Page 111 of Meet Me in the Garden

Nathalie leans forward, rests her chin on her hands. “We thought maybe you’d like to tell us.” So I do. I start at the beginning, when I was seventeen, and I went to Hattie for dresses for me and my sisters. I tell them how I felt something I never had before. How it grew into my first real love.

“Where did my father fit in?” Clément asks when I’m finished.

“Oh, the feelings for Hattie had long faded by then,” I say. He nods, he believes me. I wear the lie like a sweater too tight around the throat, a discomfort I can live with.

After we’ve said goodnight, when I’m in my nightgown in bed, sitting up reading, the two of them appear at my door. Nathalie says, “There’s something we’ve kept from you, too. Something that happened a couple years ago, on the train.”

“It wasn’t anything bad,” Clément says.

“It was late at night and our porter came by our seats and woke us up, just Clément and me. He told us to follow him and we did, through the train cars to the dining car. They weren’t serving anymore, they’d been closed for hours already. But there was one table all set for dinner. White tablecloth and a little vase of flowers, silver cutlery and cloth napkins. Very elegant. Our porter told us to sit, and we did, and then Felix was there, taking the seat across from us. It was so strange. Like a dream, almost.”

Felix. Like he’s suddenly here, breathing in the room.

“He was in his uniform,” Clément says. “Just the same as it used to be.”

“The cook brought us shrimp cocktail and steak and dinner rolls.”

“Then there was chocolate cake and coffee. We talked for a long time.”

My eyes burn. The missing him palpable, a pressure in my chest. Tears fall, I can’t stop them. “I’m just crying because I miss him,” I say. “Please tell me more. How did you feel?”

Nathalie says, “At first, I thought I’d be angry. But… it was just so good to be with him again.”

“We felt worried about you,” Clément says. “We felt like we were betraying you.”

“You weren’t betraying me.”

“But we hadfun,” Nathalie says. “We shared stories. We played poker with a couple of the other porters.”

“After he abandoned you,” Clément says. “We didn’t even say anything to him about it. We just ate and played cards and had a good time.”

“That’s exactly what you should have done,” I say. “If that’s what felt right to you, if it’s what you wanted.”

“But aren’t you angry with us?”

“It’s painful,” I say. “That he still wouldn’t write to me or call me up. But it also makes me happy, picturing you three together, knowing that he’s all right.”

“We didn’t tell anyone,” Clément says. “Our cousins were still sleeping when we got back to our seats.”

I shake my head. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to keep secrets,” I say. “I don’t want that for you, ever, with anyone.” I say it more forcefully than I mean to. They’re startled. “I’m not angry with you,” I say again, my voice softer. I’m trying my best to get this right. “I want you to have the most true and beautiful lives. I want you to have the kind of lives where you never have to hide and you never have to pretend and you know that the people you love can handle the truth, even when it’s hard or uncomfortable. You don’t need to protect me.”

They’re standing side by side. Watching me closely.

“Okay,” Clément says.

“Yes, Mommy,” Nathalie says. “Okay.”

THIRTY-SIX

THAT WEEKEND,Claire and Bernard and Sebastian move to the new development. The streets there are smooth and everything is new. Claire shows me every detail. She got to pick out all the finishes for the house—the floor tile, the light fixtures, the brand of appliances. We go room to room, Adele’s absence growing stronger every minute. “Youdidinvite her, didn’t you?” I ask.

“I thought about it, but this should be a happy day. Without any judgment.”

By the time I leave her late in the evening, her kitchen is unpacked and organized, the beds are made, she’s waving at me from the perfect lawn, smiling. But two nights later she comes over, distraught, tells me they were invited to their next-door neighbor’s house for dinner, all of them remarking on the pleasantness of their new community. “‘Best thing about it,’ the husband told us, ‘is there aren’t any Negroes.’ Only, he didn’t use that word. He used the ugly one instead.”

“What did you do?” I ask.

“I froze,” Claire says. “Didn’t knowwhatto do. But Bernard stood up and said, ‘Oh yeah? You’re looking at a family of them right now.’ And we left, just like that, the burgers on the grill and their mouths wideopen in shock.” She wrings her hands. “I don’t know what I’ll say, next time we’re in our driveways at the same time.”