Sophie examined the pieces carefully. “I have several of her old pieces,” she said. “These look like they fit a little larger.”
“She’d had twins,” Caterina noted. “It takes a body a little while to bounce back from that.”
Sandrine peered into the bag’s depths. “What else is in there? It looks like there is more inside, non?”
The next layer was white lace; my breath caught. With reverent care, I lifted the next garment, standing to allow the full length to hang.
Nobody said a word, only looked.
It was a long, white, lace dress. The sleeves were long and unlined, the neckline edged in pearls and landing in a sweet V over a satin base with a sweetheart curve. The pearls continued down the front, all the way to the floor, edging the long sleeves as well.
The dress she wore to marry Gabriel. It couldn’t possibly be anything else, not in this bag with her wedding suit.
The two dresses, hidden away together for all these years.
One last item waited: a fingertip-length veil with silk orange blossoms on the comb.
Sophie ran her hand over her face. “It’s killing me that these have been in a carpetbag.”
I tipped my head, looking closer. “None of it seems the worse for wear, just wrinkled.”
Sandrine fingered the lace. “You’ll want to steam it out and look at it closely. Folded like this, the fabric could have become old and brittle.”
“If only,” Caterina said, eying the dress and eying me.
I shook my head, following her thoughts. “There’s no way. She was too tiny. Most of them were, back then.” I passed the dress to Sophie. “I bet Chloé could fit into it, though,” I said softly. “If she wanted pictures taken in her great-grandmother’s dress.”
Sophie nodded. “We’ll do that. If she’s interested.”
“If I’m what?” Chloé asked, her teen ears perking up at the possibility of being discussed.
“We were saying that the dress is so small, it won’t fit any of us. Juliette thought you might want to try it on—carefully—and have pictures taken in it.”
Chloé’s eyes widened and she nodded, speechless.
Caterina crossed her arms. “That jacket, though—”
“Yes, try on the jacket,” Sandrine instructed.
I tugged off my boiled-wool cardigan and slipped my arms into the sleeves of the jacket with care.
Sophie’s hands went to her face. “Oh my word.”
Caterina examined the fit like a Project Runway judge. “The seams hit you perfectly, though it’s a little snug in the shoulder.”
“And short in the arm,” I pointed out.
Caterina gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “It’s bracelet length. It doesn’t look bad.”
“So that’s it?” Nico asked from his position on a window bench. “Just clothes?”
Sophie rounded on him. “It’s your grandmother’s wedding dresses!”
“Yeah!” Caterina crossed her arms. “Respect, dude!”
Nico’s eyes cut to Damian. “Your wife called me ‘dude.’ ”
Damian shrugged. “The ’90s were a big decade for her. I don’t know what to tell you.”
“You look beautiful, my Giulietta,” my father said, ignoring the bickering. “You should wear it for your wedding ceremony.”
Neil stood and pressed a kiss beside my ear. “You look pretty, no matter what.”
Caterina held the veil in her hands. “I can’t bear to put this down. Let’s go look for some hangers and maybe some kind of batting.”
I slipped an arm out of the jacket. “Good idea.”
“And after that,” she added with a wince, “I’ve got to go to bed.”
“I’m with you,” Sophie said, standing. “I’m fading here.”
The others agreed, one by one saying good night to me in order to say hello to their beds.
I remained in the hallway, in the middle of the closet’s contents, strewn around the floor. “If you want to go to bed, love, that’s okay,” I told Neil.
He slipped his hand into the small of my back. “What are your plans?”
“I just…I feel like there’s something else. She took that key back with her. Would she do it just for the wedding dresses?”
“You think it was intentional?”
“She was in the kitchen every day. She had to know it was there. Keeping the key—it feels intentional.”
“Would she have thought Cécile had a copy?”
“Maybe once, but Sandrine has no memory of it ever being accessible.” I shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t explain it, but my gut tells me that there’s something else.”
Neil nodded and rolled up the sleeves of his cabled knit sweater. “Okay. Let’s keep looking.”
So we did. We went shelf by shelf, working our way from the ceiling to the floor.
One box contained a smaller box of love notes between Mireille’s parents in their youth, but after going through the contents we were no closer to finding what I’d hoped for.
After an age, I set the final box aside. “What if I’m wrong? What if it’s not here?”
Silence.
“Neil?”
Neil’s head lifted from where it had been resting against the wall. “Yes. What?”
I pressed my lips together in an attempt to control a smile. “You fell asleep.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“No? What was I talking about a moment ago?”
“You said…I don’t remember.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I was asleep.”
“You’re funny.” I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees. “I’m worried that what I want to be here isn’t.”
“Let’s go to bed, wife.” Neil stood with effort and reached down to offer me a hand.
I considered attempting to pull him down, but after our travel day I didn’t trust his ability to defy gravity. So I took his proffered hand and stood up, dusting off my hands.
“I’m going to look more tomorrow,” I said, scanning the interior of the closet.
“I know.”
I wrinkled my nose. “We’ve left a mess.”
