14. Cat
CAT
Monique's dinner invitation comes with the weight of ulterior motive.
"Just a simple meal," she says when she corners us at the market, her eyes twinkling with something that looks suspiciously like scheming. "Jacques is making his bouillabaisse. You girls have been working so hard—you deserve a proper evening out."
I know Monique well enough to recognize when she has an agenda.
She practically raised me during those long summers, feeding me pastries and gossip in equal measure, teaching me the politics of village life with the same dedication Grand-mère brought to teaching me cuisine.
If she wants us at her table, she has a reason.
But her bouillabaisse is legendary, and I've been craving it for twenty years.
"We'd love to," I say, and Iris nods beside me, probably grateful for any excuse to avoid another awkward dinner alone with me at the farmhouse.
Things have been strange between us since the lavender field.
Not bad, exactly—just charged. Heavy with everything we're not saying.
Every accidental brush of hands in the kitchen hums through me for the rest of the morning, and I'm fairly certain Iris feels it too, based on the way she keeps finding excuses to be on the opposite side of every room I enter.
It's exhausting. It's also kind of hot. I'm trying not to think about that part.
The café is warm and golden when we arrive, filled with the smell of garlic and saffron and the low murmur of conversation. Monique has set up a private table in the back corner, away from the other diners, which confirms my suspicion that this isn't just about bouillabaisse.
Jacques greets us with kisses on both cheeks and immediately begins pouring wine—a rich, amber rosé from a vineyard just over the hill. "Local," he says proudly. "From the same grapes Marguerite used to press."
"I didn't know she made wine," Iris says.
"She didn't. Not officially. But she had an arrangement with the Delacroix family—they'd press her grapes, she'd help with their lavender." Jacques shrugs in that particularly French way that manages to convey an entire philosophy of life. "Everything is connected here. That's how it works."
We eat and drink and talk about nothing important—the weather, the harvest predictions, Jacques's ongoing war with the neighbor's rooster.
But I can feel Monique circling, waiting for the right moment, and when the bouillabaisse bowls are empty and the second bottle of wine is half gone, she finally strikes.
"You've been finding things," she says. "In the house. I can tell."
Iris and I exchange glances. We haven't told anyone about the photographs, about the box from the barn, about the slowly emerging picture of Grand-mère's life that we're piecing together like archaeologists at a dig.
"Some things," I admit cautiously.
"About Hélène?"
The name drops into the conversation and sits there. I feel Iris go rigid beside me.
"Yes," I say. "About Hélène."
Monique nods, unsurprised. "I thought so. You have questions."
"Many questions."
"Then let me tell you what you need to know." She refills her wine glass, settles back in her chair. "Hélène Voclain came to Provence in the spring of 1980. She was a painter—quite a good one, actually, though she never achieved the recognition she deserved. She'd come to capture the light."
"The light," Iris repeats softly.
"Provence is famous for it. Artists have been coming here for centuries, chasing it.
" Monique's smile is wistful. "Hélène rented a small cottage near the edge of the village.
She kept to herself mostly—painting, walking, sitting in cafés with her sketchbook.
But one day she wandered onto Marguerite's land. "
"Looking for light?" I guess.
"Looking for lavender. She wanted to paint the fields at sunset." Monique pauses. "Marguerite found her there, hip-deep in purple, covered in paint, absolutely transported. She said later it was like finding a wild creature—something beautiful that didn't quite belong to the ordinary world."
"What happened?"
"What do you think? They fell in love." Monique's voice is matter-of-fact, but there's warmth beneath it.
"Not immediately—Marguerite was cautious, and Hélène was wary of attachment.
But over that summer, and the next, and the next...
they found each other. The way people do, when they're meant to. "
I think of the paintings scattered throughout the farmhouse—the landscapes, the flowers, the light captured in oils. H.V. Hélène Voclain. She painted our home. She made it beautiful.
"When did people know?" Iris asks. Her voice is strange—tight, controlled. "About them?"
"Know officially? Never. Marguerite was private about her personal life, and Hélène respected that.
But we all understood. It was obvious to anyone who saw them together—the way they looked at each other, the way they moved around each other.
" Monique shrugs. "This is a small village.
We notice things. And we chose not to make it our business. "
"But it was accepted?" I press. "People didn't—"
"Some people had opinions. There are always people with opinions.
" Monique's expression darkens briefly. "But Marguerite was respected.
She'd saved this farm, built the lavender business, employed half the village at one point or another.
People owed her. And Hélène was kind, and talented, and clearly devoted.
Over time, it simply became... how things were. "
Jacques returns with cheese and fruit, arranging the plates with quiet efficiency. He catches my eye and gives a small nod—she's telling the important part, let her finish.
"They were together for thirty-five years," Monique continues. "Thirty-five years in that house, building a life, creating something beautiful. Hélène's paintings are in galleries now, you know."
"She kept the best ones," I say. "At the house."
"Of course she did. Those were hers. The private ones, the ones Hélène painted just for her." Monique reaches into a bag beside her chair and produces a worn photograph album. "I thought you might want to see these."
She opens the album, and suddenly I'm looking at my grandmother as I never knew her—young, vibrant, laughing. And beside her, in photograph after photograph, a woman with sharp cheekbones and clever eyes and paint-stained fingers.
Hélène.
They're beautiful together. Not in a posed, performative way, but in the way of people who have stopped noticing the camera because they're too absorbed in each other.
