Whispering in French Read online

  She was a two-time offender already. It always amazed me that the most intelligent, sharpest people on Earth didn’t get it. That we keep making the same mistakes, and then blame everyone else for our lack of courage to choose a new way. Therapy is so simple. It’s a two-act play. Act one is easy. The person replays their life from the very beginning. They feel the hurt, free the tears, connect the dots, and see why they made the choices they did. Act two requires jumping into the deep end of the future without the leaky flotation toys we’ve clung to in the past. Instead, we have to learn to swim by ourselves, using a self-made manual written in a language we don’t understand, using a process we absolutely don’t trust and violently loathe.

  And with the new method? Why, the chances of not drowning only improve about 15 percent.

  It takes a kind of faith. Or a touch of insanity. Kind of like navigating the loopy Amalfi Coast without headlights and trusting Google Maps to keep you from falling into the ocean. Sadly, Gillian was hell-bent on gripping the wheel of misfortune and careening out of control with bad boy number three, despite the proverbial beacon of light illuminating a safer route I attempted to provide.

  I finally stood and stretched before taking a few steps to the window. There were just a few moments before my last appointment. The distant lights from the little Spanish town of Fuenterrabía winked through the mist covering the many small bays arcing the coast like a string of black pearls. The first rays of dawn broke over the Pyrenees in their daily flight toward the sea.

  And suddenly I wished Lily was beside me. Not the Lily of today, but the Lily who was still innocent of the pain in the world. When her small hand had fit so perfectly in mine, and she had looked at me with such raw, pure trust in her clear eyes as we laughed together. I could feel the memories balling up and rushing, pushing to fall out. I stopped breathing, sealed my lungs, and harnessed the primal rush to close down. There was no time for this. I crossed to my small desk.

  I glanced at the time on my laptop. Five forty-five. When most normal people were prisoners to an inchoate dreamland. But Anne Bishop of Washington, DC, was a special case. She was on the cusp of courage. Maybe. I just had to get out of the way as she healed herself. It was heading toward the shortest pro bono case in history.

  “Thank you for talking to me, Kate. I know it’s crazy early for you. You sure it’s okay?”

  “No, Anne. It’s perfect. I’m a morning person anyway.” I squeezed my nails into my fists to keep from yawning. What did it matter? Morning, evening—I had lost the ability to keep regular hours a long, long time ago. “How are you doing? How was your week?”

  Anne spoke of the trivialities of life, walking the walk so many clients had to do to finally feel the warm cocoon of intimacy with me before they could really dig deep and face their fears. “Anne, you’re doing so well, you are. But tell me, how are you feeling?”

  “I’m good. Well, I’m . . . I’m . . .” She put her head in her hands, and her body shook.

  I waited a beat. Let her get a grip. “What’s going on?”

  “You know how you said I should dig deep and dial into my anger?”

  “Yes.”

  “I did. And I figured it out. All this time I’ve confused sadness with anger. And mixed up happiness, with just not being scared. And thought drama was normal life.”

  “And?”

  “And I’m done with it all. I know you want me to sort through everything, look at my childhood, see where my parents failed, but I think I’ve just got to do one basic thing and everything else will fix itself.”

  “And what is that one thing?” Maybe finally someone would give me the answer.

  “I’ve just decided to stand up for myself. Damn it. I don’t want to feel sad anymore. I’ve just got to decide to do that. No one can do it for me. I don’t want to heal or be taken care of or be a victim or martyr. I just want to take a stand. Be myself, by myself. And not care what anyone thinks anymore. Except me. No one else is living in this bag of skin except me. I don’t have to please anyone except me anymore. It’s my damn life and I will live it the way I choose.”

  And there it was. Raw grit scratching its way to the surface. It was a rare sight to behold. “Go on.”

  “And . . . and . . . and I’m going to start paying you, Kate. It won’t be much at first if that’s okay.”

  “You don’t have to pay me, Kate. You’re part of the program for which I volunteered.”

  “I don’t care. I’m treating right the people who treat me right and kicking to the curb everyone else.”

  “And Ron?” Her rich, alcoholic husband had left her and their three boys without a cent but now wanted back in.

  “I’ll never take him back. No matter how much he and his family bribe me. I will, I will . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, I’ll figure out the rest as it goes along.”

  “You will,” I said quietly. “I know you will.”

  “I get it, Kate. It’s what I think you’ve been trying to get me to figure out myself.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t have to worry about trusting others. I just have to trust myself. To trust that I’ll do the right thing.”

  “And if you make a mistake along the way?”

  “No one is perfect,” she said and buried her face in her hands again.

  “What’s going on?”

  “It’s just . . . It’s just that I know the answers. Everyone knows these clichés. I just have to do my best. Get it. But everything is such a disaster in every direction.” She stared back from the screen, tears of anger trembling on her lashes but refusing to fall.

  “You’re doing an excellent job in a miserable situation, Anne. When you’re ready, the career counselor will help you make job choices. Okay?” Digging up her past that had led her to make poor decisions would have to wait until the next time.

