Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
CAMILLE
There wasn’t enough brie in all of Paris to make up for Hugh’s indiscretions, but still Camille and Sophie both went above and beyond, raiding the local fromagerie while Isabelle took a hot bath, and then setting up a board with fresh baguette, grapes, and, of course, plenty of chocolate.
By the time Isabelle emerged from her bedroom wrapped in a soft ivory robe, the wine had been poured.
Camille couldn’t help but notice that even after realizing her husband had been cheating on her (not that Camille was surprised in the least, given his recent behavior), Isabelle looked completely composed and downright pretty in her pale pink satin pajama set. Had this happened to Camille, she’d have been stumbling around the apartment in threadbare gray sweats, with a blotchy face, clutching a wine bottle by the neck and eating ice cream straight from the tub.
But then, this would never happen to Camille, because one could only have a husband cheat on you if one actually had a husband.
With a pang, her mind went to Rupert, and again, she pushed it quickly from her mind. Her sister was in distress, even if she didn’t look it. Her attention was needed here.
“Well, Isabelle, you may be in touch with your French roots lately, but there is no denying you are your mother’s daughter,” Camille remarked when she handed Isabelle her wine.
Isabelle managed an almost imperceptible smile.
“In what way?” Sophie asked as she settled on the sofa.
Camille realized that she and Isabelle never talked about their mother around Sophie. Somehow it had always felt disloyal to the woman who raised them, however loosely, to do that. Now, she saw that it left Sophie on the outside, not quite a sister, but instead a relative who didn’t share in the bond that Camille had with Isabelle.
“Our mother never shed a single tear when Papa left,” Camille told her, glancing at Isabelle to see if she’d protest.
But Isabelle didn’t seem to mind that Camille was opening up about their mother. She had bigger problems at the moment.
“It’s not that she didn’t care,” Isabelle explained to Sophie. “It’s that she’s always composed.”
“Cold,” Camille said, hearing a bitter edge in her tone.
She reached for a piece of bread and slathered it with brie, then popped it into her mouth. Rupert would love this, she thought, longing for him once again. They spent many quiet winter nights over the years in front of the fire, after Flora had gone to bed, drinking wine, enjoying cheese, reading books, or watching a movie. Sometimes talking, sometimes not talking at all.
And as nice as it was to be here with her sisters—yes, even Sophie—she couldn’t help but wish that right now she was with Rupert.
He was the person she loved most, she supposed. Other than Flora, of course.
But was she in love with him?
And if she was, she shouldn’t be, because he had moved on.
And even then, she couldn’t be in love with Rupert. Or so she had always told herself.
“Not cold,” Isabelle corrected her, sipping her wine. “Just…” She paused, searching for a more delicate word. “Guarded.”
Sophie nodded as if she understood, and Camille didn’t see how she possibly could. Sophie’s mother was the complete opposite of theirs; honestly, Paul Laurent was as eclectic in his taste in women as he was in his style of art. Whereas their mother was classically elegant, Sophie’s mother was bohemian—even if she didn’t appear so today.
“My mother is very closed off, too,” she said. “After Papa left, she changed. She stopped laughing and smiling. Stopped working in the theater. She shut everyone out. Except for me. The more consumed she became about constraining her own life, the stricter she became with me.”
“How was your visit with her?” Isabelle asked. Sophie had been quiet about it all afternoon. “You didn’t stay out long.”
“Oh, she was tired from the flight and the jet lag,” Sophie said but then shook her head. “Actually, that’s not true. Not at all. My mother…she tracked me down. Against my wishes. She didn’t know I was coming here.”
“But why not?” Camille asked, immediately thinking of her daughter and how she would feel if Flora traveled abroad and failed to mention it.
“My mother would never have allowed me to come to Paris,” Sophie said simply.
Camille frowned. “But you’re a grown adult. She can’t stop you.”
“Technically, no, but, with my mother, it’s complicated.” Sophie looked down at her wineglass. “It’s often easier to just give her her way. If I don’t, she makes me feel guilty. I’m her only daughter, she’s done so much for me. She’ll go silent on me, or sulk, and it’s always up to me to smooth things over. It’s…well, it became my job to make her happy after Papa left.”
Camille and Isabelle exchanged a wide-eyed glance. This wasn’t the woman they remembered from their summer visits, though in fairness, they hadn’t interacted with her very much, especially Camille. Back then Patricia was full of energy, consumed with Sophie, of course, but happily so.
“When I was in high school, I was obsessed with moving to Paris,” Sophie started to say as a wistful smile came over her face. “I was the best student in my class. Not to brag,” she rushed to say.
“Not in the least!” Isabelle said, grinning. “You should be proud of yourself!”
Sophie’s face fell. “My mother didn’t see it that way. Papa had left by then, and I suppose she saw it as some sort of betrayal that I had any interest in anything French.”
