Chapter 8
T he Chateau Bertigny distracted Alana and Simon when they first arrived.
They’d never been in a private jet before.
Simon was allowed to sit in a jump seat in the cockpit after takeoff, and he loved it and said he wanted to be a pilot when he grew up, or a baseball player, or a fireman.
The pilot had a grandson his age, and explained to him what some of the controls were, and then Simon went back to his father and sister, and had something to eat before they landed at Le Bourget near Paris.
A van and driver were waiting to take them to Milly-la-Forêt, and Ashley told them about the history of the chateau.
Simon was excited to see it.
Alana just sat in her seat and stared out the window, thinking of her mother.
She was wearing a short black skirt, a white blouse, and ballerina flats, with her dark hair in curls down her back.
It killed Ashley to see the look in her eyes, and he held her hand for most of the trip, while Simon chatted with the driver and told him all about the plane.
He fell asleep before they got there—he had been up since dawn.
Alana didn’t say a word on the trip from the airport.
Ashley was worried about her, and wondered how long it would take for her to begin to recover from the shock of her mother’s death, or for any of them.
Ashley was feeling it too. He felt as though he had been beaten up the day before, ever since the funeral. Ashley and the children had been there with Claire’s family. It was brief and small, according to Covid rules. And excruciating. Alana had looked like she was in shock, and Simon cried. And so did Ashley. Claire’s family was devastated. She was only thirty-eight.
Alana revived a little when they walked into the chateau and Ashley took her to her room.
It was the closest guest room to his, all done in pink toile de Jouy with trees and shepherd girls and country scenes woven into the fabric.
He showed her how close his own room was, and set Simon’s things down in his room, to unpack later.
Ashley let them settle into their rooms, and then took them downstairs for the lunch the housekeeper had made.
Alana barely touched hers, and Simon ate half the sandwich, some cookies and some cherries.
“What are we doing this afternoon, Dad?”
Simon asked him, and Ashley said they could take a walk around and wade in the stream near the house.
“Can we go swimming?”
Simon asked him.
“Do we have a pool?”
“No, but we have a friend who does, a few miles from here.
And she has horses too.”
“Can we go now?”
“Maybe tomorrow,”
he said, glancing at Alana.
She was in no shape to visit anyone.
He wanted to be gentle with her and give her the time and space she needed right now.
In the end, they took a walk in the gardens, and he showed them the stream.
Simon took his shoes and socks off, and waded in it, walking from rock to rock with his father holding his hand, while Alana sat down on a rock and watched them.
She didn’t join them, and then they went back to the chateau and she went to her room to finish unpacking her things, and Simon bounded out to the kitchen for some more of the cookies the housekeeper had made.
Ashley went out to the terrace and called Oona on his cell.
“Are you here?”
she asked him.
“I am.
We arrived this morning.
There isn’t a lot for them to do at the chateau.”
He had realized it when he walked them around.
“Can we come and visit you tomorrow?”
he asked.
“Simon wants to go swimming, and it would be good for Alana too.
I’m sorry to ask.
I don’t know what to do for them.”
“You can ask or come over anytime.
How is Alana doing?”
“About the way you’d expect.
She looks so sad, it breaks my heart every time I see her.”
It was normal, but agony to watch.
“Why don’t you come before lunch tomorrow? They can swim, and then we’ll have lunch.
They can ride in the afternoon if they want.
We could ride with them.
Do they ride?”
“They do.
I don’t know if Alana will want to, but Simon will.
He’s bursting at the seams with energy, even though he’s sad too.”
“It’s going to take time,”
Oona said wisely.
She didn’t ask him how long the children were staying, because she suspected he didn’t know yet.
It was all too fresh.
“Why don’t you come at eleven tomorrow, and I’ll figure out something to eat.”
She didn’t want him to have to make any effort.
He was in mourning too.
“Can I do anything for you and them tonight?”
“No, I just want to give them time to get their bearings and relax.
I’ll be happy to see you tomorrow,”
he said to Oona.
“It’s been a rough few days.”
“I know,”
she said gently.
“I’ll be happy to see you too.”
She had an idea after they spoke.