“You can worry about that tomorrow too.”
My nose didn’t unwrinkle, but I allowed Neil to lead me by the hand, back to our room.
Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
—LEWIS CARROLL
I woke the next morning with a head full of worries and a nose full of sweet scent. “Caterina’s been in the kitchen,” I said, sitting up. “I can smell it.”
When we made it to the kitchen, I discovered I’d been right. Caterina had prepared french toast that she’d topped with sweetened, orange-scented ricotta cheese, marmalade, and wedges of tangerine.
I piled a large serving onto my plate and cleared it with speed. “That was amazing,” I told my sister, wrapping my arms over hers in a sisterly hug. “Don’t mind me. The closet calls.”
Worry flickered over her face so quickly I wondered if I’d imagined it. “Go look,” she said, squeezing my arms. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
Once again, I climbed the stairs to the third floor. This time, light streamed in through the windows.
Neil followed me up with a plate full of second servings. “We should get this recipe from your sister,” he said. “I could eat this all day.”
“You can try to eat it all day, but you’ll have to fight Nico off.”
Now at the top of the stairs, I surveyed the mess. “I didn’t make it through all the boxes, I suppose. Everything will have to be put away, of course, but looking at this, I don’t know how it all fit in the first place.”
Neil’s nose twitched. “It’s bigger on the inside.”
“Don’t joke. I wouldn’t be surprised. I mean,” I said, walking inside and turning around to face him. “It’s not that much…”
My words trailed off as my eyes spotted something unexpected.
&nb
sp; A box.
There was a box on the second-to-lowest shelf, shoved in the back in such a way that I would have had trouble seeing it from the doorway, at night.
It was a hinged and wooden, roughly the size of a loaf of bread. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I knew the box well—the wood inlay on the top, and hasp in front; a matching box rested on Grand-mère’s dresser in my room.
“I think,” I said, reaching for it, “that I found it.”
I carried it to the window seat.
Neil sat down beside me. “Well? Are you going to open it?”
“I— It might be nothing. It might be just a box with nothing inside.”
“Allons-y,” he said. “You won’t know until you look.”
I lifted the lid and looked inside, barely able to breathe.
Inside lay a worn book, bound in blue leather, and a stack of photographs, tied with ribbon. I reached for the photos first, untying the ribbon with unsteady fingers.
“Look,” I said, “it’s Mireille.” I pointed at the figures. “And Gabriel—and the girls. Both of them.”
At that moment, we heard footfalls on the stairs.
“We’re here!” Caterina called out. “We’re here for round two.”
Sophie and Sandrine rounded the corner to the landing, taking in the sight of Neil and me huddled over the pictures. “What’s that?” Sandrine asked. “What did you find?”
“Photos,” I breathed, holding the photo higher. “And this one shows all of them—Mireille and Gabriel and the twins.”
Sophie, Caterina, and Sandrine peered over my shoulder as my father and brothers followed.
“Oh, la,” Sandrine said. “Look how little they are!”
“I can’t believe how much Nico looks like Gabriel. Nico, come look at this.” Caterina motioned for Nico to join us.
Nico looked over Cat’s shoulder to see. “That—that’s weird.”
I passed the photo to Sandrine, who passed it to Sophie, and looked at the next photo. A wedding photo, Mireille and Gabriel attempting a serious wedding portrait, the sheer joy in their eyes belying their somber pose.
“There’s the dress!” Caterina exclaimed. “Look at her—she’s so young.”
There was an infant photo, one of a tiny scrunched-up infant in a striped blanket, another photo of an infant in a dotted blanket. Their names were scrawled on the back—stripes for Alice, dots for Gabrielle.
Another photo showed Gabriel in his chef’s whites, standing in a kitchen. The last one showed Mireille and Gabriel together at the beach, just looking at each other with a kind of happy calm.
I looked up at Neil. “I’m glad you’re here,” I said quietly.
He squeezed my hand. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
While my family passed them around, I reached for the book.
The leather warmed in my hand as I cracked it open, the spine creaking from disuse.
My eyes fell onto the text inside—handwritten, in letters I knew well.
Dear Gabriel,
I hardly know where to begin.
“It’s her journal,” I said. “You guys—it’s Mireille’s journal.”
My eyes fell on the next lines of text.
Tante Joséphine sent this journal to write in now that you are gone, so that I don’t, I suppose, spread sadness and misery in my wake.
I write in English, for these words are private. One of my family members might find it, but the staff cannot read it, so in that way I have just a little privacy.
Only a little—I have no illusion of ever having more.
Oh, my darling. One day we were living our lives, holding our children, making love, making bread, and the next I’m a widow.
“This is it. Maybe there aren’t letters, because she was writing here, in her journal.” I paged gently through the pages. “And it’s in English, all of it.”
“English?” Sandrine echoed.
I wanted to skim the text for immediate answers, but I closed the book instead. “We have to read it together.”
“Mais oui, that would be lovely,” Sandrine said. “But surely you would like to read it yourself first.”
