my mouth, closing my eyes briefly. ‘But… there are so many.’ The old lady held out her hand, and I took it, withering to the ground like a violet under the weight of a heavy boot. A tear snuck down my cheek, now I realized why Charlotte had kept Mama and me away.
‘Oh, Charlotte.’
*
I hadn’t been to Charlotte’s new apartment, the one her husband bought her while I was at the convent, and I had to guess which corner of Rue Charasse it was on. I tried the doorknob, and to my surprise it was unlocked. Charlotte sat in her kitchen, the winter sun shining coldly through the window and onto her face, a half-empty bottle of gin in her hand as she sat back in her chair, a dazed, glassy look in her eyes.
I shut the door behind me and Charlotte looked up, nearly spilling her gin.
‘How’d you get in here?’ she seethed.
I looked around, walking closer. ‘Your door was unlocked.’ Jars and jars of baby food had been opened and left to spoil in the sun, hearty greens and sweet and sickly ham. I had to wonder where she got that much food to preserve. Each one had a different colour of ribbon tied around the neck. Yellow for fruit, green for vegetables and brown, I assumed, was the meat.
She hiccupped. ‘Well, now you know,’ she said, hiccupping again. ‘Now you know…’ She swung the bottle around the room, gin spilling over her legs and onto the table. ‘And my husband is gone. Barely comes here anymore. Probably because I can’t keep his babies.’
‘Charlotte, that isn’t true,’ I said, bending to one knee. ‘He loves you.’
‘Love!’ she spurted out.
‘Yes,’ I said.
She poured gin into a tall glass until it overflowed onto her tablecloth. ‘What do you know about love?’
‘I know he bought you the boutique, and he’s provided for you,’ I said. ‘Look at your new apartment.’ It felt odd not having been in her apartment sooner, not knowing exactly where she lived, looking upon her things for the first time, a stranger in my own sister’s home.
‘Look at your things.’ She had a light blue divan with hand-stitched pillows near a window with cushions too firm to have ever been sat on, and two cut-crystal vases stuffed with wax flowers I recognized from her wedding. Porcelain figurines from Limoges were displayed in a curio cabinet with glass shelves. Her very own painting of the promenade in an ornately carved wood frame hung on the wall—the only piece of artwork that had survived since her marriage. ‘Henri bought you all of this during your marriage.’
‘Marriage!’ she scoffed, kicking back the gin, glugging it like water. ‘You had a marriage all planned out—a brilliant union.’ She slammed her empty glass down on the table. ‘You threw it away with no regard to others. Now you’re doing it again, but this time right in front of our faces.’
‘Gérard?’
‘Oh, you remember his name? That’s amusing.’ She caught a glimpse of the necklace Luc gave me, squinting her watering eyes to get a better look. ‘What is that?’ She got up from her chair and stumbled into the table trying to grab for it in the air.
I threw a hand to my chest, blocking her. ‘Gérard is not a man, Charlotte. He’s a tyrant.’
‘Gérard has importance, you ungrateful… imbécile!’ She held on to the table, creeping toward me. ‘All he wanted to do was love you, and you pushed him away.’ She looked directly into my eyes, her voice bitter as a salt lick. ‘You ran away.’
‘You’re drunk.’
‘Oh, the dimples… there they are!’ She threw the empty bottle of gin to the wall and it shattered everywhere. ‘Adèle and her dimples! Gérard is always talking about them. Too bad he can’t see you now. Look at you.’ She flicked her finger at me, mouth pruning. ‘Look at you!’
Her words pricked like needles over my skin—I was angry about the way she spoke to me and who she had become. I wanted to lash out at her, but the miscarriages and her fragile state kept me from it.
I threw open the door. ‘Pull yourself together,’ I said. ‘Then we’ll talk.’
‘Go ahead,’ she said as the door slammed shut between us, ‘run away again!’
*
The next morning Papa stopped me outside Charlotte’s boutique. ‘You can help me in the mornings full time. If you want. Charlotte isn’t herself and needs some time alone.’ Papa’s bottom lip quivered as if he knew as much as I