She had seen some things at the general store in the village that might be good for Simon, and maybe even Alana.
She got in her car, drove the short distance, parked in front, and went in with her mask on.
They had inflatable pool toys in boxes on a shelf, and they were still there.
She brought six of them to the counter: a big white swan, a giant yellow duck like a mammoth bath toy, a hamburger, a unicorn, a seahorse, and a dolphin.
She got a big beach ball, and a soccer ball for Ash and Simon.
There were assorted toys and games.
She bought a croquet set and another deck of cards than the one she and Ashley played with, and a big puzzle of a country scene for Alana, and another one of butterflies, and some easy ones for Simon.
It was enough to keep them busy for quite a while.
And before she left the store, she bought a sketch pad and colored pencils.
She put it all in the car and drove home, going right to the stables so the stable hands could fill the pool toys with air.
She got everything ready for the next day, tossing the inflatable toys into the water, where they floated regally on the surface, waiting for the Rowe children to show up.
She set the games on the table on the terrace and went inside to make sure that the groceries she’d gotten had been put in the fridge.
She set the table for the next day, with a royal blue tablecloth, yellow and blue plates, and yellow napkins, and cut blue, yellow, and red flowers in the garden and put them in a vase in the center of the table.
She wanted it to look festive and happy for Ashley’s children.
She called him at nine o’clock that evening, and he sounded tired and said the children were already in bed and asleep.
He couldn’t wait to see her the next day.
They talked for a while, and then he said he was going to bed too.
When Ashley drove up the driveway and stopped outside the house, Oona came out to greet them, with Florence running along beside her.
She barked at them for a few minutes and Simon jumped out of the car to pet the little dog.
She wagged her tail frantically, running around in a circle, and when he kneeled down to pet her, she licked his face and he glanced up at his father, beaming.
“What’s her name?”
Simon asked Oona, and she smiled at him, and then at Alana, who was wearing a pink denim skirt and a white T-shirt and sandals, and carrying their bathing suits in a bag.
“Her name is Florence, and mine is Oona, and I’m happy to meet you,” she said.
“That’s a funny name,”
Simon said, grinning, and she noticed that he was missing his two front teeth.
He was a beautiful child and looked like his father.
Alana looked more like her mother, with delicate Ethiopian features.
“Yes, it is a funny name,”
she agreed.
“Florence likes you.”
Simon picked her up then, and she kissed his face again and he laughed and set her down gently on her feet, and Oona thanked Alana for coming.
She had lemonade and cookies on the terrace for them, and she took them around to the changing rooms next to the pool, where they disappeared into the cabana with the bag, Alana taking charge of her brother.
“They’re gorgeous children,”
Oona said to Ashley, and he smiled and gave her a hug.
“Thank you.
I missed you.
It’s been an awful week.”
She nodded, poured a glass of lemonade, and handed it to him, and he drank it gladly.
It was a hot day.
They waited for the children to come out in their bathing suits.
Alana had a little pink two-piece bathing suit, and Simon had a royal blue one with dolphins on it, and Alana grinned and Simon screamed with delight when they saw the pool toys.
He jumped into the pool, while Alana walked in from the shallow end, and for the next hour and a half they played like normal children who hadn’t lost their mother three days before.
It warmed Ashley’s heart and Oona’s to see them playing.
“Did you get all that for them?”
he asked her, and she nodded.
“I thought they needed a little fun,”
she said softly, and he gave her a grateful look.
She made them pizza and a salad for lunch, with ice cream bars for dessert.
They went back to the pool afterward, swam for a while, and lay in the sun to dry off, and then they went to see the horses.
Simon loved them, and Alana said she liked to ride, and they decided to come back the next day to ride with Oona and their father.
Oona told Ash she would put Simon on a lead line—she had picked a pony for him, and a very tame small horse for Alana.
The children played some of the games after they saw the horses, and Ashley and Oona chatted a little distance away from them.
It had been a good day for the kids, and the adults too.
“You’re amazing with them,”
he whispered to her.
“They’re lovely children.
Will they stay here now?”
He nodded.
“Claire’s family isn’t equipped to take care of them.
