2. Ryan #3
“Merci,” I say. “Thank you. Merci beaucoup.” Thank you very much.
She doesn’t respond. She picks up her basket, adjusts it on her hip, and walks away without another word. The sound of her shoes on the cobblestones fades behind me, and I’m left standing in the middle of the street.
I follow her directions.
The street she pointed to—if you can call it a street—is more of a passage. The walls on either side are close enough that I could reach out and touch both at once. The cobblestones are slick with something—moss, maybe, or centuries of wear.
After a minute, the passage opens into a small square.
A dry fountain sits in the center, its basin filled with dead leaves.
A few olive trees grow in terracotta pots along one wall, their trunks gnarled and ancient-looking.
The square is empty except for a dog sleeping in a patch of sun, and it doesn’t stir as I pass.
Past the fountain, the path continues.
My shoulders ache from the weight of my backpack, and sweat trickles down my spine despite the mild temperature. The village seems to be thinning out as I go, the buildings growing farther apart, stone walls giving way to patches of wild grass and the occasional gnarled olive tree.
I follow the path around a bend, and suddenly the hillside opens up before me.
The view is breathtaking—rolling hills covered in vineyards and olive groves stretch toward the horizon, the late afternoon sun painting everything in warm gold.
The air smells of earth and herbs and something sweet I can’t identify.
And there it is.
My cottage sits nestled into the hillside, a few minutes’ walk away.
From this distance, it looks exactly like the photos Ma?tre Aubert sent—stone walls, red-tiled roof, windows flanking a wooden door.
But seeing it in person makes me catch my breath.
It’s a little bit bigger than I expected.
Vines crawl up the western wall, and the garden is indeed badly overgrown, just as the photos showed, with wild rosemary and lavender spilling over stone steps.
I stand there for a moment, suitcase handle gripped tight in my palm, watching as sunlight shifts across the stone facade.
My inheritance; my fresh start.
A bird calls somewhere in the olive grove beside the path, and I’m startled back to the present. The sun is definitely moving lower in the sky now. I need to reach the cottage before dark.
About a hundred yards past my cottage, set higher on the hillside where the land levels into a broad terrace, there’s another house. Or not a house—an estate. The word feels right even before I’ve fully processed what I’m looking at.
It’s enormous. Two stories of pale limestone, with tall windows and a wrought-iron balcony running the length of the second floor.
The roof is slate, not tile, and it catches the light in a way that makes the whole building look like it’s glowing from within.
A gravel drive curves up from a gate I can’t quite see from this angle, lined with cypress trees that stand at rigid attention like sentinels.
It looks like something from a magazine. Or a movie. The kind of place that has a name, not just an address.
The contrast is almost too much. I feel the old, familiar urge to laugh at myself, to preempt the judgment by offering it up first, but there’s no audience for the joke.
I wonder who lives there. If it’s a family, or one of those tight-faced couples who retire to France for the tax breaks and the wine.
Or if the place is empty most of the year, inhabited only by caretakers and the house’s own memory.
I wonder, for a moment, if the neighbors will resent my presence.
Or if they will be the kind to never notice me at all.
Whoever they are, I bet they really belong there. Not like me.
The thought sends a familiar pang through my chest—the feeling of being out of place, of being the thing that doesn’t fit. I’ve carried that feeling my entire life, and apparently it follows you across oceans.
I force myself to look away from the estate and focus on the path ahead.
As I get closer to the cottage, it becomes little more than a dirt track.
My suitcase wheels are useless here, catching on every rock and root.
I end up carrying it, which makes my arms burn and my back protest. The backpack shifts uncomfortably on my shoulders, and I wonder for the hundredth time why I thought this was a good idea.
I begin to see details emerge with every step or stumble. The roof tiles are cracked in places, and one window has a broken pane. The wooden door is weathered to a silvery gray, with iron fittings that have rusted to a deep orange. The stone steps leading to the entrance are uneven and worn smooth.
I set my suitcase down on the porch and just stare. This is mine. This crumbling, isolated piece of French countryside belongs to me now. The realization doesn’t feel real. It’s like I’m watching someone else’s life unfold.
The key Ma?tre Aubert sent me feels heavy in my pocket. I pull it out, turning it over in my palm. It’s old-fashioned brass, with intricate scrollwork on the head. The kind of key that belongs in a museum or a fairy tale, not in the hand of a traumatized American kid running from his past.
I climb the steps slowly, testing each one before putting my full weight on it. At the top, I hesitate, key hovering before the lock.
This is it, Ryan, I tell myself. This is how you take back your life.
The key slides into the lock.
Click.
And the door groans open.