Chapter 5
ELLA
Hopeful things first.
That was the promise I made myself as I stepped back onto the street, Paris bright and alive in the late morning sun. I repeated it like a small prayer, something to hold onto before the harder parts of this trip swallowed me whole.
There would be time for officials and paperwork. For signatures and cold rooms and people explaining the mechanics of my sister’s death as if logistics could soften the loss.
But not yet.
First, I wanted Rose.
Not the version preserved in grief back home. Not the careful wife Randy mourned or the dutiful daughter my parents remembered. I wanted the woman who’d lived here. The one who’d chosen this city again and again until it became part of her life.
The version of my sister I’d never fully known.
On paper, Rose’s life in Paris had been easy to explain.
She’d been a corporate trainer, flown in and out of cities for years, teaching leadership workshops and executive development.
Her firm was headquartered in France. Paris, she’d said, was just a hub.
A base. Somewhere central while she trained teams across Europe—London one week, Berlin the next, Milan after that.
It had sounded plausible. Responsible. Respectable.
Randy had believed it without question. My parents, too. Rose had always been competent, polished, reliable. If she said she was working, no one thought to look closer.
But standing here now, surrounded by the evidence of a life that felt rooted rather than temporary, I couldn’t help wondering how much of that story had been true.
Maybe she had traveled. Maybe she’d stood in boardrooms and conference centers, flipping through slides and delivering rehearsed insights about leadership and synergy and growth.
Or maybe she’d stayed here.
In this apartment. In this city. Coming back to the same streets, the same places, the same quiet routines that didn’t belong to a woman passing through.
Maybe Paris hadn’t just been her base.
Maybe it had been her choice.
The thought made my chest ache with something sharp and tender all at once. Rose hadn’t just been visiting a city. She’d been building a life—carefully, quietly, under the protection of a story no one thought to question.
And if that was true, then the things she’d left behind weren’t just souvenirs.
They were clues.
I started with the easiest one.
The bookstore.
I’d noticed the receipt tucked into the novel beside Rose’s bed the night before—a narrow strip of paper stamped with a name and an address in the Latin Quarter. The edges were softened from being handled, folded once and tucked deep into the pages, like something she meant to come back to.
So, I took the metro, emerging into streets that felt younger somehow—crowded with students, tourists, couples leaning into each other with careless intimacy. Music spilled from open doorways. Someone argued loudly in rapid French, punctuated by laughter.
The bookstore sat between a stationery shop and a tiny gallery, its window crammed with mismatched displays. Paperbacks stacked sideways. Handwritten recommendation cards taped beneath covers. A cat sleeping atop a pile of travel guides.
I smiled despite myself and pushed inside.
A bell chimed overhead.
The air smelled like dust and paper and something faintly floral. Shelves stretched in tight rows, forcing strangers into polite collisions. The place felt lived in, just like my sister’s apartment. Loved.
I moved slowly, fingers drifting over spines, imagining Rose doing the same. Maybe on a rainy afternoon, coat damp, blonde hair curling around her temples as she wandered without urgency.
We both had the same unruly, blonde hair.
Did she come here alone?
Or with him?
The thought slid into my mind before I could stop it. Not sharp this time. Not accusatory.
Curious.
I found the shelf of English-language fiction and scanned titles until recognition hit. Three of the books sat on Rose’s bedside table back in the apartment. One still opened to where she’d left off.
She’d bought them here.
Something warm settled low in my chest. A strange intimacy in standing where she’d stood, choosing stories, carrying them home.
A man brushed past me, murmuring an apology in accented English as he maneuvered around a stack of books. His arm grazed mine in passing, warm through layers of fabric, and I looked up automatically.
He was handsome in an easy, unstudied way—dark hair, strong jaw, the kind of face that probably photographed well without trying. The sort of man who would make someone glance twice on the street.
I smiled politely and stepped aside to let him pass, then watched him disappear into another aisle.
Hank had been attractive, too. Clean-cut, steady, reassuringly put together. Women liked him. My parents adored him. Even my friends admitted he was a catch.