Her parents are too old, her sister is sweet but she’s a flake and her husband drinks too much.
I have to figure things out now.
I don’t want them to live like nomads with me.
I’m not really set up for kids at the moment, without their mother.
I’ll have to make some adjustments when I go back to L.A.
One of my sisters has offered to take them in Trinidad and she has kids the same age, but I think they need to be with me, now that their mother isn’t here to take care of them.
It’s fine here this summer, but when we go back to the States, I’ll have to figure it out.
I promised them I would.
They want to stay with me, so that’s what we’ll do.”
“You’re lucky,”
Oona said to Ashley, remembering her own children at the same age.
She missed that, and the good times they’d had together when they were younger.
It made her think that maybe she’d been lucky that Charles hadn’t made his big discoveries earlier.
At least Meghan and Will had had their father around for the important years when they were growing up.
What he was doing now didn’t have an impact on them the way it would have had when they were younger.
They had their own lives now.
The one who had to rebuild her life was Oona.
But she didn’t want to think about that now.
She and Ashley took a swim in the pool while the children were playing with the puzzles she’d bought.
She’d bought easy ones for Simon, and Alana was working on the one with the butterflies.
Oona had put it on a game board so they could take it inside later and she could finish it another time.
They all played a round of Clue before Ashley and the children left.
Oona helped them get their belongings together, and they decided to leave their swimsuits so they could come and swim the next day, and ride the horses.
She stood and watched Ashley with his children for a few minutes.
He was so gentle and loving with them, and he glanced up and saw her and smiled at her.
“Thank you for a perfect day,”
he said to her, as Simon popped up between them and looked at her.
“Are you my dad’s girlfriend?”
he asked her, and Ashley and Oona exchanged a glance as she shook her head.
“No, Simon, I’m not.
We’re just good friends and you can visit whenever you want, and swim and feed the horses, and ride.
Florence and I will be happy to see you anytime.”
“You’re nice,”
he complimented her, and then Alana helped him into the car, and they all waved as they drove away.
It had all turned out even better than she’d hoped, and they had enjoyed everything she bought for them.
Simon had done a drawing of Florence and had given it to Oona as a gift.
The children warmed her heart, and she was smiling when she took the pitcher of lemonade inside and put it in the fridge.
Ashley called her again that night after the children went to bed.
“Thank you for making it such a special day for them.
It was like a birthday party, and they were the honored guests.”
“All three of you were,”
she told him.
“It felt like it.
Simon was still talking about you when he fell asleep.
He wore himself out—he’ll sleep like a baby tonight.”
He was sleeping in Ashley’s bed.
“So will Florence,”
Oona said with a laugh.
She was already sound asleep on Oona’s bed, waiting for her and snoring.
She liked her new life.
“I hope I can do a decent job of it for them, when I take them to L.A.
I’ve only had them for short visits on my own.
Their mother was better at the day-to-day stuff than I was, keeping all their activities and lessons straight.”
“You should get someone to help you.
You can’t do it all yourself, especially when you go back to work.”
“How did you manage that, with a job, a husband, and a family?”
“Looking back, I have no idea how I did it.
All it took was a lot of energy, and no sleep.”
“I don’t know how women do it,”
he said, in awe of her, and all the treats she had provided for them in the past twenty-four hours.
Oona had given Alana one of the puzzles to take with her, to do at the chateau.
She left the butterfly one at Oona’s to work on the next time she was there.
“Thank you for buying all those things to entertain them.”
It was all a bit overwhelming, even for Oona.
Ashley said they had loved it all, and her, and couldn’t wait to come back the next day.
Simon considered her his property now, and Alana was emerging slowly.
Oona had helped her shower after the pool, and wash her hair, which her mother had always done.
Oona could see how sad Alana was from the stricken look on her face, and afterward, she thanked Oona politely.
Ashley wished her goodnight then.
Simon was already sound asleep, and he cuddled up next to him when Ashley got into bed.
He was thinking of Oona and what a remarkable woman she was, and how lucky he was to have met her.
They came back the next day and swam again, and Ashley made lunch that time.
