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“I’ll be gone by then,” I tell her. “You don’t need to worry.”
Henri’s jaw is tight and even Marie looks unhappy. “We want you to stay,” she says softly, casting a small, scolding glance at Yvette, who seems to neither notice nor care.
I don’t reply. Instead I rise, set the peeled apples on the counter and go outside to help with the harvest. It seems kinder than reminding them all that I am desperate to leave.
All afternoon I work alongside Marie and Henri and the help. I try to focus on filling my basket, try to forget that this is the last time I will do this with them. It would probably be the last time anyway. There’s no chance they’ll still be here this time next year; not like this, anyway.
“You should be resting.”
My head jerks up to find Henri standing there, casting a long shadow over me. His voice is gentle but firm.
“I like being outside,” I tell him.
“You’re pushing yourself too hard,” he says. “Sit on the porch if you want to be outside. Not this.”
He crouches beside me and reaches for the shears I hold in my hand. I cling to them. “Don’t worry,” I tell him. “I’ll be out of your hair as soon as I’m able.”
His face falls. “You can’t possibly think that’s what I want,” he says, his eyes searching mine.
I avert my gaze. “If it’s not, it should be. You’re starting a family, remember?”
He sighs and after a moment, he rises. “Yes, I remember,” he says. “It’s a little hard to forget.”
* * *
We eat a dinner of cheese and bread and fruit from the orchard, plus the last of the ham, because Yvette did nothing useful while we were working.
“It was so dull here all day,” says Yvette. The three of us are so bone-tired it’s hard to dredge up a response. Or perhaps it’s just that all the responses that fly to my lips involve ways she could have entertained herself, while perhaps relieving Marie and me of some work.
“It’s apt to be like this the rest of the week,” says Marie. “I picked up some books at the library. Perhaps one of them will appeal to you.”
Yvette sighs. “Poor Marie. Your life here has been so quiet you hardly know what people do for fun.” She reaches for Henri’s hand. “You know what we should do this weekend? Go to Paris. We could stay in a hotel, take a mini honeymoon at last. Amelie and Marie don’t mind, do you girls?”
Henri’s eyes glance up for the first time through the entire meal. They flicker to me before they return to his plate. “No,” he says flatly.
“But why?” she pouts.
“Because it’s the harvest and I’ll be working all weekend,” he says between his teeth, sliding his hand away from hers. “This is what life on a farm is like.”
I see her eyes flash before she pins her anger beneath a strained smile. “Well, at least there’s the dance on the twelfth.”
The date catches my attention. Cecelia made such a big deal out of October 12th, the day I was supposed to arrive. As if something monumental occurs on that date. Is it something the dance will set in motion, perhaps?
Henri’s gaze returns to me before it goes back to his plate. “I doubt we’ll attend that either.”
“Not attend?” she gasps. “But we have to! And it’s sponsored by the church, so there’s that. Let poor Marie and Amelie find some nice young men while I have one last hurrah.”
I glance at Marie, poor Marie. Still so in love with Father Edouard and still so unwilling to admit it. Her face has been alight since the word church was uttered. If she’d bend an inch the poor man would give up his collar and take up farming in the blink of an eye.
“Yes, let’s go,” I say firmly.
“You see?” cries Yvette. “Amelie is the guest and it’s what she wants, so it’s settled.”
I don’t want to be on the same side as Yvette for anything. It makes me wish I’d disagreed. Yvette, however, smiles at me as if we are now friends. And as soon as Marie and Henri go outside, she corners me in the kitchen and gives me a hug.
“Thank you for making Henri see reason,” she says. “I’m going crazy here.”
I shrug, turning away from her. Thinking I didn’t do it for you.
