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“Ma mère, she wanted me to be happy, of course,” he said. “In the end, it was she who persuaded mon père. She and Gabi.”
“They could see your talent,” Julia said. “And they knew you had the makings of a remarkable artist.”
Luc shrugged. “And yet, that wasn’t enough for me. Instructors, the other students, visitors to the school—they offered praise, compliments, and yet I still felt I had something to prove.”
“To your father.”
“I wanted so badly to impress him. To make him proud,” Luc said. “I’ve thought of it often through the years, wondered why one person’s opinion mattered more than all the others. But I have no answer.”
“Because he’s your father,” Julia said. “That is the answer.”
Luc nodded. “My parents didn’t tell me the blight had killed the vines. I didn’t know the farm was losing money while they continued paying for my schooling. Maman was ill, and finally Father sent word. By the time I returned, she had died, and he was too ill to even recognize me.”
“Luc, I’m so sorry.” Julia’s heart ached for him.
“I failed them,” he said. “And when I remember how I spoke to him, the things I said...” He swallowed hard once more. “I am so ashamed.”
“And now you hope to make it up to him, working the farm, taking care of Gabi.”
He nodded.
“And giving up your own dreams.” She set her hand on his wrist.
Instead of just allowing it to rest there, he put both reins in his other hand and intertwined his fingers with hers, pressing their palms together. “It is what I must do.”
Julia rested her head on his shoulder. “I know about trying to impress a father,” she said. “When my mother died... that is why my father and grand-mère are so protective. They worry that something bad will happen to me.” She shifted, leaning more fully against him. “That is why I left the Orient Express to buy the cake. I wanted to show them I could do it by myself. I imagined him meeting me at the Gare de l’Est station in Paris, and when I presented him with the cake and told him I’d navigated the Igney-Avricourt station alone, he’d be so proud. Perhaps he’d realize I am capable of doing things myself.”
Luc squeezed her hand.
“But I’ve proven just the opposite, haven’t I?” she said, the familiar feeling of disappointment returning. “I couldn’t even do something as simple as purchase a cake without making a mess of things.”
“Well, I am glad for it,” Luc said. “If not for that cake, we’d never...” His voice trailed off, but the unsaid words hung in the air between them as if they’d been spoken aloud.
The conversation stopped, but this silence felt different from the one the day before. Instead of wanting to fill it, to take away the awkwardness, the quiet felt comfortable, like something shared between companions who had exposed something personal and left one another to consider. It was... pleasant.
The rain had left everything looking bright and smelling fresh. Occasionally they passed a lavender field or an almond orchard, and the air would fill with the aroma of blossoms. Life moved slower in Provence, and Julia had come to find that she enjoyed the simplicity of home and family and friends instead of the constant worry of schedules and traffic that she navigated in the city. Life here felt somehow fuller of the things that brought happiness—essential things, important things. Even though there were less “things.” It gave her a lot to think about.
After a long while, Julia lifted her head. She released Luc’s hand and turned around on the bench to check on the goats in the wagon bed. They had apparently become used to the travel. Honey stood, balancing against the movement of the wagon on her hooves, but the babies were both curled up, sleeping beneath her.
“I will be sad to leave Rivulet tomorrow,” Julia said, turning back around and giving voice to the heaviness in her heart.
“But you will see your father and grandmother,” Luc said. “And l’Exposition Universelle.”
Julia contemplated for a moment. She’d looked forward to the World’s Fair for so long, reading about the attractions and waiting for the chance to ride the Grande Roue, to see the attractions and the art. It had occupied nearly every thought for the last months and filled the letters she and her father had written back and forth. But in the days since she’d come to Rivulet, it had hardly crossed her mind at all.
“You must be disappointed to have been kept from the event,” Luc said, misinterpreting her silence as unhappiness.
“I am not disappointed,” Julia said. “Rivulet has been...” She felt heat rise on her cheeks and looked away, watching the mountains in the distance. “I’ve enjoyed my time here quite a lot.”
“Even when you are meant to be surrounded by music and theater and art?”
She bumped him with her elbow, giving a wry smile at his tease. “That was very rude of me to say. I should not have assumed anything about Provence. It has surprised me at every turn.”
Luc took her hand again. “Do you return soon to Vienna?”
“The spring holiday lasts for three weeks. I will stay with ma grand-mère on Rue des Barres, then leave Paris two weeks from Saturday,” she said. “Classes resume the Monday following.”
Luc nodded, and they lapsed back into a silence that was broken only by the noise of the goats and the crunch of the wagon wheels.