  “How do you do it?” She gripped one of her hands with the other.

  “What?”

  “Hold on every day,” she said quietly and broke our shared gaze.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I overheard the assistant director talking about you. What happened last year to your daughter?” She broke eye contact.

  “Anne?” Blackness edged my vision.

  “Yes?”

  “Remember how you said no one was perfect?” Oh, the cloying sweetness of that cliché. How I hated it.

  “Yes.”

  “Well,” I examined the keyboard and brushed a crumb off it, “I’m the poster child for showing you that a degree or two or a bookcase of knowledge does not preempt mistakes.”

  “But it wasn’t your mistake. They said it was—”

  “Anne,” I cut her off. “I’m here to help you not vice versa. Focusing on others is what got you into this situation. Not that that is a bad thing all the time. It’s just that there must be balance. Our time together is for your needs, not mine, got it?”

  “But how do you cope? Do you focus on what makes you happy?”

  I watched my hand hovering over the red end call button. How I wished I could press it. Two minutes to go. “Eleanor Roosevelt once said, ‘Sometimes you must do what you think you cannot do.’ She was right. Don’t you agree? Um, we’ve only a few more moments.” Thank God.

  The rough staccato of a mobylette making its way up the cliff road rushed to fill the silence. Anne’s image appeared frozen on the screen until she pushed her hair behind one ear.

  “I’m sorry I brought anything up. I would never want to make you feel bad,” she said quietly. “You’ve done so much for me.”

  “Anne,” I replied. “It’s completely fine. No need to worry. Really. Shall we Skype again next week? Same time?”

  A moment later she nodded and I mouthed a few more pleasantries before I escaped.

  Walking to the window, I relatched one of the shutters, which was dangling from its rusted hinges outside. The rust had wept onto the stone walls, leaving tear stains of
age and neglect under the veil of ivy. I doubted the hinges would survive another season of salt and storms. Closing my eyes, I breathed deep and then opened my eyes and exhaled all thoughts of sadness. It was a trick I’d learned in the worst of it last year.

  The ancient spinster who lived next door, Mlle Lefebvre, was walking slowly up the road, a baguette peeking out of her basket. She was thin, still perpetually all in black, and her gait was sure but uneven, as if one leg was shorter than the other. Her massive marmalade cat, tail twitching, sat next to the black iron gates watching her mistress ascend.

  I remembered Mlle Lefebvre from my youth. She’d been old then, and looked remarkably the same all these years later. Those baguettes clearly had antiaging properties in them. A swarm of German bicyclists appeared from around the bend and shouted out guten Morgen as they passed. She ignored them, merely shaking her head. I wondered if she and Jean were speaking to each other or at daggers drawn. There had never been any gray area between them. Love or hate, that’s how they operated. The French had a loathing for anything approaching friendship between the sexes. She’d been a lawyer at some point, probably when surfboards were made out of wood and gentile women did not go out and earn a wage.

  My grandfather had never been so uncouth as to earn a single French euro or franc, old or new, unless it was at Le Casino or in a golf competition. He’d merely accomplished what his male ancestors had done before him: excelling at a gentleman’s sport, as well as partying, gambling, drinking, and laughing— except during World War II, when he’d done his duty, but then he went right back to the good life. And my never-seen, mysterious grandmother? Why, she’d divorced him after two children and three years of marriage. Sophie du Roque had arranged an annulment and run off to South America with a railroad baron, avoiding the war altogether.

  Two additional wives buried, one neighbor his on again off again mistress, my grandfather was still playing cards, drinking, and reminiscing. Was there any wonder my family was as dysfunctional and unpredictable as the bell in the church?

  I yawned, nearly dislocating my jaw. There was something about the air here that was finally making me remember how delicious sleep could be. Slumber had become my foe the last two years. You never know how precious sleep is until you can’t succumb to it; and this was always learned at a point when you most needed it.

  The bed in Connecticut had become a thing to fear. It had become my private hell six hours a night or much less. Even after I’d ripped off the canopy—an ugly, dusty floral thing that had witnessed seventeen years of marital loneliness—I still hadn’t been able to easily fall off the precipice of consciousness. When I finally had, any chance of peace was immediately doused by the barrage of nightmares on the other side of reality. Sadly, my memory never failed in the morning.

  I walked to the tiny, sagging bed more suited for a child and smoothed the matelassé. Perhaps just a little snooze before a late breakfast. Perhaps just a—

  A knock on the door and Magdali peered inside.

  “Yes?”

  “The person sent from the agence—the new man? He just left.”

  I couldn’t comprehend.

  “He quit. I think he knew your grandfather was about to fire him anyway.”

  “For?”

  “Something about son toilette. His morning ritual. Said his bath was always too hot or too cold, that he wheeled the chair too quickly, that the man did not earn his wage. And . . .”

  “And?”

  Magdali hid a smile well. “Your grandfather kept telling him that he dressed like a peasant and smelled like a . . . a—what is the word for pute?”

  “Whore,” I replied. “Or gigolo in this case.”

