Chapter 1 #2
Mom came the rest of the way into the room and picked up a different photo. One of Chloe and Jean-Marc at their wedding, coming down the aisle after the minister pronounced them husband and wife, their arms raised in victory. “I didn’t know I’d left this here,” Mom said softly. “I’ll take it—”
“Mom, it’s okay.” Chloe set the gilded frame back on the dresser.
She liked her expression in the photo. Would she ever smile that proudly, that excitedly again?
“It’s been almost a year since he died. I can see our picture without falling apart.
” But only recently. “Besides, I look really good here.”
Mom laughed and after a second, Chloe joined her. Also only recently, she’d started to laugh again. Which seemed a sort of consolation prize for leaving Paris: her job, her memories, even her in-laws, whom she loved.
Being in Hearts Bend gave her a little window on life. Some semblance of home. Maybe she’d find the freedom to dream again.
“I have more photos with my things.” Chloe glanced around the room toward her boxes, spied the one she wanted, and pulled out her favorite wedding photo, an image of her and Jean-Marc with their parents.
“You looked beautiful, Maman, in your vintage Dior dress. Vivienne and Albert”—she gave the soft French pronunciation, Al-bare—“were so gracious and welcoming to us.”
The five of them stood outside the old stone church near the LaRue family villa in Provence.
Lavender fields behind them shimmered in the sun.
In this photograph, Chloe smiled up at Jean-Marc while he gazed down at her with a tender expression.
She remembered how his eyes had shone with love. They had been happy, so happy that day.
So how did it all end in a sudden death after a massive argument? There were moments when she couldn’t really remember who had started the debate, or why. It had just seemed to snowball like an avalanche…
Chloe winced, a cold heartache pricking her moment of peace, and set the picture back in the box.
“Can we set this one out?” Mom retrieved it. “I think it will help you to grieve and recover if you remember the good times, darling.”
“Y-yeah, sure.” Mom knew some of the story of how Jean-Marc had died.
But not all of it. Chloe peered in the box and, seeing Jean-Marc’s watch, reached for it.
This wretched thing had caused their first big fight, a few months after the wedding.
She’d been furious when he told her what he’d paid for it.
“Why? You don’t need it. A watch meant for scuba diving with what, a chronograph and chronometer? You’re a rock climber, Jean-Marc, a skier, not a scuba diver.”
“Not yet, no. But I will be, chère c?ur. Soon.”
What a silly thing to fight about. If he wanted the watch so he could learn to scuba dive safely, he should have it.
It was for his safety, after all. She set the watch on her dresser next to the photo.
Their photo. Husband and wife. The couple who had stood in the chapel and pledged their love for as long as they lived.
An image flashed across her mind from Jean-Marc’s graveside service—which happened every time she wandered any distance down memory lane.
A blonde woman speaking with her in-laws in hushed tones and how they’d quieted and glanced at one another dubiously when Chloe approached.
But she’d caught the whispered “affaire de c?ur” hanging in the air.
Affair of the heart.
“Chloe? Are you all right?” Mom roped her arm around Chloe’s shoulder. “Are you glad to be home? Truly?”
“Yeah, um, I’m fine.” Mom had been there that day as well, but she’d seen and heard nothing. If she had, she would’ve asked. That was Mom’s way. “I’m truly glad to be home. I couldn’t let you go through cancer treatment on your own. I’m where I need to be.”
Mom’s eyes glistened as she looked away. For her, Chloe knew, talking about the next months and year only made her diagnosis all too real. Too threatening.
“Did you see the rest of the pictures on the mirror?” Mom said, leaning in, hands clasped behind her back.
“I’ve only dusted around them for the past decade.
” Mom motioned to the strip of Chloe and Sam.
“I remember that summer. You and Sam spent hours in the Hardys’ pool while I was learning his father’s business, training to be his admin.
” Mom had been working for Frank Hardy, Sam’s dad, ever since.
“Does Sam still call his dad Frank?” Until Chloe had seen the old stage crew picture and the photo strip, she’d not thought of her teenage friends in ages.
Except Sam. Jean-Marc was a fan of American football and enjoyed telling his football-loving friends his wife had attended high school with the great Sam Hardy.
Jean-Marc kept up with Sam via sports websites as well as the good ole Hearts Bend Tribune, which bragged about their hometown boy every chance they got.
Jean-Marc recited details about Sam’s successes, and they’d talked of a trip home last summer to see Mom, explore Chloe’s childhood haunts, and of course, arrange an introduction to Sam.
