The Space Between Words

by Michele Phoenix

  Fatigue washed over me again as I thought through an inventory of my needs. What I wanted more than anything was to turn back the clock to those days before Paris when my perspective on the world had been infused with anticipation. Founded on sureness. My reality unsullied. My confidence in humanity—in goodness—unshaken.

  “I think I’m okay,” I said to Grant. I heard the uncertainty in my own voice and looked away.

  He nodded and stepped toward the door, then looked back as he opened it. I could see him searching for words. “Have a good day,” he finally said.

  After the door closed behind him, I pushed back the coffee table to make room for me to sit on the floor by the fire-place, nudging the sewing box out of the way with something that felt like resentment. Though I’d found it enchanting in the shadows of the brocante, it now felt like a hostile thing, a reminder of the power of grief to distort truth. I scooped it up and took it to the kitchen, shoving it into a cupboard under the sink.

  Then I went back to the fireplace and found a position on the floor that wouldn’t hurt my still-healing wound. I let the warmth seep into my spirit and wondered what words Grant had just left unspoken.

  Then I drifted into sleep.

  Connor was playing in the courtyard when I stepped outside a couple days later, a stack of Mona’s food containers in my hand. A fireman’s hat sat askew on his head. He brandished what looked like a vacuum cleaner attachment and made a whooshing sound as he waved it around. He saw me come out of the cottage and lowered his weapon.

  “Hi, Connor,” I attempted.

  He waved the plastic tube at me in greeting.

  “Are you putting out fires over there?”

  “I’m fighting the Thiths. Wanna help?”

  “I . . .” It took me a moment to figure out he’d meant to say “Siths.”

  “Isn’t it goûter time?” Grant asked, approaching from the barn, his dark-blond hair gray with dust.

  Connor turned toward Grant and hopped a couple times. “Hey, hey, hey!”

  “Hey there, tiger,” he said, ruffling the boy’s hair

  Connor pulled Grant down to his level and looked wide-eyed into his father’s face. “We went to Fabrice’s house to see the baby pigs, and he let me ride in his eclectical car all the way to the end of the driveway! It was awesome.” The curly-haired boy leaned in until their eyes were mere inches apart—Grant’s hazel and Connor’s darker brown—then he repeated, in his hoarse little voice, “It was awesome.” He drew out the last word for emphasis, and I caught myself smiling.

  “Sounds like fun,” Grant said, returning the boy’s wide-eyed stare. “And I think you mean ‘electric’—and no, we’re not adopting one of Fabrice’s pigs.”

  “Aw, come on!”

  Grant straightened and turned toward me. “If Connor had his way, we’d turn the B&B into a working farm.”

  I looked down and found Connor’s eyes on me. He leaned sideways into Grant. “You wanna see my lightsaber?” he asked me.

  “I promise you that’s not a euphemism,” Grant said.

  The boy pantomimed a vigorous saber battle for a couple seconds, complete with sound effects, then took off running toward the house, vacuum attachment raised, yelling, “To infinity and beyond!”

  “He gets his favorite movies mixed up,” Grant said, smiling.

  “Hey, I get my favorite rap stars mixed up, so . . .”

  “Those dawgs and diggities can be a real brain twister.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his dirty, slouchy jeans.

  Another silence stretched. “I was just going to return these containers to Mona.”

  He nodded toward the front door, which Connor had left open. “How about some goûter?”

  “Goûter?”

  “Afternoon snack. It’s a big deal for French kids.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to intrude. If you’ll just take these in to . . .” But his back was already turned, and he was walking toward the front door.

  “I’ve got something to give you anyway,” he said over his shoulder, not slowing his step.

  Simply venturing out of the cottage had felt like a monumental milestone, but spending social time with people . . . That felt like an insurmountable challenge. Wondering how long my courage would hold up, I followed Grant up the stairs and preceded him into the house as he held the door open for me.