But he’d never made my pulse stumble. Never made my thoughts blur or my body react before my brain caught up. Being with him had felt … pleasant. Comfortable. Predictable.
Safe.
I’d always assumed that was what grown-up love looked like. That the weak-in-the-knees, can’t-think-straight kind of attraction belonged to movies and college hookups, not marriages or real life.
Still, somewhere deep down, I’d wanted it. A man whose presence alone shifted the air. Someone who made my stomach dip and my breath catch, who made desire feel inevitable instead of optional.
Someone who unsettled me in the best way.
I ran my fingers absently along the spines of the books, shaking off the thought.
Maybe Rose had found that here. Something—or someone—who made her feel more alive than the careful life waiting back home.
And maybe that was why Paris still felt charged with possibility, even wrapped in grief.
The city seemed to whisper that different choices were possible.
I wandered deeper into the shop, eventually finding a small table of plays and scripts. French and English editions mixed together.
The same play from the theater tickets sat stacked near the top.
Romantic, the cleaning woman had said.
I picked it up, flipping through highlighted passages someone had underlined in pencil. Lovers meeting in secret. Promises whispered in shadows. Choices between duty and want.
I swallowed.
Rose had sat in that dark theater watching this story unfold. Had she squeezed someone’s hand during the love scenes? Leaned closer when the characters kissed?
Had she felt seen?
I bought the book without overthinking it.
Outside again, sunlight felt brighter. Warmer.
Alive.
My next stop came from another small discovery—an art supply bag tucked in Rose’s closet, filled with charcoal sticks and sketchpads. Not new. Used. Smudged.
A folded brochure inside the bag led me to a small gallery across the river.
The place was quiet when I entered, footsteps echoing faintly on polished concrete floors. Minimalist white walls, large canvases hung with deliberate spacing. Most abstract. Some startlingly intimate—figures half-formed, bodies suggested instead of fully revealed.
One piece stopped me.
A woman leaning against a window, back to the viewer. Bare shoulders, soft light outlining the curve of her waist. Not explicit, but undeniably sensual. Vulnerable in the way nudity sometimes was.
The plaque listed a local artist’s name.
And beneath it, handwritten:
Private figure study sessions available.
Heat spread slowly through my chest.
Rose had come here. Had watched someone capture bodies in charcoal and paint. Had maybe sat in a room where strangers undressed without shame, letting artists study the lines of their skin.
The idea felt both shocking and … freeing.
I tried to picture myself doing that—stripping in front of strangers, allowing someone to look at me not politely, not clinically, but hungrily. Appreciatively.
My stomach tightened.
A memory surfaced uninvited.
Hank, kissing me goodnight in our apartment hallway, careful and predictable. Hands always respectful. Never urgent. Never needy.
Ugh.
I’d convinced myself safety was enough.
But standing here, imagining Rose here, I felt something shift. A quiet certainty that safety had been the problem in our family.
Maybe she’d found something that made her feel wanted instead of merely appreciated.
I left before the thought could deepen, stepping back into cool air, cheeks warm.
My next stop came almost accidentally.
A florist’s shop, bursting with color, stopped me mid-step. Buckets of flowers spilled onto the sidewalk—peonies, tulips, roses in every shade imaginable.
Rose loved fresh flowers. Always had.
I stepped inside, inhaling deeply.
A young man behind the counter greeted me, then switched easily into English when my response faltered. I asked, clumsily, if he remembered an American woman who came often. Blonde wavy hair, bright laugh.
His face lit up.
“Yes! She liked yellow roses. Always yellow.”
My throat tightened.
Yellow roses. Friendship. Warmth. Joy.
“She came with someone sometimes,” he added, arranging stems. “Tall man. Very quiet. Carried flowers for her.”
My pulse skipped.
Tall. Quiet. Carrying flowers.
An image formed without permission—strong hands holding delicate blooms. A man content to let Rose shine while he watched.
