“He hurt his ankle, but Dr. Miller says he just needs to stay off of it for a little while.”
“I heard he went out there to examine him. Please call me Toinon.” She took Cady by both hands, squeezed lightly, and kissed her on both cheeks. Cady wouldn’t have imagined it possible for the air to smell even better, but a subtle perfume, beyond the aroma of flowers, enveloped her now.
“Thank God you’re there with him,” Toinon continued. “Please, come, have an aperitif.”
Before Cady could answer, Toinon closed the shop doors, flipped the sign toCLOSED, took Cady by the hand, and led her through the attached greenhouse. The glassed-in room was charming, but packed with so many tchotchkes and plants, antiques and pieces of garden furniture that they had to wind their way along a narrow pathway through the tumble.
“Excuse the state of this place,” Toinon said. “My husband passed away last year, and running the shop by myself, I simply lose track ofthings. My daughter is here with me now, however, so I hope all that will change.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your husband,” Cady said.
“It was... a shock.” Toinon stepped into a bright, airy kitchen with a big farmhouse table at one end of the room.
“I lost someone I cared for not long ago as well,” said Cady.
Toinon turned around and took Cady’s hands in hers again. She had tears in her eyes. “I’m so sorry. Who?”
“My... a friend, but she was almost like my mother.”
Toinon simply nodded and held Cady’s gaze. Cady could feel her own eyes well with tears at the evident sympathy in Toinon’s expression. The older woman simply held her hands in silence for a long moment.
Finally, she said, “Bien, come into the salon and we will share a glass.”
They passed through the large kitchen, and then into a minuscule office with a messy desk in front of a window and wall-to-wall bookcases, with a comfortable-looking love seat upholstered in sage green brocade.
On the couch was the most adorable child Cady had ever seen. No more than four years old, she had chestnut brown hair cut in a bob, bright brown eyes, and pink cheeks—one of which was stained with a liberal smear of chocolate. In her lap she held an illustrated book, almost half her size. She was dressed in an old-fashioned-looking cream-colored dress with an ashes-of-roses sash, complete with crinolines, but her feet were bare, their soles dirty.
“This is my granddaughter, Jacinthe. Jacinthe, please say hello to the lady.”
With some reluctance, the girl scooted off the couch, butt first, and stood in front of Cady, lifting her face and scrunching her lips, as though waiting for a kiss. Cady leaned down toward her, and Jacinthe gave her a sticky, chocolate-scented kiss on each cheek, intoning,“Bonjour, madame.”
“Bonjour, Jacinthe,”said Cady.“Enchantée.”
“En-chan-tée,”Jacinthe echoed, then crawled back onto the sofa to read her book.
The next room, which Toinon called “the salon,” was a living room with a massive stone fireplace at one end, similar to the one in Fabrice’s kitchen. A spiral stairway punctuated the middle of the space, and beyond that was a worktable, crowded with a palette and various jars and brushes. The faint smell of turpentine reached them, carried by a cool spring breeze from an open window.
“Please. Make yourself comfortable, and I will tell my daughter, Élodie, that you are here.”
Toinon slipped through a door on the other side of the room, leaving Cady free to explore. The huge rough-hewn wooden mantel held pictures of what she presumed were family members, and souvenirs of a lifetime: a soccer trophy, a lumpy handmade ceramic puppy, an African wood carving, a few postcards propped against the wall.
She wandered around the room, pausing to check out the painting on the easel closest to the worktable. It depicted an ornate flower arrangement in a glass vase, the muted colors popping against a nearly black background. As she looked closer, she thought she saw leaves strewn around the vase, but they were so dark it was hard to be sure.
“Here we are,” said Toinon, returning with her daughter and introducing the two young women.
Élodie had a pretty, mature face, accented with the pink cheeks and lips of her daughter. Petite and birdlike like Toinon, Élodie wore a pristine white skirt and a pale yellow sweater with pearl buttons.
Cady calculated the odds that when a stranger dropped by she would be dressed as though she had stepped out of a catalog. Pretty close to nil.
After exchanging hellos, Élodie disappeared into the small office while Toinon perched on a chair and gestured to Cady to take a seat on the couch in the seating area.
“So, please, tell us the news of Fabrice. When his father was still with him he used to come to town for groceries, but in the last many years he’s become more and more reclusive.”
“As I said, he’s doing well.” Cady almost felt as though she was betraying him, simply by speaking about him. He was so intenselyprivate. Perhaps one reason he had allowed her to stay with him was that she was wholly unconnected to the village and the villagers.
Élodie returned with a tray that held a trio of bottles, three glasses, a bowl of mixed nuts, and a container of ice with silver tongs.
“What would you like?” Toinon asked after Élodie placed the tray on the large ottoman. “Pastis, Armagnac, or Génépy?”
