“You said he wants to develop half the estate. Why half?”
“When we lose our Grand-mère, a sad but certain eventuality, Papa will inherit an undivided half of the land here.” He was still studying me. “And Aunt Isabelle would have inherited the other half. But...”
“Good Lord.” I saw flashes of possibility. “What happens now?”
“You and Freddy inherit Isabelle’s half interest, equally.”
“Me?” I felt the ground open up: You know that fantasy we’ve all had, maybe during a dark hour when you didn’t know how you were going to pay the rent, and you thought how perfect it would be if someone you never knew died and left you an inheritance? I’ve had that fantasy, except that never did I pencil in a murder, a possible suicide, some really ugly infidelity, and myself as a linchpin in an ongoing family drama. Under the circumstances, all I could think to say was, “Holy crap.”
“Exactly.”
“What does Freddy think of your father’s plans?”
“You’ll have to ask Freddy,” he said. “But the issue may resolve itself. When the big economic crash happened in 2009, the pound collapsed with it. And Papa’s plan? Merde, shit. No one is buying houses. With good luck, the economy will stay shitty long enough for the whole plan to evaporate.”
“I understand what you’re saying,” I said. “But for all our sakes, let’s hope for a recovery.”
“Of course,” he said without enthusiasm. “Papa is still optimistic that things will turn around, but it will need to happen very soon or all is lost for him. You understand that a development on such a large scale requires enormous forward planning, and the start-up expenses are huge. To get launched, he borrowed short-term money at high interest, expecting advance sales to generate income to service the note and attract investors. But, of course, the bottom has fallen out. There are no sales, no investors, and the note came due.”
“So it’s finished?”
He shook his head. “To buy himself more time Papa took on new loans secured by liens against his expected inheritance.”
“That’s dicey,” I said. “Not to mention a bit premature.”
“It’s not uncommon to encumber one’s expectations.” Antoine shrugged. “Grand-père did it after the war to get money to replace the trees in the apple orchard with healthy stock. The difference is that Grand-père managed to pay off the loans, and my father has not. He has missed enough payments that he is in default and the lien holders are preparing to assume his right to title.”
I shuddered. “Strangers will claim Gérard’s share of the estate when Grand-mère dies? Tell me that can’t happen.”
“I’m happy to know you feel that way, cousin.” He pulled his right hand out of its pocket and offered it to me. I took it and kept it because it was warm. He said, “Cousin Maggie, meet Lien Holder A, moi. Bébé is Lien Holder B. And you and Freddy are now Lien Holders C, as co-heirs of your mother.”
“You all lent Gérard money so he could continue with his scheme?”
“A bailout so he could service his debt without involving strangers, not to pay off his debt. In the end, it wasn’t much of a gamble, and not a huge investment. We did due diligence; thank Freddy for investigating. Papa is so far underwater and his prospects for finding new money are so small that unless he finds a very large cash miracle very soon, we have prevented him from continuing with his scheme. And we got it cheap.”
I didn’t add, And prevented your father from destroying your livelihood. I knew the lengths our grandparents had gone to save their property. How far would Antoine go?
9
The front door of Isabelle’s house opened, and a shaft of light shot across the compound. A man I assumed to be my half brother Freddy stood silhouetted in the doorway. He was taller than Antoine, broader in the shoulders. Even before I saw his face, I saw something about him that was eerily familiar.
“Hey, farm boy,” Freddy called out. “It’s fucking cold out there. Don’t you know enough to bring the poor woman inside where it’s warm? What, were you raised by cows?”
I did not know how to interpret that conversational stream. I got the idea earlier, after overhearing angry voices in Paris, that Freddy wasn’t happy about something that just might have to do with my sudden appearance. And now, here I was, standing nearly on his doorstep.
I looked at Antoine to see how he reacted for cues about what I might need to be prepared for, and saw him smiling, relaxed.