There are pictures of them cooking, gardening, sitting on the terrace at sunset.
There's one of Hélène painting while Marguerite watches, her expression so tender it makes my throat tight.
"They were happy," Iris says quietly. She's leaning close to see the photos, and I can feel the warmth of her shoulder against mine.
"They were. Very happy." Monique turns another page. "Until Colette came back."
The name lands like a blow. Iris goes still.
"My mother?"
"She visited in 1995. She'd been living in America for several years by then—she left not long after she married your father. I don't know what prompted her to return, but she came. With you, actually. You were only five or six."
"I don't remember that," Iris says.
"You were very young. And the visit didn't last long." Monique's expression is careful now, her words chosen with precision. "Colette hadn't known about Hélène. Marguerite had never told her—I think she was afraid of her daughter's reaction. So when Colette arrived and found them together..."
"She didn't take it well," I finish.
"That is an understatement." Monique closes the album gently. "She was furious. She accused Marguerite of lying, of deception, of—" She pauses. "Of perversion. She said terrible things. And then she left, and she took you with her, and she never came back."
The silence that follows is heavy, suffocating.
I look at Iris. Her face is pale, her jaw clenched tight. I can see her processing this—the revelation that her mother's estrangement wasn't about some vague family feud, but about something much more specific. Much more ugly.
"Why didn't Grand-mère tell me?" I ask. "About why Colette left. All those summers, she never explained—"
"She was ashamed. Not of Hélène—never of Hélène—but of her daughter's reaction.
Of what it said about how she'd raised Colette, what values she'd failed to instill.
" Monique's voice is gentle. "And she didn't want to poison you against your own blood.
She always hoped Colette would come around eventually. "
"She didn't," Iris says flatly. "She never told me any of this. She let me grow up thinking my grandmother was just—absent. When really, she'd been pushed away."
"Your mother made her choice. A wrong choice, in my opinion, but hers to make.
" Monique reaches across the table to cover Iris's hand with her own.
"What matters now is that you're here. Both of you.
Marguerite wanted that more than anything—for her granddaughters to know the truth, to know this place, to know each other. "
"And to know her," I add softly. "The real her."
"Yes." Monique squeezes Iris's hand before letting go.
"Hélène died in 2015. Marguerite was never the same after that.
But she had ten more years—ten years to plan, to prepare, to make sure that when she was gone, her story wouldn't be buried with her.
" She gestures between us. "You two are her legacy.
Not just the property, but the truth. She wanted you to carry it forward. "
The walk home is quiet.
The village streets are dark and empty, the stars brilliant overhead, and our footsteps echo on the cobblestones. I want to say something—to acknowledge what we've learned, to check if Iris is okay—but I don't know where to begin.
She's folded in on herself, arms wrapped tight around her middle, her face unreadable in the dim light. I recognize the posture from the first days after she arrived—the armor, the walls. But this feels different. This feels less like defense and more like grief.
We're halfway up the hill toward the farmhouse when she finally speaks.
"My mother cut her off because she was gay."
I stop walking. Iris stops too, standing motionless on the dark road, staring at nothing.
"Iris—"
"Thirty-five years. Grand-mère had thirty-five years of happiness, and my mother couldn't accept it.
Couldn't let it exist." Her voice cracks.
"And I didn't know. I grew up thinking—I don't even know what I thought.
That there was some complicated adult reason, some family drama I was too young to understand.
But it was just—it was just bigotry. Simple, ugly bigotry. "
"You were a child. None of this was your fault."
"But I'm not a child anymore." She turns to face me, and even in the darkness I can see the tears on her cheeks. "I've been an adult for years. I could have asked questions. I could have pushed back. I could have found Grand-mère myself, learned the truth, done something—"
"You didn't know there was a truth to find."
"Because I didn't look!" Her voice rises, echoing off the stone walls of the nearby houses.
"Because I was too scared, too obedient, too focused on being the perfect daughter to rock the boat.
And while I was being perfect, Grand-mère was alone and Hélène was dead and nobody—" She chokes on the words, pressing her hand to her mouth.
I close the distance between us and pull her into my arms.
For a moment she resists, her body stiff with tension. Then something breaks, and she's clutching at me, her face pressed into my shoulder, her whole body shaking with sobs.
"I'm sorry," I murmur against her hair. "I'm so sorry."
"It's not your fault."
"It's not yours either."
We stand there in the dark road, holding each other, while Iris cries for a grandmother she never got to know and a truth she was never told. I stroke her back and let her grieve and try not to think about how right she feels in my arms.
This isn't about me. This isn't about what I want. This is about a woman learning that her family is built on a lie, and needing someone to hold her while she falls apart.
Eventually the sobs quiet. Iris pulls back, wiping her face with her sleeve, not quite meeting my eyes.
"Sorry," she says. "I don't usually—"
"Don't apologize." I brush a strand of hair from her face, and she leans into my touch for just a moment before stepping away. "You're allowed to feel things. Even the messy ones."
"I'm not very good at messy."
"I know. That's okay." I take her hand—carefully, giving her space to pull away if she wants. She doesn't. "Come on. Let's go home."
We walk the rest of the way in silence, hands linked, and I try not to think about what it means that this feels so natural. That holding her hand feels like the most obvious thing in the world.
Tomorrow we'll have to figure out what all of this means—for the inheritance, for our families, for whatever is happening between us.
Tonight, I just hold her hand and walk her home.