My chest ached with sudden affection for a version of my sister I’d never met.
“Thank you,” I said softly.
I bought a small bouquet without thinking, carrying them with me as I walked. A ridiculous thing to do, maybe, but the flowers felt like proof.
Proof she’d been happy.
I wandered afterward without direction, letting the city pull me where it wanted. Crossing bridges, ducking into quiet streets, watching couples kiss openly without apology.
The sensuality of Paris wasn’t loud. It was casual. Built into everything.
Touch here didn’t seem transactional or hurried. People lingered. Looked at each other.
Wanted openly.
By late afternoon, exhaustion set in, the emotional weight of the day catching up to me. I sat on a bench overlooking the river, bouquet resting beside me, and closed my eyes.
Again, my mind drifted to desire.
To the idea of someone looking at me the way Rose’s mystery man must have looked at her. Wanting not politeness or companionship, but her. All of her.
Heat unfurled, subtle but undeniable. A reminder that grief hadn’t erased my body’s needs.
I shifted, embarrassed even alone, and let the feeling pass.
Still, the thought lingered.
Maybe Rose hadn’t just escaped something.
Maybe she’d run toward something.
Toward passion. Toward risk. Toward a life that felt larger than safe choices and predictable love.
Toward something alive.
The sun dipped lower, shadows lengthening, and reality slowly crept back in.
Hopeful things first.
But not only hopeful things.
The practical tasks waited. The ones I couldn’t avoid forever.
Rose’s death wasn’t just an emotional mystery. There were answers somewhere. Records. People who’d seen her last alive.
A hospital.
The thought arrived quietly but refused to leave.
I’d seen the paperwork already. The small clinic where she’d been taken after the accident. The sterile words describing efforts made, injuries sustained.
Final times recorded in neat, unforgiving handwriting.
My stomach tightened.
I wasn’t ready.
But maybe readiness didn’t matter.
I picked up the bouquet, standing slowly, the paper crinkling softly in my hands.
Hopeful things had shown me a little about who Rose was here. The places she’d returned to. The beauty she’d chosen to surround herself with. The life she’d built quietly, deliberately, without asking permission from anyone who might have told her not to.
And for the first time since I’d arrived, I let myself consider something else.
I didn’t have to leave right away.
My editor back home had already offered flexibility—an open-ended freelance contract, stories I could file on my own schedule as long as they were good. She’d joked, half-serious, that writing from Paris would probably improve my copy. I’d laughed at the time, brushing it off as impossible.
Now, standing here with Rose’s bouquet in my hands, it didn’t feel impossible at all.
I could stay. For weeks, maybe longer. Learn the rhythms of the city the way Rose had. Walk the streets she’d walked, sit in the quiet places she’d chosen, write in the margins of a life that suddenly felt less distant than I’d imagined.
Time. Real time. Not a rushed visit measured in return flights and obligations waiting impatiently across an ocean.
The thought loosened something in my chest.
I could get to know who my sister had been here without tearing through her life like an intruder. Without forcing answers before I was ready to face them. I could let Paris reveal her slowly, the way it seemed to do everything else.
Still, some things couldn’t be postponed.
Hope had carried me this far. It had softened the city, made grief bearable, reminded me that Rose had lived fully here.
But it wouldn’t explain the end.
The paperwork. The officials. The unanswered questions. The accident that had stolen her away without warning or goodbye.
Those waited.
I took a steadying breath, clutching the bouquet a little tighter.
I’d given myself permission to linger. To breathe. To imagine a life here that didn’t end the moment I finished my sister’s affairs.
But before I let myself settle into that possibility, I needed to face the truth.
The hopeful parts had come first.
Now, it was time to learn how she’d died.
I checked the address again on my phone.
The clinic wasn’t far.
Tomorrow, I told myself.
Tomorrow, I’d go.
I took one last look at the river, at couples leaning into each other, at life continuing without hesitation.
“Okay, Rose,” I murmured softly. “I’m coming.”
Tomorrow, I would start with the clinic.