  It was clear that this building, too, had been through extensive remodeling. Arched openings and tall ceilings gave the home an airy feel. A stand-alone fireplace divided the broad space into a living area and a kitchen, its rustic, naked brick an intriguing contrast to white walls and tiled floors.

  Grant led me into a kitchen where splashes of red accented black-and-white décor. Mona stood by the sink and talked softly to Connor. The boy knelt on a tall stool, watching his mother take a dish towel off two loaves of unbaked bread.

  “Can I now, Mom?”

  “Go ahead. Poke your finger in the middle and see if it bounces back,” she instructed.

  Connor did as she said, and the hole he made filled in almost instantly. “Yep!” he said. “Can we put it in the oven now?”

  Mona turned to open the oven door and saw Grant and me standing there. “Well, hello!” she said, her gaze landing on me as Grant exited the room. “How nice to see you out and about.”

  “I thought I’d return some of your dishes.”

  “We’re making bread,” Connor declared.

  “My first attempt at brioche,” Mona said, gently inserting the loaf pans into the oven. “I’m not convinced it will be successful, but you never know until you try, right?”

  “Right, right, right!” Connor punctuated his agreement with a swoosh of his vacuum saber.

  “Now how about a cup of tea?” Mona was already reaching for a cup on the open shelving above the counter.

  “I’m not sure I . . .”

  “Listen, the bread’s got to cook and Connor needs his snack, so—cup of tea?”

  I smiled. “Sure.”

  “How about you, Grant?” she asked as he reentered the kitchen.

  He gave Mona a look that made her laugh. “Right. Coffee. Tea’s for sissies,” she explained, winking at me as she put a kettle on to boil, then handed Connor a flaky, chocolate-filled pastry.

  Grant placed some printed pages on the table in front of me. “I did some research on the antique box you found,” he said.

  I looked down at the picture on the front page. It was of a sewing box similar to mine. A French article from an antique dealer’s website was printed on the next few pages, followed by a rough English translation.

  “It’s seventeenth-century,” Grant said. “French, obviously. I’m guessing yours is walnut with a cherry inlay. Worth about two hundred here, but probably four times that much in the States.”

  “I got it for twenty-five.”

  “Nice investment.”

  I looked through the pages he’d printed out for me. “You didn’t have to do this,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I like mysteries.”

  I held up the French article. “You speak French?”

  “Grant’s the linguist in the family,” Mona said before he could answer, dropping two tea bags into a white teapot. “Four years of high school French and ten months of construction over here, and he’s practically fluent.”

  “I’m not fluent,” Grant said quietly, pulling a stool up to the kitchen island where I sat. “I know enough to get by,” he said to me.

  Mona laughed. “In my world, anything beyond ‘Frère Jacques’ is fluent! Don’t know what I would have done if Grant hadn’t stepped in when . . .” She covered Connor’s ears and whispered, “When my husband walked out on us.” She removed her hands and kissed the top of her son’s head.

  It took me a moment to realize what she’d said. I looked from her to Grant. “Wait. You’re not—you two aren’t . . . ?”

  “It’s a common misconception,” Grant said with a faint smile.

  �
�This little venture,” Mona said, waving a finger at her surroundings, “started out as a team project. It turned solo when one member of the ‘team’ decided France wasn’t his thing.” She covered Connor’s ears again and whispered, “His family either.” He pried her hands away as she went on. “And then it turned back into a collaboration when a certain brother of mine decided to take a sabbatical from flipping houses in Redding and come flip houses—and cottages and barns—in Balazuc instead.”

  “‘Sabbatical’ might be a bit of a misnomer,” Grant mumbled. He raised an eyebrow in my direction as I tried to absorb this new information.

  Connor clambered off his stool and onto the one next to me, leaning in to take a closer look at the articles Grant had printed out.

  “Is it a treasure?” he asked.

  “It’s a sewing box.”

  My social energy was fast declining, and Mona seemed to sense it. “Probably not the kind of treasure you’re thinking of.”

