At the Edge of Summer

“These men have given so much,” I told her. “My time is the least I can give.”

“Miss Bernard did express some concern.” She folded her hands. “She said there was a guest the other day who…affected you.”

Mrs. Ladd had the ability to make suggestions sound like privileges, mays instead of shoulds.

While Pascalle nodded and made shooing motions behind Mrs. Ladd’s back, I said, “Thank you,” and stayed home the next day.

I’d taken to watching for the post anyway. I kept hoping that the Crépets would write to me, tell me they were wrong, tell me that they wanted to help. I sat by the window of the apartment, letting my artist’s imagination conjure up scenes of happy family reunions. In all of them, I hovered along the edges of the embraces.

I kept myself busy that morning off. After a slow breakfast of tea and a newspaper I wasn’t really reading, I bundled up in my coat and cherry-red scarf. I walked to Les Halles through a hesitant snow. I’d make Grandfather a flamiche, if I could find leeks.

The market in Les Halles wasn’t as bright as any in Africa or Spain. No woven rugs or baskets of couscous or cones of ground spices. The produce wasn’t as shiny, the fish not as fresh, the flowers not as plentiful as the other markets I knew. Pascalle promised that it once was and that it would return to that as soon as France recovered. In the meantime, the market was crowded with housewives and cooks doing their shopping quickly with downcast eyes and half-empty bags. American soldiers, ruddy and clean, brushed past the old poilus, faded after four years of war. Those refugees who had nothing to return to, they crouched on corners, waiting patiently for the charity of strangers. My heart ached for them, always, but I couldn’t buy enough bread to feed every lost one in the city.

The flower seller, in her spotted head scarf and layers of bright-dyed skirts, waited on her usual corner. “Flowers, ma chère

?” She held out a small, fragrant bunch of violets. “Ask your sweetheart to buy you flowers?”

I gave her a few coins, like I always did, but left the flowers for the next customer. “No sweetheart yet, mademoiselle.”

And there hadn’t been. I had my easy friendship with Finlay, but both of us knew it could never be more than that. There’d been a boy in Lagos who tried to kiss me, and one in Seville whom I’d let. There’d been one in Marrakesh, an American artist, who sketched me nude when Grandfather was gone. But none that I’d call “sweetheart.”

I told myself it was because I didn’t want to compromise. What good was gaining a sweetheart if it meant losing everything else?

What are you waiting for? Finlay had asked me once. Who are you waiting for? I always answered, No one, because I wanted that to be the answer. And because any other admission would break my heart. I didn’t want to confess that, even then, even not knowing, I was always waiting for Luc.

I went back to the apartment with my shopping, unpacked my groceries, arranged and rearranged the few stores on my shelves. While I was out, Grandfather had come back from his morning coffee at Café Aleppo, and he’d fallen asleep on the sofa still in his shoes. I paced. I washed my hair. I tried out my new marcel iron. I paced. Who are you waiting for?

I wished I’d brought Luc’s old letters with me from Perthshire, so that I could spread them all out on the bed the way I used to, so I could try to remember a time when he would meet my eyes instead of looking away. But the letters were tucked in my dresser drawer at Fairbridge, wrapped in a silk scarf. Memories, however, weren’t so easy to tuck away.

I had a letter that morning, from Finlay. His letters lately had been infused with regret. They’d been doing life drawing, which always made him think of his sister. His letters were filled with lines like, Stubbornness is no excuse for loss, and I’d give up my other leg to go back in time, and Why do you still write to a miserable soul like me? But this last letter was all about the new life model, Evelyn, an aspiring art student with, from the sound of it, the longest legs in Scotland. It held an uncharacteristic note of hope.