Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or situations represented below, though I can lay some claim on the butcher's wife and the seamstress. These belong to Victor Hugo, the origional author, etc.

Jean was not yet home, and it was bitterly cold. If Jean had fallen in a ditch, hurt himself in any way, so that he was unable to work… what would become of the children?

The children were starving already: there was no bread to be had in the entire house, no matter how Jeannette strained her eyes or searched. Jeannette didn't think that anyone could starve to death, but she had no desire to find out. The very thought chilled her bones. She imagined her children, her dear ones, becoming mere skeletons in their tattered rags of clothing. They were too thin as it was.

It made Jeannette want to weep, to see them like that, shivering and crowding together in front of the fireplace. But tears made her eyes hurt and only made it harder to search for bread.

Jeannette became aware of the fact that it was very cold. Under the worn wool of her dress, she was shivering, and her breaths came in little white puffs. She shut the door quickly, with thoughts of huddling in front of the fire, only to see her children sitting in the ashes, trying desperately to stay warm.

It was like the tale of the little cinder girl. At the moment, Jeannette couldn't remember more than the fact that the girl had to clean up after her wicked step- mother and step- sisters, had to sleep in the ashes for lack of a bed, and never had enough to eat.

Jeannette could recall her mother, with hands worn to texture of soft, new leather, smoothing out her hair and softly whispering tales full of magic and wonder and happy endings. That's right… the cinder girl ended happily.

It had always seemed such a comforting, wonderful thing to have your mother tuck you in at night, fairy tales further lulling you farther into dreamland.

But that was a luxury. It was not a thing for widows, who owned sheets that were insubstantial against the winter chill, or for mothers too tired to remember any sort of lovely story to tell her children.

Jeannette wanted to cry again, seeing her children huddling as close as they could to the fire, headless of the stewpot above their heads. There was not much in the stewpot, Jeannette remembered ruefully. There was water with salt, a few shriveled peas, and few chunks of tough rabbit that Jean had caught a few days ago.

She worried about those chunks of rabbit. Suppose the children did not eat them all. What would become of them?

"Where's Uncle Jean?" the eldest child asked, holding the youngest child, no more than a baby, in her lap. "He's very late. Is he in trouble? Is there any dinner left for him?" Her eyes were dark and troubled, with worrying purple circles under them.

Jeannette's heart ached. For a girl of scarce nine years to worry over Jean's dinner seemed a horrible thing. Jeannette hated herself for not being able to provide for these children. What good mother couldn't put dinner on the table? What good mother had to feed her children salt water for supper?

"Of course! Don't worry, my dear one. You worry far too much for a child your age. Do you want more to eat?"

The children looked at the stewpot with eyes full of longing. To eat was better than to be warm.

"Uncle Jean needs dinner too," the eldest protested weakly, though the thought of more soup threatened to overwhelm her charitable feelings.

"Not so much as you, my dear ones. I wonder that you do not eat more."

"There is not much more to eat," one of the other children muttered, drawing a tattered shawl closer around his shoulders.

"Sh!" the eldest hissed, clutching the baby to her chest like a doll.

Jeannette turned away. To have a baby serve as her child's doll, to have her son complain of hunger… these were things no mother should have to bear.

Jeannette grabbed the wooden bowls off the shelf, determination seizing her thin, emaciated frame. "I shall not have you go hungry, my dear ones." Even if it does mean Jean goes without.

That night, there was almost nothing left in the stewpot. It was dangerous for that to happen. When there was so little in the stewpot, there would be even less to fill her children's bellies the next day.

Jeannette melted snow and added her last few grains of salt to the liquid. Salt was expensive: she and her children had been living off a pinch for two months now. But Jeannette was too proud to beg. She would not owe anyone anything… though her children must be fed, and the stew grew ever thinner.

The fire worried Jeannette, as she watched the children, too cold, too tired, still too hungry, sit in the ashes around her, their clothes dark with soot, as if they were in mourning. There was not much wood. Jean was usually too tired to chop it.

Jeannette pressed her lips together. Why should Jean complain of tiredness and hunger? He had no right to make such demands on her when her own children were starving before her very eyes. It was horrible of Jean not to chop the wood. He had little else to do these days, since he couldn't find work.