  “I think it was Captain Sparrow’s,” Connor said to Grant, eyes wide and hopeful.

  His uncle pursed his lips, a smile behind his serious expression. “I don’t recall him doing a lot of sewing, kiddo.”

  TEN

  THERE WAS SOME COMFORT IN THE ROUTINES THAT emerged in the following days. Though my thoughts and emotions were still erratic—rare moments of stability derailed by bouts of anxiety—I found relief in the predictability. Mona no longer brought food to the cottage, having convinced me after my first foray into the manor house that venturing out might be good for my spirits.

  I fended for myself at breakfast, often entertained by Connor’s voice echoing in the courtyard as he went off to school. Midmorning, I headed out for the trails around Balazuc, always in sight of the village, forcing my mind to acknowledge the natural beauty Patrick would have loved as I sought to regain some of my strength and stamina.

  We’d have lunch at the manor house when Connor came home at noon, then Mona and I would chat over cups of tea while Grant went back to work. When I was tired, I returned to the cottage to rest. When I felt up to it, I helped Mona with her projects around the house and the culinary experiments that kept her busy during the winter months. She called the latter “research for the café coming soon to a Balazuc near you.” Mona was a visionary, relentlessly optimistic, and I wondered if proximity would rub some of it off on me.

  Evening meals were typical French fare—soup, bread, cheese, and a salad. We ate them together.

  We were clearing dishes after dinner one evening when I asked Mona what the next project would be, once the barn remodel was finished.

  “The conservatory,” she said, anticipation lighting her features.

  That took me aback. I pictured the music department of a stuffy college back home and couldn’t imagine such a thing in a small town like Balazuc. “There’s a conservatory in town?”

  Mona laughed and led me through the entrance hall to a tall door tucked away on the other side.

  “Meet the conservatory,” she said, turning the brass knob and pushing the door open. It was a striking space with a high ceiling and elegant windows, furnished with a couple of old bookshelves, a faded couch, and a chair. A dusty chandelier illuminated the peeling gold-and-blue wallpaper, and an old piano stood in the middle of the room.

  “Looks like a big project,” I said.

  “It will be, once we get around to it. But until then, this here is a reminder to myself that chaos can be comfy. Keeps my raging perfectionism in check.”

  “The piano is . . .” I didn’t know how to describe it. Then I remembered Patrick. “My friend would have called it Decay-Deco.”

  Mona nodded. “Decay-Deco. I like it!” She ran a hand over its open lid. “I found it in here when I bought the manor house. Termites did a number on the wood, some of the keys are missing, and the finish is all but gone, but look at the character it brings to the space.”

  She was right. There was something regal about her Decay-Deco piano despite its state of disrepair. It anchored the room with history and whimsy.

  “I was considering refinishing the dining room chairs,” Mona said. “You know—to pass the time when the weather gets bad. And I’m thinking this room might be a great place to do it.”

  There was something in her tone that sounded like a hint. “Would you like me to help?”

  She smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  As I took on the project, part of me knew that she’d initiated it for me—to give me a goal, as minor as it was. On days when my listlessness turned the work into a chore, I reminded myself of Mona’s kindness since I’d arrived in Balazuc. And on days when my mind seemed more able to concentrate, I derived a certain pleasure from my hours in the conservatory, revealing the rich wood beneath several layers of gray paint.

  The evenings were the hardest for me. Too quiet. Too reflective. On one such night, after I’d leafed again through all three magazines in the basket next to the coffee table, I went to the cupboard where I’d stored the sewing box.

  I wasn’t sure why I’d left it hidden until then, but as I took it out and carried it to the couch, my mind stumbled back to our trip south, to conversations with Patrick that hadn’t happened and to the plans that never would. To the flea market and our dusty dig and the excruciating walnut-and-cherry memento that had stolen my breath and swayed my sanity.

  I set it on the cushion next to me, recalling the look in Patrick’s eyes when I’d pried up the suspended piece of wood and found the notebook underneath.

