‘It’s all right, Adèle,’ she said, holding it out for me to take, ‘but do try to remember.’ I reached for the lighter, but she pulled it back after taking a second look. ‘This lighter…’
‘It’s my mother’s.’
‘It’s a cloisonné. The enamel… the inlay…’ Mother talked as if she knew a thing or two about expensive lighters, which surprised me. ‘And this one looks—’
‘She’s had it since her nursing days in the Red Cross.’
She gasped through her open mouth, glancing at me just briefly, but then many minutes passed with her still holding the lighter, rubbing her thumb over the smooth sides, smiling at times and then frowning. I reached for it again, but she ignored me so I put my hand down after tossing my spent cigarette over my shoulder into the bushes.
‘Do you know much about her time there? And your father? What of him?’
Thinking about Mama and Papa fighting made my head hurt, and I had enough on my mind with Marguerite. ‘My father… he’s… they are…’
‘I’m sorry.’ She looked up, smiling oddly while examining my face. ‘Too many questions?’
‘Perhaps just a few.’
Mother hesitated, and I wondered if she expected me to explain. Then she motioned at the empty space next to me. ‘Do you mind some company?’
Before I could answer she had already made use of the space next to me, her habit laid out like a blanket, covering every limb. Her white wimple and black veil rubbed up against each other, and it sounded incredibly uncomfortable as we sat, not talking. I caught myself leaning forward to catch a glimpse of her natural hair while she adjusted her veil. She looked at me, pausing, with fingers on her headpiece, and my eyes went to the air.
‘Now, Adèle.’
‘Yes!’ I sat board straight.
‘I heard there is an issue between you and Marguerite.’
‘What?’ I gulped. ‘You know?’ Mavis.
Mother batted her eyes slowly, majestically, and they were beautiful, sea green eyes set wide on her face, which made it hard for me to gauge her feelings. ‘We are human, after all,’ she said, giving my knee a pat. ‘Find a way, a path of compassion. Make amends with her. About her arrival. It’s what God wants.’
‘Amends?’ My voice peaked.
She got up from the bench and picked one of the flowers growing between the cobblestones. ‘An unexpected flower in an unexpected place.’ She handed me the lighter, and the metal felt very warm from having been in her hand for so long. ‘Au revoir, Adèle.’ She walked away twirling the flower under her nose.
My whole body collapsed onto the bench, nearly lying down, searching my pocket for a cigarette, but then decided I better not and took a moment to just breathe.
And breathe I did.
A workman’s lorry in need of a new muffler rumbled past me on the dirt road and then stopped abruptly in front of the loading platform the sisters used for laundry drop-offs. I watched the driver as he unlatched the lorry’s double doors. He looked strong and attractive from what I could tell, which caught my eye through the cracks of the bench.
Sister Mary-Francis rushed out of the laundry in a quiet panic. He waved to shush her, and she covered her mouth, nodding. Together they rolled several laundry carts from the back of his lorry into the laundry room. Some of the carts looked empty, while others overflowed with soiled bed linens from hotels that couldn’t afford, or find, soap to do their own laundry—something the sisters no doubt prepared for, having gone through a war once already.
I sat up slightly to get a better look, enthralled by the mundane acts of convent life. But then Marguerite came out of the laundry and I ducked. She stood next to the lorry’s double doors, her hands resting impatiently on both hips, tapping her foot as if to hurry them and periodically glancing up into the sky, until Sister Mary-Francis rolled the last cart into the convent and shut the doors behind her.
And then there was Marguerite, practically alone, standing prim in her blue postulant’s smock.
I bolted up, heart racing. Now’s the time. I took a breath through my nose. ‘Let this work,’ I said, exhaling. ‘Let this be it and done with.’
I started the short walk over, back straightening, but then stopped cold right next to the loading platform. Something wasn’t right. Marguerite and the driver had hidden behind the lorry. There were no voices, no words of any kind.