“Non,” I answered firmly. “Not this time. This time, we read together.”
Our Epiphany dinner was a feast to end all feasts. At the end, I decided I probably wouldn’t eat for the rest of the trip—or until breakfast the next morning.
“What will you do when you move?” Zia Matilde asked me during a brief lull in the conversation. “Will you look for another restaurant to manage?”
Neil and I exchanged glances. “I’ve learned I have a talent for restaurant management over the last few months.”
Nico raised his glass in agreement.
“But I’ve missed having an opportunity to cook,” I continued. “The pop-up that we started for Two Blue Doors—that was fun. So I might look for a management position, but I’m also excited by the idea of trying my hand at pop-ups.”
“My students raved about you,” Caterina added. “You could add cooking classes to your vision, if that interests you.”
I grinned. “Lots of adventures ahead,” I said, catching Neil’s eye. “I can’t wait.”
“When do you move?” Letizia asked.
“We’re taking a long wedding tour,” I replied. “We’re visiting my great-uncle Benjamin and our cousins in Missouri—well, the rest of the family’s going to be there with us.” In a few sentences, I summed up for the Italian relatives how I’d found our extended family members. “They wanted to be here, of course, and they were invited, but Benjamin is too fragile for such a long journey, and with the cousins’ work schedules…”
“Another time,” Sandrine assured me.
“After that,” I continued, “Neil and I will fly to North Carolina to see his parents.”
“My parents are hosting a reception for us,” Neil added. “Only a couple hundred of their closest friends.”
“We’ll have a reception and ski, apparently. And from there, we’ll go to Portland, pack up the last of my things—and Gigi—and drive cross country.”
“That is a lot,” Caterina noted, shaking her head. “I mean, I get it, but that’s a lot.”
“The way I see it”—Neil squeezed my hand—“is that we’re simply going home the long way around.”
Sandrine passed the cake plates around the table after dinner. “Those who would like to enjoy the fireplace in the study may take their cake with them, of course. And there is some very nice Cognac there as well.”
Riccardo volunteered to take the children to the study but promised to keep them from the Cognac. Damian joined him, giving Caterina a kiss on the cheek and extracting a promise from her to catch him up afterward.
The rest of us scooted closer around the table.
I took a bite of Sandrine’s King’s cake—the same recipe as my grand-mère’s—before reopening the journal and diving into Mireille’s words.
Dear Gabriel,
I hardly know where to begin.
Tante Joséphine sent this journal to write in now that you are gone, so that I don’t, I suppose, spread sadness and misery in my wake.
I write in English, for these words are private. One of my family members might find it, but the staff cannot read it, so in that way I have just a little privacy.
Only a little—I have no illusion of ever having more.
Oh my darling. One day we were living our lives, holding our children, making love, making bread, and the next I’m a widow.
You were helping the Jewish families get food. The Children’s Relief Committee needed help, I’m sure. It was noble, foolish, honorable, and stupid. I’m angry with you, I’m proud of you.
I wish you’d told me. I wish you hadn’t died with secrets between us. I understand why. I know you were trying to protect us. I wish you’d been able to protect yourself.
Your brother, Nathan, escaped to Marseilles, where his wife’s family resides. I wish them well. He
used your contacts to get out of Paris, the way he told me you’d planned to take us out.
Gabrielle and I now reside at my parents’ estate in Provence. Alice is as well, but she is staying with our family’s cook, Françoise. I shall explain that shortly.
I wish you’d seen the chateau, just once. The lavender fields scent the air, and the hum of bees creates its own music. When I last went to the symphony, the wind section, the oboes—they reminded me of the bees at home.
But back to the explanations. You should know, first, that I’ve married Gilles.
Nathan, Gilles, and my father cooked up the idea. They reasoned that since Gilles had been away in Toulouse on business long enough, they could marry me off to him quickly, pretend Gabrielle was our daughter. Gabrielle, because, you know, she’s the fair one. Alice looked as much like you that day as ever, all dark curls and round eyes.
But I am not the only one starting an unexpected marriage. My dearest sister, Cécile, has married her sweetheart, Richard.
For the next four weeks, Alice resides with Cook. She is to be Cook’s granddaughter, the child of her son the pilot who has recently died in action.
In a month, Richard and Cécile will adopt her. They will tell the villagers that they believed it their duty to care for the orphans of our French heroes.
We will raise the girls together, Cécile and I, but Nathan insists that there are informants who would happily tell the Germans that two Jewish children and their mother reside at Chateau de l’Abeille.
For that reason, we’ve used contacts of Nathan’s to make new records for the girls. Alice has a new first name; Gabrielle has taken Gilles’s surname.
I don’t know who these contacts are, or how Nathan came to know them. I only know that their identities have been changed and the papers look just as official as the old ones.
It makes my heart sick, but what I want most is for both of them to be safe.
Until the day I die, Gabriel, you must believe I will regret marrying Gilles. I ended my engagement to him all those years ago because he loved the idea of the estate, the idea of being my father’s heir, more than he loved me.
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