  I pulled open the drawer with its false bottom now removed. I wasn’t sure who had gathered the pages—perhaps I’d picked them up myself or maybe Mona had when she’d found me—but there they were, back in the drawer from which they’d come.

  I lifted them out and turned the first couple of sheets over, recognizing some of the words so gracefully handwritten but unable to decipher many of the others. The script was small and impeccably even.

  “They found you for a reason,” I heard Patrick say as clearly as if he’d been sitting right next to me. I’d shared that notion from the start, when the sewing box had first caught my attention—a siren call too subtle to describe and too visceral to ignore. And I wondered now, with Patrick gone, if this treasure was a fragile thread he’d left to link himself to me.

  I felt the stirring again, the anticipation and connection, as I leafed through the jumbled pages, some upside down and mostly out of order. Three of them were slightly larger than the rest, their text clearly printed—not handwritten—on thin, numbered pages.

  A rustling sound reached me from the courtyard. I leaned sideways to look out the window and saw Grant covering a trailer full of Sheetrock with a plastic tarp. A look at the sky explained the precautionary measure. On a whim, and with some hesitation, I went outside with the handwritten pages in my hands.

  He saw me coming and jutted his chin toward the 2CV that still sat in front of the cottage.

  “They’re reporting hail a few kilometers up the road. Might want to move the car under the overhang. That canvas roof looks like it could use some protecting.” He motioned to the sheltered space where the roofline extended from the barn, propped up by rough-hewn beams. “There’s room next to the table saw,” he added.

  I hadn’t driven the car since our trip to the brocante nearly two weeks ago. Though I now realized I was the one who drove it from Paris to Balazuc, I had no memory of sitting behind the wheel, and the thought of moving it felt unsettling.

  “I can do it if you’d like,” Grant said.

  “Oh—thank you.” I hurried back to the cottage to get the keys, relieved and grateful.

  “Been doing some writing?” he asked, noticing the pages I was still holding.

  I took a deep breath. “I have a question . . . a favor to ask—”

  Grant looked up as the first raindrops fell. “Hold that thought.”

  I watched him push the driver’s seat back as far as it would go before folding his tall fo
rm into the low-riding car. It rattled to life when he turned the key, but he seemed to struggle with the gearshift. He finally found reverse and backed up enough to turn toward the barn’s overhang.

  “So—what’s the favor?” he asked after jogging back to the cottage through the intensifying rain.

  I was standing in the doorway, still holding the loose pages of the notebook. “These were in the drawer of the sewing box.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Really.” He took the pages from my hands and hitched his chin toward the living room. “Mind if I come in to take a closer look?”

  I shook my head. He toed off one shoe, then the other, and walked over to the couch, already flipping through the loose-leaf pages. “They were just sitting in the box?”

  “No, they were . . .” I went around him and crouched in front of the antique, retrieving the false bottom from the upper tray, then pulling out the drawer to show Grant where it used to rest. “They were under here. That string there held them all together, but they got—the string broke and they scattered. The first handwritten page said 1695 when I first pulled them out . . . It’s in there somewhere.” I pointed at the three printed pages still sitting on the coffee table. “And these were in there too.”

  He reached for them. “Ezekiel,” he murmured, reading the single word at the top of the page. He looked up at me. “These are from a Bible—but you probably figured that out already. By the looks of the French”—he squinted at the paper—“not a recent edition.”

  “That’s what I assumed—that they were from the same era as this journal. And if the box is from the seventeenth century . . . is it possible that all of this dates back to then too?”

  Grant arched an eyebrow. “Possible.”

  Something that felt like excitement fluttered in my stomach. “Okay,” I said. “That’s what I thought.”

  “So—about this favor . . . ?”

  I hesitated. “I want to know what the handwritten pages say, but . . . I don’t know enough French to even put them back in order.”

  “Where did you find the box again?” Grant asked, lifting it onto his lap to take a closer look at the secret compartment.