MAËLLE
It seemed like yesterday that I stood in this church for the midnight mass and sang carols between my mother and Killian. Today, the bells rang for my cousin.
The church wasn’t big enough to hold everyone who came.
They stood along the walls and on the steps outside.
Madame Nolette closed the restaurant for the day.
Jean-Pierre Lavigne wept in the third row.
The men from the vineyards carried the casket, and the children Killian had made coins appear for at the réveillon sat still on their parents’ laps.
Killian stood at the end of our pew—close enough to be there if I needed him, but far enough so I couldn’t touch him. I hadn’t let myself anyway. Every touch would have made it that much harder to let him go.
My father was unrecognizable. The charm was gone, the posture was gone. When the congregation stood and sat, Maman made sure he did. Her own treatment was two days away, but she held him up anyway.
When the priest said Rémy’s name, I prayed for his soul. I also prayed that someday I’d find a way to forgive him.
After, on the steps, those who came took my hands in theirs and spoke of the tragedy. “So young,” Madame Nolette said against my cheek. “So senseless.” I accepted their sorrow for an accident that had never happened.
The ground had been frozen, but men from the village spent two days digging so he could be buried with his parents, in the row of the Valais dead that went back two hundred years.
After, my mother opened the chateau to anyone who wanted to come. I wanted to be anywhere but there. Anywhere.
At four, when the house had emptied, my father found me in the hall.
“Come and sit with me, Maelle.”
He took Maman’s chair in the solarium and started talking.
“Your uncle drove Rémy here himself, in the middle of harvest, with no warning. He’d lost weight since spring, and I told myself he was working too hard.
We came inside, opened a bottle of wine in the study, and he asked me whether his boy could live at Valais.
He knew he was dying, Maelle. He came to ask, and he came to say goodbye, and I understand the second part only now. ”
I stood by the window and let him talk.
“Rémy’s mother was gone. My brother was handing me an orphan. Do you know what I thought?” He looked at his hands. “I thought it was perfect. A nephew. Valais would have someone to take over when I passed.”
I bit my tongue, trying to stop myself from crying. It didn’t work.
“You used to follow me everywhere. ‘What does this do, Papa?’ ‘Why this barrel and not that one?’ I sent you away to find something else to do.” He stopped. “Then I taught all of it to him.”
“Papa—”
He shook his head. “Please, Maelle, I need to say this. I told myself you’d never want to run a place like this.
I made myself believe it. It made it easier for me.
” He took a handkerchief from his pocket.
It wasn’t for me. He used it to wipe his own tears.
“I was wrong, Maelle. About you. About Rémy. About so many things.” He dropped the handkerchief, put his face in his hands, and wept.
Before I could move, Maman came in. She dropped to the floor beside him and put her arms around him.
I sat in the chair and watched them until I couldn’t anymore, then I walked out and went upstairs to look for Killian.
I found him in the guest room. He was packing. The bag lay open on the bed, and on top of the folded shirts lay the children’s dictionary Rémy had given him at Christmas.
The bottle of Ravel I gave him stood on the dresser. He hadn’t packed it yet. Maybe he wasn’t going to.
We hadn’t touched since the night Rémy died. The op was over. There was no more cover. I had no right to ask him for anything, so I stood in the doorway and didn’t.
“What will you do now?” he asked without turning around.
“I can’t leave Maman.”
“I know.” He set another shirt in the bag. “What about after?”
“Someone will have to run Valais.”
He nodded and went on packing.
“There’s an afternoon train from Dijon tomorrow,” he said.
I crossed the room before I could talk myself out of it, removed his mother’s ring from my finger, and held it out to him. When he wouldn’t take it, I grabbed his hand and forced him to. Then left.