  So much for a few hours of sleep. “Let’s hope Mr. Soames finds us someone soon. Is Grandfather dressed? Had breakfast?”

  His voice boomed up the staircase, demanding something so muffled I couldn’t make it out.

  “Oui,” she replied.

  I grabbed a sweater off the cracked veneer of the bureau and pulled it over my head. “Okay. Would you mind making a tea tray? This might be—oh, who is kidding anyone? The conversation is going to be painful.”

  “Bien sûr,” she said. “Of course.”

  I headed to the door but paused. “Magdali, you know him far better than I do. How am I going to get him to sell? What will motivate him?”

  The surface of Magdali’s dark skin was coated with the soft sunlight of early morning. Her eyes sought out mine. “That’s not what is important.”

  I dragged a brush through my hair. “Really? Then what is?”

  “He’s not going to live forever.”

  I just didn’t know what to say.

  “You have to try, Kate.”

  “Try? Try? You want me to try? What exactly?”

  “To love him.” I opened my mouth, but she continued softly, “My mother always said, where there is love there is no darkness. And there is hope.” Her solemn expression shadowed the tribal wisdom of her words.

  I carefully placed the brush on the bureau and turned to her. “You of all people know his character. The same character of this entire family. We don’t stand up for each other or for the truth. We’re poor judges of character, and most of us are just plain weak. At least I’m willing to own up to it. Darkness? The entire living du Roque family and their ancestors are the personification of darkness. I figured that out the last time I was here. And you know it too. I’m leaving as soon as humanly possible.”

  “Then why are you here? Why not just let nature take its course—the house falls apart, or your grandfather dies, and your uncle sells. We all manage to scrape by. So why did you come?”

  “I don’t know why I agreed.” There it was. The truth. “I don’t know why I do anything anymore.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since the day I found Lily after she ran away, and she would only agree to return with me if I sent her to boarding school instead of living with me.”

  “Kate,” Magdali said quietly, “why?”

  “Why did she want to get away from me? Because I failed her. Because, au fond, deep down, I’m a du Roque. As much as I’m loath to admit it and as much as I’ve tried to distance myself from anything and everything associated with this family.”

  “What happened?”

  “That is the question,” I said evasively. “But right now, I must talk to Jean, as we both know.”

  Age-old hurt swirled in her sage eyes. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “Good,” I replied. “Because there’s nothing that can be done.” I walked past her, and descended the staircase.

  Jean was seated in the lumpy sofa in the front salon, fumbling with the ancient television’s remote control. He looked up at me, his faded blue eyes hard with suspicion. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  I crossed the floor and sat in a massive armchair opposite him.

  “I’m not leaving. And I’m not selling.” He mumbled something else into his faded yellow handkerchief.

  “All right,” I replied. “And what will you live on?”

  “That’s not your affair. Not your concern.”

  “I agree. So whose concern is it?”

  “Mine.”

  The blue sky beyond the French doors seemed far too pure and filled with happy promise compared to the scene in here.

  “And what about Magdali? Who will take care of her? And who will pay her daughter’s boarding school next year?”

  “Your mother. She promised. Even if she refused to spend un sou on Madeleine Marie. But Magdali . . .” He said her name with an unmistakable hint of sadness. “She will have to find another employer, I’ve supported her long enough.”

  “Your loyalty is unparalleled.”

  “It is,” he said quickly. In a rare effort, he hobbled to his feet, waving away my efforts to help him. Step by step, with his cane wobbling, he made his way to the window to stare out.

  “And if she leaves, who will take care of you?”
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  “I told you, it’s not your concern.”

  “I hope you’re not counting on my uncle.”

  He turned to look at me, his face shaded by the halo of sun behind him. “Of course I am. He is my heir as is your mother. You still don’t understand the beauty of our system here, do you? Americans think independence is king. It’s not. Family is all. We might hurt each other, but we take care of one another. You know nothing about that.”

  I swallowed the bile in the back of my throat. Do not rise to the bait. Do not . . . “All right,” I said, “and after Jean-Michel sells all the paintings, followed by the silver, and any antiques of value, what then?”

  “Then I shall be long dead, I am sure.”

  “And then?”

  “I will have done my duty. I will have raised my family, served my country, had my share of pleasure and pain like everyone else, and I will have preserved the family legacy and passed it to the next generation.”

  “And will Jean-Michel do the same?”

  “That is his concern. And Antoinette’s.”

  “Not yours?”

  “Not mine.”

  “I see,” I said, not seeing at all. “And if Jean-Michel found a way to keep Madeleine Marie and not sell it like every person has hinted to me since I arrived, who would he leave it to?”

  “Why, to you, of course.”

  I was not often at a loss for words.

  “Unless, of course, he marries again and finally has a child. But I would not count on it.”

  “Jean . . . As much as I wish I could let you continue to believe in this lovely fairy tale, we can’t afford it. Your son will sell Madeleine Marie the minute he can, and Antoinette will be relieved.”

  “Don’t be so sure of that,” he murmured. “Every heir has thought about selling at some point. But we never do, and we never will.”