Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 118965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 595(@200wpm)___ 476(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 595(@200wpm)___ 476(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
The group breaks out in laughter. Mr. Martin nudges me with an elbow and winks.
I’m surprised to see the grocery store owner, Mr. Luciani, appear with a tray of soft drinks. He always acts a little cool toward me.
After drinking the fizzy orange drink that Antoinette insists I finish, I head home with my new bike. Instead of hiking for two hours, it takes me under an hour to return. I’m home long before sunset. As always, I follow the path next to the river to the beach. There, I hide the bike under a bush and continue on foot.
I climb up the stone steps and reach the house without incident. I’m always nervous when I sneak out or in, worried that someone will see me.
In the kitchen, I fill a glass with water from the tap and down it. I’m on my second glass, staring at the stunning view through the window, when I hear a soft, brittle sound like when a leaf hits the ground in autumn. I look at the vase with the forever roses. I brought them from the lounge to a sunny spot on the counter where the blooms catch the morning light. One of the deep-green leaves lies on the counter.
It’s a meaningless sign. The stem of the leaf could’ve been bent or broken during the transport. I’m not superstitious, but I nevertheless feel uneasy as I pick up the perfect green leaf and rub the silky texture between my fingers. Remembering that the flowers are treated with chemicals to prevent them from aging, I gently place the leaf in the trashcan, giving it a quiet burial, and wash my hands.
With time to spare before dark, I wander down the gravel road and climb up the hill where the violets grow wild. I pick a few of the purple blooms and continue to the graveyard. The gate is secured with a chain and a combination lock. The new additions are obviously meant to keep uninvited visitors like me out.
A chill runs through me when I recall my last visit and how my husband and I left without closing the gate. Someone removed the dead flowers and placed fresh ones on the graves. They’re not wildflowers like mine but elegant shop flowers—white lilies and lilac roses. I stretch my arm over the fence and scatter my much humbler offering over the soil, feeling that same deep sense of sadness I felt the first time I came here. I experience it stronger now that I can put Adeline and Teresa’s faces to their names. They’re only vague pictures in my mind, the memory I constructed from that one time I saw their photos already fading, but it doesn’t make the sorrow less potent.
I think about Sophie, Johan, Étienne, and Guillaume. They’re so young. How are they coping with the funeral?
Someone else is dead now, and he won’t be laid to rest here. Where will Angelo bury me? In this private little graveyard? Or does he reserve a separate plot for family who aren’t blood relatives? Will he banish me even after death?
The thought haunts me all the way home, not because I give a damn about what he’ll do with my body when I’m dead. For all I care, he can throw it into the sea. It bothers me because I can’t shake off the feeling that the dead leaf on a bouquet of roses that’s supposed to last a lifetime was a sign.
Josette’s words ring in my head.
I’ve reached the end of the road.
It’s time to make a decision.
Kneeling to simply keep the peace without truly submitting is never going to cut it. Our kind of relationship doesn’t allow for sitting on the fence. Either I’m with Angelo, or I’m not. And once I’ve made my choice, I’ll have to throw myself wholeheartedly behind that decision. There’s no place for gray in Angelo’s black-and-white world.
Chapter
Sixteen
Angelo
* * *
This is the last time I will come here.
I’ll never set foot on this soil again.
I swear it to myself as I stand on the hill above the campsite in front of the wooden cross, holding Sophie’s hand on one side and Guillaume’s on the other.
I look down at my niece and nephew. Sophie’s expression is serene. She stares at the cross as if she’s seen thousands of them in her short life. Guillaume drills the tip of his shoe into the mud. To the side, Étienne sits on his haunches, inspecting a dung beetle that rolls a ball of manure up the hill. A distance away, perched on a rock, Johan throws stones into the water. They hit the stream with a glob and sink to the shallow bottom with circles rippling over the surface.
“Ready to go?” I ask the kids.
Sophie nods.
Guillaume shrugs.
We climb down to the spot where the camp used to be. There’s not much left of the crude settlement. Patches of earth where nothing grows mark where the tents stood. The soil was sanitized and the shack burned to the ground. It was the easiest way to prevent the spread of bacteria and disease.