“But you’re half-French,” Isabelle pointed out. “It’s part of your heritage.”
“It’s more than that,” Sophie said, leaning in. “It’s who I am. It’s what excited me. It always did. I used to have posters of Paris up in my room, all over the walls, until I saw how upset they made my mother, so I took them down. I knew she’d never support me coming here, so I worked hard to make it happen for myself. I aced all my classes, even won an award, and…a full scholarship to the Sorbonne.”
“What?” Camille gasped, once again looking at Isabelle. They both knew that this was Sophie’s first time in Paris. She certainly hadn’t been shy in showing her enthusiasm. “But you didn’t go.”
“No,” Sophie said, shaking her head. “I didn’t.”
“What happened?” Isabelle asked.
“My mother happened,” Sophie replied. “Without me knowing, she told the school I was passing up the scholarship. By the time I found out, they’d already given it to someone else.”
“But how could she?” Camille’s voice rose with anger. “She’s your mother! I can’t imagine!” She pictured her little girl, who worked so hard at her various passions and interests, and then she tried to imagine Flora ever earning such a significant achievement only to strip her of that accomplishment. Of that dream.
Her imagination was big, but even she couldn’t fathom it.
“It’s just how it is with her,” Sophie said with a sigh. “It’s how it always has been. But…not anymore.” Her mouth twisted into a little smile as she looked at Isabelle. “I’ve made a decision. A big one. I’m…not going back to New York. I want to stay here, in Paris. That is if you don’t mind letting me have the room until I can figure out a job—”
“Of course you can stay!” Isabelle exclaimed.
“But…” Camille couldn’t help but think of everything that Sophie had told them about her life back in New York. “What about your boyfriend?”
“I feel horrible admitting this, but I don’t miss Jack. At first I thought it was because I was here, in Paris, at long last, and I didn’t have time to think about him, but now I think there’s more to it.” Sophie sighed. “Jack proposed to me before I came here. It’s why I came here. To get away from him. And to avoid having to make a decision about the future of our relationship.”
Another thing Camille had in common with Sophie, then.
“Do you think this has anything to do with spending time with Gabriel?” Isabelle asked.
Sophie shook her head. “I don’t think so, not directly at least. But Gabriel said something that made me wonder. I used to think that I didn’t believe in love, but now I think it’s that I haven’t found love yet.”
“When you find it, you’ll know,” Isabelle said with a sad smile. “You’ll forget all your fears because the only thing to be afraid of is the thought of living one day without that person.”
Camille took a slug of her wine. “But isn’t that the fear that holds people back?”
Because it was for her, and maybe it was for Sophie, too.
“Only if you let it,” Isabelle said, holding her eyes.
“Don’t tell me you’re talking about Rupert again.” Camille sniffed, pushing back the building emotions, no longer sure how much longer she could fight them. “Besides, it doesn’t matter because he has a new girlfriend. Flora says she’s lovely. It sounds quite serious, actually.”
She was talking quickly, and the glass in her hand was starting to shake.
And one glance at Isabelle told Camille that she was fooling no one. Not even Sophie, who didn’t know her at all, but somehow seemed to understand her more than anyone.
Sophie’s eyes widened with sympathy as she reached out and took Camille’s free hand.
“Rupert is what people would call a good egg,” she said.
“How do you know?” Camille asked. What she meant was how could anyone be sure of anyone, but given their history, Sophie took the question differently.
She didn’t know Rupert, after all. Camille had made sure of that.
“I didn’t know anyone at Isabelle’s wedding other than Papa,” Sophie replied. “Rupert came over to me a few times, cracked a few jokes, and made sure I had a refill of wine.”
That sounded like Rupert, Camille thought, looking down at her hands.
“I was honestly surprised that Papa came to your wedding,” she admitted to Isabelle.
“And now we have to ask ourselves if we should return the favor,” Isabelle replied.
They all exchanged a glance. There was still the topic of Papa and his upcoming wedding, and what to do about it. Another problem for another day, their silence said.
For now, they each had enough to deal with. But for once, they didn’t have to handle it all on their own.
Camille had always thought she had a lot to lose if she dared to let Rupert fully into her life and made a proper family of their little trio, but now, thinking of him out with this other woman, one who was probably funny and pretty and would no doubt appreciate everything about him that Camille did, made her realize that she still had a lot to lose. And that maybe, this time, her worst fears were coming true, and that she really was losing Rupert for good.
“So you’re really going give up your life in New York, just like that?” Camille imagined what it would feel like, to take a risk so big, or to be so sure of something after such a short time. She stared at her younger sister, aching for guidance, or maybe direction.
Sophie nodded triumphantly. “I’m not giving up my life. I’m starting my life. The life I want to be living.”
