Chapter 4 #4
They took her to the Ritz that night. Marie-Aurélie wore a very chic black dress and the impressive pearls that Armand had given her.
Dominique and her daughters had dressed up too, and the four women caught everyone’s attention when they walked into the restaurant, with Marie-Aurélie in the lead with her ramrod-straight posture, an aura of elegance swirling around her.
They were an impressive group of chic, fashionable women.
Heads turned as they walked past, and Dominique smiled when she saw how happy and alive her mother looked when she went out.
She suspected that she missed having a busy social life and seeing people.
At the end of the evening, she looked like a flower that had been watered.
“You should go out more,” Dominique told her gently, as they left the Ritz to go home.
“I have to admit, I enjoy it. I don’t see anyone anymore.
My good friends are all infirm or gone, or depressed, or have been sent to the country by their children.
And I don’t like going to restaurants alone.
Thank you for taking me out,” Marie-Aurélie said gratefully.
They could tell she had really enjoyed it. She was relaxed and smiling.
Violet went to her favorite auction houses the next day, and found some treasures to bid on the following day.
All four women had dinner at home together that night, and afterward Dominique surprised her mother with a question.
She hadn’t wanted to ask her in front of her daughters.
It was something that they knew nothing about, and she had remembered out of the blue.
“Whatever happened to the artist you went out with when I was in design school? You were very taken with him, and he seemed nice when I met him. It must be forty years ago.”
Marie-Aurélie looked nostalgic for a moment before she answered. “He was a nice man, and a very good artist. Clément Bertrand. I’ve seen his work in art magazines over the years, though not recently. I think he became quite successful,” Marie-Aurélie said quietly.
“Did you stay friends with him, or stay in touch?” Dominique asked, curious.
“No, I haven’t spoken to him in all these years.
It didn’t end on a good note. He wanted me to marry him, and I wouldn’t.
I felt that it would have been a disrespect to Armand.
He had died six or seven years before. It was too soon for me.
Timing is important. I read that he had married a year or two later.
I never heard from him again after I declined his proposal.
Men don’t take kindly to that. I bruised his ego. ”
Dominique nodded and Marie-Aurélie continued thinking about Clément, the young artist. They had both been young, he was a year older than she was, and he had been the only man she’d been in love with other than Armand.
The memory of him wouldn’t retreat again once she had thought of him.
She assumed he had probably died by now, but she wondered what had happened to him.
The memory of him was still vivid once she recalled it.
He’d been a lovely person, but clearly they weren’t destined to be together.
She asked Dominique about Bill then, since she never spoke of him, and was discreet about him. Her mother didn’t know if he was still in her life or not.
“Yes, I see him,” she said cautiously. “We get together a couple of times a week,” she admitted.
“That’s not enough,” Marie-Aurélie said gently. “That’s just enough to make you want more of him, and make you unhappy. He’s still with his wife?”
“Yes, he is,” Dominique said honestly. “He won’t leave her now.
Originally, he stayed for the children, and eventually he decided a number of years ago that it would be too complicated to leave.
” But she realized that her mother was right.
Seeing each other once or twice a week was enough to keep their love alive, but never enough to satisfy her, which was the situation she’d been in with him for sixteen years.
“It takes a great deal of courage to break off relationships like that. They whet your appetite but don’t fulfill you.
And when you get older, never having a full life with a man, or sharing holidays, or being the main relationship, will make you unhappy, and feel even more alone.
” Dominique suspected that her mother was right.
Armand had stayed married, but the love of his life had been Marie-Aurélie, and they had lived together, which was very different.
Dominique had never lived with Bill, and she knew she never would, since he wouldn’t leave his wife.
There was no hope of a future with him, except the arrangement they had, which was very limited.
Bill never allowed it to grow past a certain point, which had frustrated her for a long time, and now she accepted it.
Her mother was right, it wasn’t enough, but it was all they had and all Bill would allow them.
It was like a blocked faucet that you could never turn on completely, just enough of a trickle to keep love alive, but not to thrive.
Dominique thought about her mother’s words again that night when she went to bed.
She had missed Bill on the trip, she always did, but seeing her mother and daughters had allowed her to fill the void that he was never willing to fill himself.
He had condemned them both to a lifetime of hunger.
She knew it well, without her mother reminding her.
She always told herself that it was enough, but in her heart of hearts, she knew it wasn’t.