, and the Benniers sat on the other. Liesse was in the front row between her father, Dominic and mother, Emma, who held the baby on her lap. Next to Emma was Ernest, the seventeen-year-old, followed by Marcel, who was sixteen and Francine, who was ten.
Dominic Bennier, though short, and barrel-chested, was a man of great stature in the nearby community of Belle Rivière. He was known for his strong will, practical generosity, and sound advice. He liked his son-in-law and was disappointed that Josephat would not be part of his family business. Uppermost in his mind, however, was one thing: his daughter and grandson must come home.
Emma, his wife, let her mind momentarily drift to the warmth of Dominic’s hands and the gentle ways he caressed her. Sighing, she offered up a prayer that her daughter might find love again and added a word of thanks that she, herself, still had the comfort of her husband.
Like the child on her lap, who only whimpered, Emma had been born after her father’s death. Because she was th