A spark, glowing white- red with heat, leapt at Jeannette's apron, and Jeannette felt furiously angry. Jean, Jean, stupid Jean… she took care of him, fed him, clothed him, and he had the nerve to look surly when forced to work. He complained his childhood was wasted in harsh labor. Should not her children be spared his fate? The eldest was already worrying about the amounts of soup. She had wanted to give up her portion for Jean, though she ate her bowl quickly enough when urged.

The silly girl. She needed the food more than Jean.

Where was Jean? It was late.

A thought struck Jeannette, and she drew in a quick, angry breath. Where else could Jean be but the tavern, plunging them into debt and spending their last few sous on cheap brandy? Brandy did not fill her children's bellies. Debt would not keep them warm. There seemed, to her, to be no other explanation for it. Jean, in his selfishness, warmed himself with liquor.

Jean would get no dinner that night.

Jeannette sent her children off to bed, and went to bed herself, curling herself around the baby, trying to provide some bit of warmth for him.

The next morning, Jean had not returned. 'He's dead drunk, probably with a splitting headache. He deserves it, the fool, wasting what savings we have on wine!'

Jeannette gently pried up a floorboard in the kitchen, finding two dirty, grimy sous. At this point, they were her life's savings. She could not afford bread with so small an amount. Perhaps a kind farmer had a shriveled potato, or a wing of a scrawny chicken. Surely she could afford that. She would have to send Jean out to kill another rabbit. After he chopped more wood for the fire, of course, and fixed the broken window latch. The broken window- latch worried Jeanette. It let in too many drafts. It would blow out the fire, or chill one of the children into a farther state of ill- health. What if one of them came down with a fever? She could never afford a doctor.

Jeanette set the eldest girl in charge of the children, and went out with a small whicker basket with a handle. There would not be much to fill it, but it was reassuring to have it on her arm.

At the market place, the town was abuzz with gossip, and the baker on the Place de l'Église was cleaning up glass shards from the snow- covered ground outside his shop.

Jeanette stopped in front of the house, curious, though she shivered involuntarily.

"Marguerite, did you hear?"

Jeannette turned around, seeing the butcher's wife stopping a seamstress in the street. She envied the seamstress's warm cloak, and the shoes of the butcher's wife. How she wished she could clothe her children so warmly.

"The baker's store was broken into. You can see the broken glass! Dieu, but I'm glad my Andre's shop wasn't broken into. Break-ins are so messy."

"All too true, all too true. It's always worse to clean up another's mess, I say. Always have."

Jeanette lost interest in their conversation, with a slight shiver. It was so cold out, her dear little ones were back at home, huddled in the ashes, and she didn't know what she could buy with her two sous. But the baker bumped into her, and one of her precious sous fell into the snow. Jeanette searched for it frantically, half- overhearing the conversation behind her.

"Poor Monsieur Isabeau lost a loaf of his best bread."

"What a shame! What a terrible shame, I always say, to lose anything. Did they catch the villain?"

The sou! Jeanette grabbed it, relieved.

"Yes- you remember that poor fellow, Vlajean, or Valjean or whatever his name was? He would lift the meat and freshly killed animals for my husband. A terribly strong fellow. I don't know how as he never seemed to eat anything."

"Quite right, quite right. Had seven nieces and nephews to feed, he did."

Jeanette froze, feeling as if her very body had turned to ice, and suddenly found herself straining to catch each syllable of conversation.

"He was arrested and will go to court on his crime. Pity about him. He was a good strong worker, if surly."

"How many years for theft with violence? Your eldest is studying up in Paris to be a lawyer, he is. Do you know?"

"Oh, Gilles always writes us such strange things about the law. I do believe he told us in a letter… five years, was it? I'm not too terribly sure."

Jeanette did not look around, did not dare breathe. Her eyes stung and she shut them fiercely, only to find her eyelids warm by what seemed like tips of red- hot needles.

"Five years sounds right, it does. Pity about his nieces and nephews."

"Yes… poor man. Well, I must get back to my husband's shop."

"Au revior."

"Au revior."

Jeanette wanted to be furiously angry. Jean had ruined life for her children. Her children would starve; they'd all be separated….

Jeanette fell to her hands and knees in the cold snow, it's icy sting biting at her knees through her skirt and tearing at her unprotected palms. Though it was useless, she found herself sobbing… and couldn't tell if was for her children's sake, her sake… or for Jean's.