They all swam in the pool and played games, and they rode at the end of the day, and Oona smiled as she watched them leave.
She knew they still missed their mother, but they were enjoying their visits to Oona, and Ashley was grateful for her help.
They baked her a chocolate cake that night at the chateau and brought it to her proudly the next day.
Alana had done the icing, and Simon had added sprinkles, and Ashley had written “Thank you, Oona”
on the cake.
Oona took pictures of it with her phone, and then they ate it.
For all of July and August, swimming at her house became a daily ritual, and Simon helped her pick vegetables in the garden.
Oona put pale pink nail polish on Alana’s toes, the way she had on Meghan’s at the same age, just for fun.
She had told them about her children and showed them photographs of them.
Alana had told her all about her aunt in Trinidad who was sixteen and really cool.
“That’s my youngest sister, Olivia,”
Ashley explained to Oona.
“I guessed.”
She smiled at him.
They were still at the chateau at the end of August, as the days began to cool.
Schools were still closed in California, so Ashley wasn’t rushing to go back.
He needed to enroll them in a school in L.A., and then they would attend classes remotely.
It was a less-than-ideal situation academically, and they’d been through it in England with schools closed from March through May and just recently reopened in June.
Their father and Oona took the children to Euro Disney with their masks on, and went to Paris for the day and showed them the sights.
They couldn’t go up the Eiffel Tower, but they went to the top of the Arc de Triomphe and looked all the way down the Champs-élysées, and they had tea and macarons at an outdoor café.
Both children slept all the way back to Milly-la-Forêt.
They had walked for hours, and they loved the city, but they were happy to be back in Oona’s pool the next day, as Florence sat on the edge and played lifeguard, watching them intently, and barking when they splashed each other.
Oona had dinner with them at the chateau and left later than usual one night, after the children went to bed, so she and Ashley had some quiet time to talk.
When he walked her to the car, through the garden, he stopped and kissed her, with a big orange harvest moon in the sky overhead.
It was a slow searing kiss, and she responded.
It was the first time he had kissed her.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for months,”
he whispered, and she had too, but she was worried about it.
She thought about it all the way back to her house.
She didn’t want to do anything that would spoil their friendship.
Things were so perfect as they were.
But he was so beautiful, gentle and kind, and being with him was so intoxicating and so comfortable, and she was falling in love with his children too.
Being with Ashley in France was like being on a desert island, and real life as they knew it had been eclipsed by the pandemic.
The lives they had been living had vanished six months before.
She lay in her bed that night, thinking about him, not sure what to do.
Sooner or later, they would all go home.
Ashley and his children would go back to L.A., and she’d be alone in New York, and she didn’t want to do anything now that she’d regret later, but it was so hard to resist.
And every day could have been their last if they got sick.
She didn’t want to turn her back on her feelings for Ashley and his children.
But everything about the future was so unsure.
And what kind of future could they ever have together?
The children were playing in the pool the next day, as Oona and Ashley watched them from a distance, and he looked at her carefully.
He could see how frightened she was.
They had crossed a line the night before when he kissed her, and entered new, unfamiliar territory.
“Are you mad at me for kissing you last night?”
he asked softly.
The children were splashing in the pool and having fun and couldn’t hear them, and she shook her head.
“No,”
she replied, smiling shyly at him.
“I kissed you too.”
He felt a thrill at the memory of it and wanted more.
“Do my kids worry you?”
he asked, wanting to quell her fears.
“No, I’m falling in love with them.”
She smiled at him.
“I already have.
But other things worry me.”
“My color?”
he asked her, looking her straight in the eyes.
She shook her head.
“No, Ash, you’re beautiful.
I don’t care about your color.
I just don’t want to be sloppy and make a mistake, so someone gets hurt, you or me or the kids.
We owe it to them to be careful and responsible, and not just do something because it’s easy.”
“Relationships are never easy,”
he said wisely, “and someone always gets hurt, or both, or everyone.
You can’t give in to fear or let that rule your life.”
He was a brave man and honored his feelings, and he wanted to respect hers and her fears.
He didn’t ignore them.
“Have you been in love with a white woman before?”
It was an honest question.