“Soft city boy, goddamn hothouse-raised flower,” Antoine called back, gently impelling me forward by the hand. “It’s perfectly balmy out here. We were just discussing going for an ocean swim before dinner. You tough enough to join us?”
There followed some prolonged hugging, back slapping, multiples of les bises. In the process, Freddy’s grief broke through his façade of bonhomie. He held Antoine in a desperate embrace and wept into his cousin’s shoulder. Antoine expressed his own grief, professed his love for Isabelle, and for Freddy. When they broke apart, Freddy pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose. He turned to me, started to say something, gave it up, wrapped me in his arms, pressed me tightly against his chest and sobbed some more. I patted his back while I waited for him to regain his composure.
Antoine put an arm around Freddy and, with Freddy supported between us, we walked this family clutch further inside. Antoine guided us to a sofa in the salon, poured garnet-colored wine into three stemmed glasses, and brought it to us.
As Antoine ministered to Freddy, getting him to take a drink, I, a stranger, felt embarrassed to be in the middle of a very private situation. I turned away, looked around, looked for anything that might reveal Isabelle to me.
Antoine had been correct; Isabelle’s house, though austere on the outside, was very comfortable inside. Radiant heat rose up from the ceramic tile floor, warmed my feet, found its way under my skirt to warm my legs. The furnishings were obviously selected for comfort and practicality, an eclectic mix of very old and fairly new chests and tables, a variety of lamps and upholstered pieces that all seemed to get along together; the velvet cushions under me were stuffed with down. Two walls were covered with shelves crammed with books. But oddly, I thought, there were no framed photos, nothing sentimental, on those shelves.
Freddy blew his nose again, gasped a few times, got his breath, sipped the wine, sat back and took a good look at me.
“I’m Maggie,” I said.
“Of course. You look just like pictures of Grand-mère when she was younger.” He gripped my hand and stared into my face. Tears spilled down his cheeks. There was a hitch in his voice when he said, “At last, we meet.”
Again, I had that sense of familiarity, only it was stronger with Freddy than it had been with the others. I caught myself staring, comparing our similarities—same eyes, same hair and hairline, male and female versions of the same hands, similar overall carriage. If I had been born a boy, I would look very like Freddy. The realization was disconcerting.
Antoine was perched on the arm of a chair facing us, as watchful as a chaperone while Freddy and I shyly studied each other. He thrust his chin toward the dark stairwell and asked Freddy, “Where’s your family?”
“Lena and I had a big row this morning. She threatened to stay away from Maman’s funeral.”
“Bloody stinking,” Antoine said.
Freddy acknowledged that it was, but he added, “Any disrespect was intended only for me, and not for Maman. Lena was speaking out of her frustration with me, our present situation. I am sure she regrets what she said.”
“Of course.” Antoine’s tone was rife with sarcasm.
“Believe me,” Freddy softly begged. “Lena is taking Maman’s passing very hard. Very hard. For two full days after she heard, my dear wife was distraught. Missed work. Kept to our room, paralyzed by her grief.”
Antoine looked up from under his brows, dramatics notwithstanding, not buying the part about paralyzed by grief. “Did she rank the probabilities for you—will come,
won’t come?”
Freddy tossed him a sad smile before he turned to me. “Lena is an actuary at an insurance company. She can tell you the probability of just about anything happening that you can imagine.”
“Important stuff,” Antoine said, “like the age you are most likely to suffer a coronary if you prefer opera, say, to Mah-Jongg. She’s like the bookmaker for the insurance company: when you buy a policy you bet against her odds.”
“Handy to have around,” I said.
“She is very good with numbers,” Freddy said.
“So?” Antoine raised his palms in front of Freddy and juggled the possibilities: Will come, won’t come?
“She’ll be here, odds on,” Freddy said with a marked lack of conviction. “I told her I was glad she wasn’t coming. If she believes that, she’ll be here by lunchtime. If she doesn’t believe me, she’ll let me stew for as long as possible and show up at the last minute.”
