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* * *
I spend much of the next day sleeping. I don’t need it, not the way I did before I took my aunt’s spark. I just don’t have the heart to do anything else.
When Henri comes in that afternoon, his eyes go to me. I see misery there, and hunger too, but I no longer trust my ability to read what’s in his heart. Look how wrong I must have been the first time around.
He sits stiffly beside a yammering Yvette, pale beneath his summer tan. The two of them make a lovely couple. Perhaps this is how it was always supposed to be, and I am the intruder. Watching them, I don’t see how I can possibly keep my promise to Cecelia. Remain here a full month? I’m not even sure I’ll make it through the next twenty-four hours.
Marie begins to put dinner on the table. I rise but she presses a hand to my shoulder and tells me to sit. Yvette, I notice, hasn’t lifted a finger once since I arrived. I push the food on my plate around, wishing I had an appetite. When I look up, Henri’s eyes are on me again.
“So how long do you plan to stay, Amelie?” asks Yvette. She’s smiling but it’s strained, unfriendly at the edges.
Henri stills, listening. “Until the end of October,” I reply. “I’m meeting a friend then.”
A muscle feathers in Henri’s jaw at the word friend. Does he want to ask who I’m meeting? Does a hint of his old jealousy still exist? Good. It can only be a fraction of my own, and he deserves it.
“We love that you’re here,” says Marie, raising a brow at Yvette. “We want you to stay as long as possible.”
“I’m sure Amelie is eager to see something of Europe other than our little farm,” says Yvette. Our farm. I bristle at her use of the word. It’s not yours, bitch. But as soon as the thought flits through my head I’m reminded: she’s been here longer than I have. I thought of the farm as mine in a much shorter period of time. I guess she was smart to lock Henri into marriage as fast as she did, since he is obviously a man prone to quick changes of heart. “You should go see things while you’re in Europe. Come back to meet your friend afterward.”
“This is her home too,” says Henri, hand clenched tight around his fork.
I laugh. The sound is unrepentantly bitter. “This was never my home.”
Yvette looks between the two of us. She’s a smart girl, a crafty one. She may not know who I really am, but she knows a threat when it’s presented to her. “You shouldn’t force her to stay when there’s so much to see. Who’s this friend you’ll meet, Amelie?”
The desire to hurt Henri for this entire experience pulses inside me, swelling and growing. I know it’s juvenile. I know I should be better than this.
I simply am not.
“He’s a musician, beginning a European tour next month. He asked me to travel with him.”
“A musician!?” squeals Yvette. “How very scandalous of you. Musicians have no money, but I’m sure you’ll have a lovely time.”
Resist, resist. I can’t. “This one has money. A lot of money. He’s got his own plane. I kept a photo of him on my wall at home, in fact, as an adolescent.”
Yvette’s face goes from shock to suspicion. The idea, I suppose, of some girl in borrowed shoes having a lover wealthy enough to own a plane is beyond her comprehension.
Henri rises, gripping his side, and walks straight out the door. It’s only been two days, but it seems to be becoming a habit.
Marie watches him go, flinching, and then she grabs a pail off the counter and hands it to me. “I forgot to milk the cows,” she says. “Can you?”
I reach for the pail but she doesn’t release it until I meet her eye. I know what the look says. Hash it out. Have your fight so you can stop bringing it under my roof.
I give her a tight, barely visible nod and walk out of the house to find Henri.
* * *
He is pacing, out by his bale of hay. Our bale of hay. I will never look at it without thinking of the last time I was here, of all the promise that lay ahead. His life is still full of promise, though, isn’t it? Brand new promises he made some other woman the moment my back was turned.
He watches me approach with his hands in his hair, tugging at it viciously. “Did you mean what you said? You’re going to leave here and go off with some musician?”
I laugh. “I already gave up my entire life for you. I dropped out of college for you. I gave up my chance of escaping that hellhole so your sister could get home instead. Perhaps I deserve a few months of touring Europe with a famous musician as a consolation prize.”
He looks gutted, which would be laughable were it not so outrageous. He presses the base of his palms to his forehead. “Don’t do this,” he pleads.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I reply. “It would be better for you if I’d died, wouldn’t it? That way, no one would get a sample of the things you chose not to wait for.”
In two lunging steps he’s in front of me with his hands gripping my arms. “Stop this. Stop. You’re—” His lips press together tightly.