The life she wanted to be living. Camille let that sink in as she sipped her wine. Was she doing that? Shuffling Flora back and forth from Rupert’s house to her own? Crawling into an empty bed after closing the door on the person that made her smile on even the darkest days, and made the best ones even brighter?
“Well, I for one couldn’t be happier for you and for me! The room is all yours for as long as you’d like!” Isabelle exclaimed, giving her first real smile of the day, if not the week. But just as quickly, her face crumbled. “It’s not like I have any other purpose for it.”
Sophie looked at Camille, alarmed.
“Oh, Isabelle, Hugh isn’t worth it. Punch something if you want. Here.” Camille handed her a throw pillow.
Isabelle waved it away. “I’m all out of tears for Hugh,” Isabelle finally said with a sigh. “He’s a cheat and a liar. Sound familiar? I should have seen it sooner.”
Camille sighed. “We see what we want to see, I suppose.”
“And sometimes we choose not to see what’s obvious.” Isabelle gave her a long look, and Camille knew that she was thinking of all those nights when they sat at the window, staring out onto the streets of Paris, waiting for Papa. Did Isabelle really think he would come home, or did she just want to believe it?
“Deep down I knew that this was the case,” Isabelle said. “There was no other reason for him to lie the way he did, and for so long.”
Camille held back from commenting on the fact that Isabelle didn’t even know for sure just how long Hugh had been cheating on her, or if it was even the first time, but she also knew that it didn’t matter. Hugh had lied and been unfaithful. Details would just add to the pain at this point.
“Isabelle?” Camille asked gently. “What is it?”
Isabelle, to her great surprise, started to weep. “It’s the room. Sophie’s room. The empty rooms. I’d…I’d been hoping to have a baby!”
Camille stared at her sister, who now wiped tears from her cheeks as they started to fall.
“I didn’t even know you and Hugh were trying to start a family,” she said slowly. Isabelle had never hinted at such a thing, never confided in her, of all people, and not just because Camille was a mother, but because she was her sister.
But then, Camille supposed that she hadn’t trusted Isabelle with the things closest to her heart, either.
She hadn’t trusted anyone with her heart. And that was just the problem.
But Isabelle had wanted a baby, all this time, while Hugh was kissing another woman on a street corner for all of Paris to see.
“And to think that he went and pulled this while knowing that!” she seethed.
“But that’s just the thing,” Isabelle said, wiping her eyes. “We weren’t planning to start a family.”
Sophie took a long sip of her wine. Camille tipped her head in confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“Hugh never wanted children. Just like he never wanted to settle down in Paris. Those were things that I wanted. I thought that once it all happened, he’d see how happy he was, and he’d come around…”
“Oh, Isabelle.” Camille pulled in a long breath. “You know that I can attest to the fact that an unplanned pregnancy can be very complicated.”
“It wasn’t like I was trying to trick him. I just thought…if it happened, it happened. And that it would be wonderful.” Isabelle’s voice broke on the last word as fresh tears started to flow.
Camille set down her wineglass and pushed out of her chair, moving to sit next to her sister, who was crying harder than Camille could ever remember seeing her do, even when they were young and Papa had left. Even when they’d packed up the Paris apartment and moved to London. Even after that awful first day of school in England, when they didn’t know a soul but each other.
“I didn’t even know you wanted a baby,” she said, feeling miserable as she admitted it.
Once, there had been a time when she and Isabelle shared everything. But that was a long time ago. And she was just as guilty, wasn’t she? She’d held Isabelle at arm’s length for years, sensing that Isabelle couldn’t understand her life, when it now seemed that Isabelle actually craved it.
And even now, she’d kept the most personal thing from her sister. Even denied the truth when Isabelle tried to speak it, when she talked about Rupert and her art.
About the life that Camille wanted and wouldn’t let herself have.
“I wanted a baby,” Isabelle said sadly. “Just like I wanted to settle down here in Paris. Once I inherited the apartment, it all seemed to make sense. To me at least.”
“Well, you can still have a baby without Hugh,” Camille told her sister.
Isabelle shook her head. “I’m older than you, Camille. And we’ve—I mean, I—tried recently. I think that I just have to accept the fact that my window of opportunity to have a child has come and gone.”
Sophie looked like she might be the one to cry now, even though Camille was the one who wanted to. She thought of Flora, back at home, in the little cottage that they’d made their own—her, Flora, and Rupert.
Even though he didn’t live there full-time, his markings were all over it, from the framed photos of the three of them on holidays that Camille set on end tables and the mantel, to the little things, like the fresh flowers he made a point of picking up every week and she set in a vase on the kitchen table.
Flora had been a surprise, and Camille had often been afraid to even think of what her life might have been like if it had gone according to plan.
Because the plan was never to let anyone in. Never let anyone get too close. Never to fall in love.
And fall in love she had. With Flora. And, she knew, with Rupert.