“Where are the kids? She can’t keep them away.”
“Papa is bringing them in the morning. Lena wouldn’t let me take them from school early today.” He sighed heavily, drank more wine. “I stopped by Grand-mère’s house this afternoon and asked her to excuse Lena and the kids from dinner tonight. She wasn’t happy, but what can I do?”
“Get a lawyer.”
“I can’t afford divorce,” Freddy said, smiling ruefully. “Not with the market as it is. I am fauché.” He raised a fist and twisted it as if snapping off something. “Broke. Doomed, trapped in my Lena’s tender clutches.”
Freddy turned to me. “Sorry, terrible way to welcome you. I am indeed happy that you’re here, sister of mine. I apologize for letting this frankly beastly situation get the better of me.”
“All things considered,” I said, “I think you’re doing very well.”
“I’ll drink to that.” And he did.
He looked over the rim of his glass at Antoine. “Speaking of men who need a divorce lawyer, when is your father arriving?”
“He said he and Gillian would be here for dinner.” Antoine checked his watch. “Grand-mère expects us at seven, and it’s quarter to now, so there’s hope the Chunnel is blocked and they can’t get through.”
“Where are they staying?”
“We get them. Papa and Gillian have the guestroom, Jemima goes in with Lulu. Chris is giving his room to Grand-mère Marie for the weekend and sleeping in the little office. So that leaves Bébé on the sofa. Can you take him in?”
“Love to, please, yes, give me Bébé,” Freddy said, relief or delight bringing color to his cheeks. “But if Gillian still won’t walk past the portrait, don’t get the idea that they, too, can come here.”
“Ah,” I said, reacting when I realized exactly who the devil was that the portrait of the mother angel protected against: Gillian, the stepmother.
“I need to get home.” Antoine rose from his perch and took his empty glass back to the sideboard. “Kelly won’t be happy if Papa and company arrive and she’s left alone with them.”
Freddy rose, stretched, exchanged la bise with his cousin. Our cousin.
Antoine asked me, “Shall I walk you back or do you think you’ll be safe enough with this urban wimp?”
I looked at Freddy, made sure he was smiling about this characterization of him—he was. I exchanged cheek kisses with Antoine. “Thank you for everything, especially for the story. I’ll make sure Freddy gets to dinner on time.”
As Antoine turned to leave, Freddy called after him. “Don’t forget to close the door behind you, farmer. This isn’t a barn, you know.”
Antoine, his back to us as he walked away, chuckling, flipped us a backhand wave. “Sissy.”
There was an awkward moment when Freddy and I were alone. I broke the silence.
“You and Antoine, you’re very close,” I said.
“We are as much brothers as we are cousins, Bébé as well,” he said. “Only four days separate me and Bébé. Now might not be the time to say this, but their mother was sometimes more mother to me than...”
“Than Isabelle?”
He tilted his head, yes, and rose to replenish his glass.
“Tell me about her.”
Freddy grew thoughtful, watched the wine flow into his glass as he poured, took a sip before he answered my question.
“She gave me all that she had to offer. But...” He walked back across the room and sat in a chair opposite me, put his feet up on the table between us, studied the inside of his glass a moment before he shifted his attention to me.
“Let me tell you this: Whenever I was out alone with Maman, I was always terrified that she would forget about me and leave me somewhere. She wasn’t negligent—please don’t think that—but she would start thinking about something and simply forget I was there. When I was older I would follow behind her and pick up the things she left behind, her handbag, her shopping.”
“Did that ever happen? Did she ever leave you somewhere?”
He nodded. His face showed only fondness, maybe nostalgia at that point. “I could always call Grand-mère or Papa or Aunt Louise to come and rescue me, depending where I was when she forgot me.”
“Louise?” Hearing his aunt’s name, I choked up. Didn’t expect that reaction to happen, and didn’t know why it did, except maybe that it caught me unawares. My name is Margot Eugenie Louise-Marie, and I had no clue where any of that came from, until that moment. I asked, “Who is Louise?”
