Chapter Thirty-One #2
Mary explained that Lucas had been in touch before our arrival. The staff had alerted her to our reservation, and she’d been nervously awaiting the chance to share her story with me.
Lucas smiled softly when I looked to him. Then he rose and excused himself, promising to return before our meal arrived. As if he hadn’t done enough already, he gave us the additional gift of privacy.
Mary watched him walk away, but I could only marvel at the woman before me.
Sébastien Allard’s wife. His widow, I mentally corrected.
Something about her presence made Bastien all the more real, even if he was gone.
Before, he was just an image from a photograph and a person from my mother’s past. Now, I sat here with his widow, and the thought raised gooseflesh on my arms.
“You have a good one there, too, I see,” Mary said, nodding in the direction Lucas had gone.
I tracked him, belatedly, with my gaze, allowing what she’d said to register. “Oh, we’re not—”
Her brow furrowed with confusion.
“We’re . . .” I stalled again. What were we? Coworkers? Friends? Both were true, yet neither description felt like nearly enough.
Mary’s answering smile was warm and kind. “Well, you’ll figure that out in time,” she said. “Right now, I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve always wanted a daughter.”
I blinked back tears as I told her everything about my own daughter, then a little about my mom.
“Bastien talked about your mother often when we were young, in the years before we dated,” she said.
“The pretty American girl who stole his heart and carried it back across the sea.” Mary pressed a hand to her chest and looked toward the ceiling.
She laughed. “Bastien had a flair for the dramatic, and a genuine zest for life. His passion was contagious. No one would deny it. He and I grew up together in this town, and all the girls wanted him. I was a few years younger and not on his radar until long after your mother had traveled home. I was just glad to be his friend. Then one day, seemingly out of the blue, he asked me if I wanted to go with him for a coffee. We were married six months later, and we stayed that way to his very last breath.”
“That’s beautiful,” I said. “Forty-one years is a lifetime.”
Her expression fell and a tear slid from her eye. “It wasn’t nearly long enough. My mother said we made it work because a marriage built on friendship starts with a strong foundation.” She shrugged. “Sometimes I think we just got lucky.”
I thought of Camilla and Jeff. I’d pushed her to take more girl trips and do as much as she could without him, but she only wanted to make memories if he was in them.
Anyone who’d met them could see Jeff felt the same way.
They were the closest of friends, and building a life together made a lot more sense when I looked at it from that point of view.
Camilla had gotten love right, despite the awful examples she’d grown up with.
“You would’ve loved Bastien,” Mary said, her brown eyes alight once more. “He was full of mischief, too, but in all the best ways.” She laughed, then dropped a palm to her stomach. “Oh, and he loved to bake. One more of his many talents.”
My gaze snapped to hers. “Bastien baked?”
She nodded. “Very well. And often. His mother taught him. Her father taught her. He probably baked for your mother. He couldn’t stop himself, I’m sure.”
Memories of my mother, working for hours in our kitchen, returned with a rush. She played the radio and sang, lost in her own world while she made the most magnificent creations.
Had she thought of him while she baked? When I stood on a chair beside her to reach the counter, was she sharing him with me?
“My mom taught me to bake,” I said.
Mary smiled. “That’s lovely. I’m sure she was an excellent mother.”
I bit my tongue as old rants and negativity came to mind. I knew my mother better now. I understood her struggles more clearly. “She did the best she could,” I said, and that was the truth of it. And I think she missed him dearly.
Mary nodded. “He would’ve loved knowing he had a daughter.
We tried for children of our own, but that was never meant to be.
We didn’t pursue things, medically,” she said.
A blush crept over her fair skin. “We just enjoyed each other and cherished what we had. We believe that what is meant for us will find us.”
“That’s beautiful,” I said.
Part of me wanted to tell her I was sorry she’d never known the joy of carrying a baby to term, of the pain and elation of delivery and of every other stage of a child’s life. For me, those were the high points of my life, but Mary had other experiences, and I envied her those.
There was so much life to live. There wasn’t enough time to live it.
Lucas returned as the waitstaff brought our meals, and I realized he’d been watching. Just as promised, he’d never left me alone.
The three of us spent the evening getting to know one another over loaves of fresh bread and bowls of pot-au-feu, a delicious meat-and-potatoes stew. Mary was the embodiment of grace, and when the time came to leave, I was reluctant to say goodbye.
“Promise me you’ll stay in touch,” she said, passing a business card into my hand.
“My home number and personal email are on there. I’m on social media too.
I like to keep up with my friends and family.
” She drew me to her for a long hug and air-kisses before turning to Lucas. “Bring her back to me soon.”
He nodded. “I’ll do my best.”
I grinned as we walked back through the door. I hadn’t found my birth father, but I’d found a woman eager to be my stepmother and friend.
I considered that a wonderful gift. One I would never take for granted.