She knew he had dated them, famous actresses.
Claire had been Black like him.
“The answer to that is that my heart is color-blind.
I don’t care what color a woman is if I love her.
I care what color someone is inside, if they’re good people or bad.
There are some really bad ones out there,”
he said quietly, and he’d known his share.
He was not na?ve.
But he also knew how profoundly good Oona was.
“I don’t think my husband is a bad man.
He’s confused,”
Oona said pensively of Charles.
“A lot of people are, and that gets messy, for everyone.
If he comes back, would you take him back?”
he asked her, and she hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
She wanted to be honest with him too.
“I don’t think so.
He’s gone too far by now.
He jeopardized our kids, our marriage, his job.
He let passion overtake him, and we’ve all paid the price for it.
He’s selfish, only thinking of himself.
He wants to lead the life he should have figured out thirty years ago.
I don’t buy that he didn’t know, or even suspect.
He knew when he met the man he’s with now that he was in love with him, and that he’s gay.
He should have told me then, not a year later when he already had one foot out the door.
I’m pissed about that, about his lying to me for a year.
Right now he doesn’t care about any of us.
He just wants to have fun and lead the life he wants, and hold me in reserve in case it doesn’t work out in Buenos Aires. That’s a little too narcissistic for me,”
she said.
“I can’t see myself being with any other man though.
I spent all my energy on him, for twenty-five years.
I want to be with you, Ash, and your kids, but my emotional piggy bank is empty.”
“It didn’t seem that way last night when I kissed you.
You felt the same things I did,”
he reminded her, and that was true.
She knew she loved him, but she couldn’t see a future for them.
She was older than he was.
And he was a movie star with a big life, much bigger than hers.
She couldn’t see herself fitting in his world.
“I think you’re in better shape than you think, and there’s more in your emotional bank than you believe.
You know what you want, you’re just not ready to own it yet.”
Surprisingly, it was exactly what she did feel.
He understood her perfectly, better than she did herself.
“That’s true.”
She wanted to be honest with him.
“Would you go out with me when we go back to the States?”
he asked her bluntly.
“Or would you be embarrassed?”
“I’d be very, very proud, and afraid every day that some starlet would take you away from me.
I can’t deal with that, and at my age, that would be inevitable, and I’d get my heart broken.
I’m older than you are, Ash.
And eight years are a lot.”
That was one of the major things that worried her, her age and his.
“I don’t have a starlet habit,”
he said, and she smiled.
“That’s good to know.”
“I did that after Claire and I separated.
I was thirty-three years old and gave it up in a year.
It was the most boring, tedious year of my life.”
“But the starlets were nice to look at, I imagine.”
“So is the Mona Lisa .
I wouldn’t want to date her either.
She’s white too.
And that sneaky little smile of hers would annoy the hell out of me.
I’ve never found her beautiful.”
Oona laughed.
But she didn’t disagree with him.
“I can’t compete with the kind of women you go out with.”
“How do you know who I go out with, Oona? You don’t know enough about me yet to just cross me off your list or hide from what we’re feeling.”
“I don’t have a list, and I don’t want one.”
“I’m not going to let you off the hook that easily.
You don’t meet special people often enough in life to ignore them or waste them when you do.
Don’t ignore me, Oona.”
He wanted to kiss her then, but he was afraid one of the kids would look up from their pool games and see them, and it was too soon after their mother’s death for them to have to deal with that.
He and Oona were both acutely aware of it.
They sat quietly then, as she thought about what he had said.
She wasn’t afraid of his color.
She was afraid of getting her heart broken.
She wasn’t part of his world or as glamorous as the women he dated.
She saw herself as a small person with an ordinary life.
And his was extraordinary.
When Ashley and the children left at dinnertime, he gave Oona a meaningful look and whispered to her, “Just think about it.
Don’t waste this.
It can work, I know it can.”
He said it with such strength and certainty for both of them, she almost believed him.
She was haunted by his words all evening after they had gone, and as she got ready for bed.
How could he be serious about her? What if it was just a passing fancy because there was no one else around? Loving in the pandemic was like a wartime romance, fraught with uncertainty.
