Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
It was the surprise of Grayson’s life that Camille’s announcement that she was going to New York City with her father did what it did.
News of it yanked Genevieve out of her hideaway in the country and back to Paris.
Two days after Camille called her to tell her the news, Genevieve appeared at Grayson’s apartment, still in her horse-riding uniform from her life in the country, her hair in a stiff bun, peeling leather gloves from her fingers.
She looked at him ruefully, as though she wanted to rip into him.
And then, she abruptly crumpled and sat at the edge of the sofa, crying quietly.
She really is beautiful, Grayson thought.
Often heartless and terribly cruel, but she was beautiful.
She always would be. Maybe it was a curse.
Grayson made her a cup of tea and sat beside her.
“I don’t know why she wants to move to America, of all places,” Genevieve cried, staring into the steam rolling out of her mug. “Paris is the best city in the world! I live here! All her friends live here! Why is she choosing you?”
Grayson rubbed his chest and thought about everything his daughter had told him since they’d reunited in Montmartre.
He considered the breakups she’d gone through, the horrible friends she seemed to have, and the fact that everyone saw her in a way that she’d begun to resent.
Paris had soured for her, making her feel less than, as though nothing in life was worthwhile.
He knew that wasn’t Paris’s fault. Maybe one day she would return.
“I don’t think she’ll be in the United States forever.” Grayson didn’t want to betray Camille’s confidence and share too much about her life with her mother. “But you were the one who called me and told me things weren’t going well. Remember? Something has to change.”
“Yes, well. I wanted you to come back to Paris and stay in Paris,” Genevieve shot back.
“Even if we couldn’t make it as a couple, I still wanted you to live down the street from me.
I wanted to be able to call you when I needed you.
I wanted to be able to rely on you for family matters.
” She set down her mug and squeezed her hands together.
“We raised a daughter together, Grayson. Sometimes it feels like you’ve forgotten that. ”
Grayson was caught off guard by the honesty in his soon-to-be ex-wife’s voice. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d looked one another in the eye and said what was really on their minds. When had that stopped? And why?
“So you called me here to trick me into coming back?” he asked, hearing a smile in his own voice. He was teasing her, like old times.
“Well, no. Not really. And also yes.” Genevieve’s shoulders shook with laughter that seemed to surprise her.
“Old habits die hard, I suppose. Oh, but Camille. She’s seemed so unhappy.
And I don’t like the people she hangs around with.
I don’t like that her life has no direction.
Although I often wonder if my own life had any direction when I was her age.
I got pregnant, and then you came back, and everything clicked into place.
” She closed her eyes for a long time and held the silence.
“You know what she told me last time I saw her? She said that you were actually doing something with your life. Something that mattered to people, to the world. It hurt me to hear that. To me, it seemed like you were gallivanting through Manhattan and saying a bunch of pretty words about the environment that didn’t matter.
But to her? It seems like you’re about to save the planet. Gosh, I was so jealous.”
Grayson felt his heart expand. He was so touched that Genevieve had allowed him to know this that he didn’t know what to say.
Of course, Camille hadn’t gone out of her way to be too kind to him.
She was French, after all. But it was also true that Camille had let him know her location.
She’d left a breadcrumb—a single breadcrumb—and he’d raced to her apartment in Montmartre.
“When are you going?” Genevieve asked, sniffing.
“We’ll leave on the sixteenth,” he said. “We’re flying commercial.” He announced it proudly.
Genevieve let out an ironic laugh. “I can’t believe you’re flying at all, after what happened to you last time. Your face was plastered all over the news!”
“Camille doesn’t want to spend Christmas on a boat. And she wants to get out of Paris as soon as she can,” he explained. “I don’t think I can blame her.”
“No.” Genevieve appraised him. She was quiet for a long time, leaving Grayson to stir in his own misery and fear.
Then she went on. “I’ve made dinner reservations for tonight.
The three of us. I want to celebrate our successful twenty-six years as a family of three before it fully dissolves.