“Antoine and Bébé’s mother. Our aunt.” He cocked his head and studied me again before he said, “You can’t remember, of course, but Aunt Louise was your godmother. She always remembered your birthdays with candles at the church.”
“Do you have any idea who Marie and Eugenie are?”
“Marie Foullard, of course, Aunt Louise’s mother.”
Antoine had referred to Grand-mère Marie. “David’s grandmother?”
“Great-grandmother,” he said. “She is your other godmother. You’ll meet her tonight. Eugenie? I don’t know. Some saint?”
I tried my first shrug, hoped it conveyed, who knows? When he smiled wistfully I decided I had performed the gesture well enough.
“Maman and Aunt Louise were the closest of friends,” he said. “They grew up together; the Foullard estate adjoins ours. I think that she was the only one who ever fully understood Maman, accepted her eccentricities. When Maman would feel sad about losing you, she would comfort her.”
“I didn’t know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
I rose, crossed to the sideboard and set my glass next to Antoine’s. So strange to learn that all of my life there were people, total strangers, praying for me, lighting candles for me, weeping for me, wondering about me, following my career—watching me on television, Kelly told me—claiming me. It was as if I existed in two parallel universes at once: one was the world I knew, the other a shadow world inhabited only by the specter of a lost child. I felt disoriented—okay, and jet-lagged—and longed to put my arms around Casey, that solid artifact of my known and familiar world. It was going to be a long night.
I was so lost in thought that I didn’t hear Freddy walk up beside me. As he set his glass with the others, he said, “I was prepared to hate you, Maggie. All of my life I was jealous of you. I used to wish that you were here so I could beat you up. But now that I meet you, I don’t feel that way. It’s not fair to blame you for something you knew nothing about.”
“Thank you.” I touched his arm. “I admit that I feel a bit lost right now. You all know who I am, but I don’t know any of you.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll be fine,” he said, smiling into my face. “Everyone will be really kind to you. Until they get to know you, of course. When they stop being so kind, that’s when you’ll realize you’re accepted as a member of the family.”
“Good to know.” I glanced at my watch. “We should get ourselves to Grand-mère’s. But before we go...” I took a deep breath. “Freddy, I have...” I started to say Isabelle’s, but said, “I
have our mother’s ashes. I don’t know whom to give them to.”
“The curate will come to the house tonight to settle details about the funeral tomorrow and take the prayers of anyone who wishes him to hear. We will give the ashes to him then.”
I liked the way “we” sounded.
“One more piece of business,” he said. “Maman’s solicitor—here we say notaire—wants to discuss her will. I made an appointment with her Monday morning in Lessay. I would like you to be there if you can.”
“All right. Tell me where and when.” I met his eyes. “Are you ready for dinner?”
“Still too sober for a family evening, but yes.” He took a leather jacket off a hook beside the front door and slipped it on.
On our way out, I said, “Antoine speaks English with a California accent, and you speak English with a British accent.”
“London School of Economics for graduate school.” He shrugged. “I met my wife there. She studied statistics.”
“What do you do?”
“Investment banking. Though, the way things are right now, maybe I will have to move in here and learn how to make cheese.”
“Would that be so awful?”
“Not for me,” he said. “But for my wife? Disaster.”
As we walked across the compound, gravel crunching underfoot, I asked another of my many questions. But, as I’ve said, I ask questions for a living. “What happened to Aunt Louise?”
“Very sad.” He wove his hand through the crook of my elbow and leaned his head close to mine to deliver a confidence, even though no one was near enough to overhear. “Three years ago, her car went over a cliff near Barfleur and straight into the sea.”
“What happened?”
“No one saw.”
“Did your wife assess the probabilities?”
“Endlessly.”
“Was it suicide?”
“I never thought so,” he said. “But everyone knew she was distraught, perhaps desperate.”
“Because of Gérard’s affair?”
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