I shrug, noncommittal. “I thought she would be here, too.”
“Mmm,” he says, his nose nuzzling my neck. “I’m sorry she’s missing this. You smell nice.”
I laugh at that. “Thank you.”
Later in the evening, when the crowd is thinning somewhat, and my toes, in Gianvito Rossi heels, are beginning to numb, Lorry approaches me in the atrium.
“Your work is exceptional, Cecilia. I’m just—” He shakes his head, a wry smile on his face. “—processing.”
“Process away.”
“I saw your cousins. Which was nice. Here and in the exhibit. And it was good to see your mom’s photos and hear her voice. I miss theJamaican accent. She looks great. And I recognized Audrey and Alex and Pilar. Bizarre seeing all these familiar faces, twenty years after the fact.”
“Yes, I imagine.”
“That’s great that you’re still close with all of them. And Anouk, of course. Some really exquisite photos of Anouk.”
I nod. “It’s kind of hard to take a bad picture of her.”
“Apparently,” he says. And then, “You know, the entire time, in the womb room, I was thinking, Why aren’t you in there? Like, Why didn’t Cecilia do a self-portrait and include herself with all these other beautiful women? It would have been nice to see her face. It would have been nice to hear her thoughts. And then I realized—” He pauses, his head inclining toward the gallery. “—theseareyour thoughts.”
I let it sit there for a second.
“Thesearemy thoughts.”
“Yeah.” He smiles, his hands in his pockets. “So thank you for that. Thank you for allowing me into your head. Allowing all of us into your head.”
“You’re welcome.”
He looks around a bit, rocking in his boots. He’s stalling. I know his telltale signs.
“Are those your kids wandering around? The teens that kind of look like you?”
I nod. “Lucie and Julien, yes.”
“They’re beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
“And your husband? Is he the good-looking French guy that seems to know everyone?”
“Yes.”
He nods. Smiles a little. “He looks not unlike what I imagined your husband would look like.”
Some part of me wants to kick him.
For so long, I imagined my husband would look likehim. That the man standing before me would change his mind and show up magically in Paris with a handwritten poem and a daisy and some profession of undying love. And that I would jump at the gesture. This I held onto even after Fran and I had started dating. Even after we moved in. This I held on to right up until the pregnancy test came back positive and I realized I would have to make a choice. Hold on to the little life I had built an ocean away from everything I knew and everyone I loved. Or hold on to the dream of the boy from Connecticut.
The choice had been made for me.
“Can I see you sometime?” Lorry asks then. “Can we grab lunch or something? Would that be okay with you?”
“Sure. Lunch would be great.”
“Good. I’d like that.” He smiles, holds my gaze. “You really look great, Cecilia.”
“Thank you.”