But he was a gorgeous man, a movie star, and she was too old for him.
She thought about their color too.
She had dated Charles right out of college, and she had never dated anyone of a different race before, or even from a different background.
It made no difference as long as they were friends, but a man nearly ten years younger of a different race, what would people think? What would her kids say? She didn’t dare ask them.
They would be flattered that he found her attractive because he was a movie star, but actually date him? Go out with him? Be in the tabloids with him? She didn’t want that, white or Black.
She wanted to wake up in the morning next to him and have a normal life with him.
But he didn’t have a normal life.
He was a star.
He made her wish that she was younger.
Their age difference bothered her more than his color, and what he would think of her body.
Forty-seven didn’t look like twenty-five, or even thirty-five.
He was stunningly handsome.
He made her wish she had paid more attention to her looks.
She was in great shape for her age, but Charles was twelve years older than she was, and they made love so seldom that she had stopped caring what she looked like.
She had never been vain enough to give herself more than a cursory glance in the mirror, and now suddenly it mattered.
And it would matter to others.
She was going to be single again, in fact already was, and the thought of having someone other than Charles see the flaws she had ignored and allowed to accumulate was terrifying.
She couldn’t imagine facing that with a stranger, especially one who looked like Ashley.
It was flattering but also horrifying.
She lay in bed thinking of him that night, and knew that she couldn’t get past the obstacles between them—not just the color, but who he was and how he looked, and the opportunities he had that she could never measure up to.
She didn’t want to let him go when they left France. But it would be hard to adjust to someone new, or to take the kind of risk it entailed that they’d both be disappointed. It was easier not to love anyone, and just coast into the sunset on her own, even if no one loved her.
Love seemed so dangerous to her now, so fraught with risk and possible disappointment. At nearly sixty, Charles had decided that he was gay, had fallen in love with someone else, and their marriage was over.
She had had total faith in Charles and their marriage, and he had betrayed her. She realized that if Ashley were white, she would feel no different, and no less scared. Love was a high-stakes game she was afraid to play again.
Charles was older than she was, and Roberto younger than Ashley.
She wondered if men didn’t think of it that way, or have the same fears.
And suddenly she was afraid that she wouldn’t be enough for Ashley, after years of thinking that only her mind should matter, not her body.
It turned out that that was an illusion.
It all mattered, how you looked, how you dressed, how smart or sophisticated you were, how entertaining, how good an athlete, how funny.
Married for twenty-five years, she thought you could afford to be forgiving if someone didn’t look quite the way they used to or bored you occasionally.
And she felt as though she had lost points for all of it and flunked the class entirely.
She couldn’t risk failing it again and didn’t want to with a man who looked like Ashley and was younger.
It was easier being alone, and not being vulnerable, than to risk being left again.
What would happen when Ashley was sixty-two and still a movie star, and she was an ordinary human at seventy? She cringed at the image.
But when she thought of it and closed her eyes, she could hear Ashley in her head and see him in her mind’s eye, and knew that she loved him.
Color was not the problem for her.
She had never realized that before, but she did now.
She didn’t want to be with another man who found her unattractive, who didn’t bother to make love to her anymore because he said it was too late or too much trouble, or he was tired or had a bad day at the office, or the children might hear them.
Suddenly every one of Charles’s excuses rang in her head, and she realized that he hadn’t found her attractive for years, long before now.
And if he had, there would never have been Roberto.
Or was Roberto inevitable because of what Charles had been hiding from himself, and from her, since college, and never told her? She didn’t want to be left again for someone younger.
And with Ashley, it seemed bound to happen.
How could it not, even if he didn’t see that now?
She fell asleep that night, still turning it around in her mind, and all she knew was that she didn’t have the answers, and Ashley was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen, and she wanted him and loved him, but she knew she couldn’t have him, or shouldn’t, and if she did, she’d regret it.
Just as she regretted marrying Charles now, except for her children.
She had wasted twenty-five years with Charles, and she didn’t want to make a mistake with Ashley because she loved him.
Whether he was Black or white made no difference to her.
She was sure of that now, but she was too afraid to move forward.
She was sure of that too.