backside against her building. She probably had the rest of the letters in her office, having read them while drinking her gin.
I pulled my shoulders back, looking up at her.
‘It’s not like you want them,’ she said. ‘So, stop looking at me that way.’ Her voice was higher than I remembered, sharper.
I ripped the envelope right in half, tossing it into the gutter.
She sucked air in through her teeth, but then laughed. ‘Watch out, Adèle. For when he comes back.’
Her words hung in the air between us.
‘What do you mean?’ I said.
‘You know what I mean.’ She pulled a cigarette from her dress pocket, which she lit with short puffs, creating a thick white cloud above her head as she exhaled.
‘Since when do you smoke?’ I said.
Her dagger gaze slid over my shoulder down the street. ‘Great,’ she said, puffing some more. ‘First you, and now Pauline…’
Mama had just come out of the Catholic church and stood on the street corner, talking to Prêtre Champoix, nodding, before noticing Charlotte and me. I was surprised. Mama didn’t ride with me, and I wondered how she got into the city without a car. She glanced back and forth between us and the priest as they finished their conversation before walking up to Charlotte, her hands clutched around her pocketbook. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Charlotte turned her head, blowing smoke from her mouth.
‘I had to hear about your loss from gossiping clergy? Didn’t have the decency to tell your own mother?’ She reached for Charlotte’s dress where her baby bump should have been proudly showing and pinched the fabric to gauge the size of her body. ‘When did it happen?’
Charlotte glared at her, swiftly taking Mama’s hand off her dress. ‘What were you doing with the Catholics? Prêtre Champoix can sense an imposter.’
‘Don’t change the subject, Charlotte.’
‘Why don’t you ask your darling?’ Charlotte said, stomping her cigarette out. ‘I can’t believe she didn’t tell you—honestly, Mother.’
Mama squinted. ‘You knew?’
‘It wasn’t my place, Mama.’ I put my hands up, but the look in Mama’s eyes nearly crushed me.
‘Humph!’ Charlotte puffed. ‘You mean you kept your nose out of my business? That’s a new one.’
We matched each other’s cold stare, while Mama gazed at both of us, alternating her glances between both her daughters. ‘How could my girls turn out so different from one another? You used to be best friends. Inseparable. When you were children, I couldn’t tell which was which, both of you covered in dirt from running around the vineyard all day.’
‘That was many years ago,’ I said. ‘We’re women now, Mama.’
‘Indeed,’ Charlotte said.
A single catchfly fell from a woman’s bundle big in her arms as she ran past. I picked it up and handed it to Charlotte. ‘Here,’ I said. ‘Join us. It’s still not too late for you. Pétain’s path isn’t the way. The Reich has rolled right over him. You must realize that now.’
She snatched the catchfly from my hand only to throw it on the ground next to her smashed cigarette. Mama’s eyebrows rose from the rub. ‘I raised you to behave better than that.’
‘Oh, did you, Pauline?’ Charlotte turned her cheek.
Mama took a short breath when Charlotte called her by her given name, and then looked sad. And we stood there, all three of us, waiting for the other to do something, the din of the crowd rising from the square.
‘I miss you,’ Mama said, reaching for Charlotte, but she turned away.
A Milice paddy wagon lurched to a stop just in front of the train station; miliciens poured out like army ants from the back doors, their rifles drawn on the people, outnumbering the police still sweeping catchfly into piles. People scattered, the bulk of them moving across the street onto the pavement.
‘Come on, Mama,’ I said. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’
Charlotte walked into her boutique, slamming the door, shuddering her windows. Mama reluctantly moved her hand back, looking at Charlotte’s closed sign before gazing through Papa’s window next door; a dim light glowed in the rear. Mama leaned to one side, looking a tad woozy as she put her hand on the doorknob and gave it a squeeze.
‘Do you feel all right? I said.
Mama tightened her grip around knob but still she wouldn’t turn it. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I’m fine. I haven’t seen him since… Since that fight in our kitchen.’
‘Go in, Mama.’
Papa bent over some crates, shelving his wine, having no idea his wife was watching him, missing him. She whimpered, a sickness crying