“As far as I know he still does,” Mom said. “Sam rarely comes home. Frank mentions him once in a while, but I’m sure he misses him, even if he’s too proud to admit it.”
“Sounds like they’re both stubborn.”
“In a word, yes.” Mom laughed as she turned to peek into one of Chloe’s boxes lined up along the wall. “Try working for one of them. Ooo, your teddy bear.” Mom reached in for the trusty old stuffed animal, the one Chloe had moved halfway around the world—twice.
“For your bed,” Mom said, her eyes glistening again.
She’d had the bear made from Dad’s favorite flannel shirt, and Chloe liked to imagine his fragrance still resided in the threads. Maybe she’d have another made from Jean-Marc’s dark blue thermal. Keep them both on her bed, make it a memorial. She shook her head, throwing off depressing thoughts.
“It’s about dinner time,” Mom said. “Are you hungry? We could run to Ella’s Diner. Tina
reinstated Monday night pie nights. If we go early, we can get a booth by the front window.”
Chloe sighed and sat on the edge of the bed, a fresh batch of tears rising.
Mom placed a hand on Chloe’s arm. “What is it, darling?”
She flopped backward onto the old soft quilt.
“Just this…life. I don’t mind being here, I want to be here, honest. But I can’t get it out of my head entirely that this is not what I planned on doing when I was turning thirty.
I’ve been a mess since Jean-Marc died. One minute I’m angry at him.
The next, weeping and sobbing and missing him so much, it physically pains my chest. I feel like I’m having a heart attack. ”
Mom lay down next to her and Chloe rested her head on Mom’s shoulder. “You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?”
Chloe sat up. “Yes, so don’t.” She wasn’t ready to hear—again—that she’d get over losing her husband, she’d go on with life, maybe even find a new love. Yada, yada. Whatever. Clearly Mom didn’t practice what she preached. Twenty-two years after Daddy died, she was still alone.
Alone. Which was another reason why Chloe had left Paris to come home and help Maman.
“Why don’t we bake tomorrow? That always cheered you up as a girl.”
Chloe’s eyes filled with tears. “MeMaw’s vanilla cake?”
Mom kissed her forehead. “That’s the one. Unless you’ve come up with some fancy French pastry that cures your blues.”
“No way. MeMaw’s cake is the only thing to soothe a sad soul.”
“So, dinner?” Mom elbowed Chloe’s side. “Ella’s?”
Chloe surveyed the boxes stacked under the window seat—the ones she’d shipped at an exorbitant fee from France—and considered more unpacking.
But where would she put the dishes or linens she’d acquired in her life as an ex-pat?
The remnants of nearly eight years with Jean-Marc.
She was here for now but not staying forever.
This was just to get herself together and to see Mom through chemo and radiation.
Chloe drew a breath with a side glance at Mom. Now was as good a time as ever. “We’ve talked about Dad’s death, Jean-Marc, my return home, dinner, and vanilla cake, but not why I’m really here.”
Mom got up and moved to the window. “You know why. I feel like if I talk about it, I’m feeding it. If I ignore it, maybe it will go away.” She looked at Chloe. “Silly, I know.”
“Not silly. I understand.” Chloe slipped off the bed. “What time is your appointment in the morning?” The what-to-expect-during-treatment appointment would be Chloe's first opportunity to introduce herself to Mom’s medical team. Chemo would start officially the next day.
“Nine o’clock. I hope you don’t regret coming home from Paris to chauffeur me to the doctor or chemo clinic. I’m glad you’re home, don’t get me wrong, I just wish it wasn’t to take care of me. What about your career?”
“You are more important than my career. At least death has taught me one good lesson. Besides, I wasn’t in the right mind to make any more of my position at the bistro.
This change to start over might spark something new, something different and good.
Mostly I came home because you have cancer and need support.
Mom, you were always there for me, now let me be there for you. ”
“I’m the mother. Of course, I was there for you. But you’re supposed to be out living your life, having babies, buying a home, and becoming a world-famous pastry chef.”
Chloe scoffed. “Well, life saw fit to do otherwise and there is no place I’d rather be. Fame, ah, it’ll wait for me.” She glanced toward the photo booth strip she’d taken with Sam Hardy. “I bet if you ask him, fame is way overrated anyway.”
Mom turned away, brushing the back of her hand over her cheeks. “All this mush is making me hungry. I’ll get my pocketbook and we can go.”