hand away before I could finish, and we raced down the lone country road, the back tyres fishtailing over the loose gravel. My knee kept knocking hers from being crammed in the back seat together. She’d huff, shifting this way and that, but then our hips or our forearms would touch. Until finally—after many minutes searching for a space of her own—she somehow managed to create a gap between our bodies.
‘There,’ she breathed. ‘Finally.’ She smoothed her hair to one side before gazing back out the window, looking as lifeless as a statue.
*
We drove north through the Beaujolais countryside and into the Saône Valley where the region’s Gamay grapes hung from thick green vines. Gusts of fermented oak and the earthy smell of dark topsoil filtered in through the windows.
I breathed it in.
As children, Charlotte and I would run barefoot through Papa’s vineyard in the Vichy hills of Creuzier-le-Vieux, until the evening chill had numbed our sun-soaked arms and our feet had turned black as tar from the volcanic soil that made Papa’s pinot taste so rich—but never in the Gamay vineyards. Papa forbade us from running through our neighbour’s farm, said the grapes made vin de merde. Shit wine. And that we’d come back smelling like it, worse, transplant that grape’s unique aromas into our vineyard and create something new and awful.
We were close to the convent; I could feel it in the valley air, and for the first time since leaving Vichy, I thought about what life would be like living with the sisters. Papa had me take communion as a child, but I hadn’t memorized any scripture and wondered if I’d be expected to. I’d have to remember how to hold a rosary.
‘How much longer till the convent?’ I said.
Marguerite jerked in her seat—suddenly very much alive. ‘Convent?’ She grabbed the wife from behind and pulled on her shoulder. ‘You’re not taking her to the train station?’
The wife looked to her husband, mouth in an open gasp, but all he did was grip his steering wheel tighter. There was an awkward long pause as Marguerite dug her fingertips into the woman’s fleshy shoulder.
‘Of course you’re going to the convent!’ Marguerite let go, but not without giving the wife a nasty little shove.
It didn’t occur to me until that moment that Marguerite might be headed to the convent also. Her makeup-less face, her drab clothes, and those odd silent stares out the window started to add up. I reached for the book on her lap, that same book she’d been clutching the entire two hours I’d known her, and flipped its cover back: The Holy Bible.
‘You’re going to be a nun,’ I said, ‘aren’t you?’
Marguerite snatched her Bible back. ‘This was supposed to be a special day for me, and you’ve all but ruined it with your intrusions.’
I sat still, hands recoiling into my lap, not sure what to say or where to look—a postulant’s arrival at her convent was indeed special; even I knew that—I felt bad, trying not to look at the rash still puffing on her neck.
The car skidded to a screaming stop. ‘We’re here,’ the driver said. ‘Now get out.’ He flung open his door. The wife folded her hands together and muttered something that sounded like a prayer while he went around the back and untied Marguerite’s crate from the bumper.
I got out of the car and, to my surprise, the convent was a medieval-looking castle perched on a hill. A massive stone wall enclosed the grounds and seemed to go in both directions for kilometres on end. A long drive led up from an opened iron gate to the front door, which I could barely see at such a far distance. Willow trees lined the path, weeping, swaying subtly from a breeze sweeping through the valley.
Marguerite walked slowly past me with one hand on her hip, the other on her forehead, looking somewhat disappointed.
‘It’s so beautiful—’
‘Shh,’ Marguerite said, throwing her hand in the air. A garden of yellow wildflowers cascading down the hill toward the city of Lyon seemed to only add to her disappointment.
Moments passed. The couple slammed their doors closed without so much as a goodbye and sped away. Pebbles shooting out from underneath spinning tyres hit Marguerite’s legs as she stood stoically still, her eyes set on the convent’s massive stone turrets peeking through the willow trees, her straight brown hair matching her lanky body and her long arms.
I couldn’t help but think how different we were. Brown, thick