Camille has already been informed of our plans. ”
Grayson let out a startled laugh. He’d always known that Genevieve enjoyed surprising him like this. She liked to pretend to have power over him in whatever way she could. But it sounded lovely to spend a night with his wife and his daughter. It sounded nostalgic and pure.
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” he said.
“Good,” Genevieve said. “Because you’re coming.”
That night at eight thirty, Grayson waited outside the Michelin-star French restaurant in the twelfth arrondissement, peering out through traffic, waiting for Genevieve’s car.
Grayson himself had taken public transportation, which he was liking more and more as the days passed.
He loved people watching. He loved the feeling of disappearing in a crowd.
Snow fell lightly on his shoulders and melted on the fine fabric of his jacket.
Suddenly, Camille appeared at the corner, smiling happily. There was a bounce to her step and light in her eyes, as though the escape hatch to New York City had activated something in her. She kissed Grayson on the cheek and said, “Where is Mama? This is her party, no? Why is she late?”
But just then, Genevieve’s driver pulled to the curb, scurried around the car, and opened the door.
Genevieve set a gorgeous heeled boot on the sidewalk and took her driver’s hand to steady herself as she got out.
She was wearing a fur coat that Grayson didn’t recognize.
He guessed that her new boyfriend had bought it for her.
It was certainly not the kind of thing that Grayson had ever purchased for her.
(She’d resented him for this, once. But it was as though any resentment they’d held for one another had melted away.)
“My darling,” Genevieve said, reaching for Camille.
Grayson didn’t know how long it had been since mother and daughter had seen one another.
It broke his heart to think that Camille had been avoiding Genevieve, and that maybe that was why Genevieve had left the city for the countryside.
She couldn’t take that Camille didn’t want her in her life.
She couldn’t take that she’d needed Grayson to set their daughter right.
The ma?tre d’ led the three of them to a table in the corner.
The place was fine dining to the extreme: white tablecloths, flickering candles, and a five-piece string quartet.
Grayson had been to thousands of restaurants just like it.
Platters offered delicate foods: tiny portions of steak and salmon and quail and foie gras.
Everything about Parisian fine dining was focused on details; everything was small.
Grayson had often loved dining out and eavesdropping on Americans, complaining about how awful the food was or how small the portions were.
Now, he found that he would miss Parisian food.
He wasn’t sure when he would have it again.
When the wine arrived, an excellent Bordeaux that Grayson and Genevieve had once drunk in the city of Bordeaux itself, Genevieve raised her glass, cleared her fine throat, and said she’d like to make a toast. Grayson and Camille eyed one another, careful not to show how captivated they were with Genevieve’s swift change in personality. Her swift change of heart.
“I’d like to say,” Genevieve said, her voice wavering, “that it has been the greatest gift of my life to be Camille’s mother.”
“Mama, I’m not dying.” Camille rolled her eyes. “I’m going to Manhattan. It’s a seven-hour flight away.”
But Genevieve raised a finger to stop her.
“You’re twenty-six years old, my darling.
You’re old enough to make your own decisions and build your own life.
Know that I think you’re brave and smart and beautiful and magical.
I don’t always show this about myself. I don’t always know how to show how much I love you. ” Genevieve’s eyes glinted with tears.
Grayson felt he’d never seen such a touching scene between his wife and his daughter, not since Camille was very small and tucked into her mother's arms. Even then, Genevieve had looked panicked and out of her element. But together, they’d learned how to be a family—for twenty-six years.
And now, they would be a different kind of family, one forever connected, yet forging new stories and new ground.
* * *
On December 16th, Camille and Grayson woke up early and rode the train to the airport.
In her pretty peacoat, clutching the handle of her expensive suitcase, Camille looked tired but dignified.
Grayson caught a glance of himself in the opposite window and grimaced.
He didn’t look dignified in the slightest. For a moment, he allowed himself to grieve private transportation, where you could hide yourself away from people’s prying eyes.
But around them on the way to the airport, hardly anyone looked at anyone else.
Everyone was half awake, preparing for their pre-Christmas flights.