Page 12 of The Little Provence Book Shop
One short shake of the head. ‘Non, never. One day I will tell you everything and you will understand. And this broke thingsbetween my sister and me, too – she couldn’t stand the way I was treating our mother; forced me to choose.’
‘That’s awful.’
Monique shrugged. ‘It is life.’
There was a brief ebb in the conversation, then, ‘What about Kevin?’ Adeline asked.
‘What about him?’
‘Do you think I should forgive him?’
Monique’s mouth flickered towards a smile. ‘Only you know that. But I would say it depends what he did, exactly, and why. And who for. It seems that he loves you, that he is worried.’ She shrugged. ‘That is something.’
‘Yes.’
It was. And he’d done what he’d done for their mother; had been a child when he’d made his promise. Would she have been any different in his situation?
She wiped her hands across her cheeks, drying any stray tears. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
Monique smiled, stood back from the counter where she’d been leaning, looking at Adeline intently. ‘I have just the thing,’ she said. She walked to one of the corner shelves, mouthing words silently to herself as her finger traced the writers’ names. At last, she stopped and gently pulled out a thin volume. ‘This… If you have time, I think it would be good for you to read.’
Adeline drew the book to her, curiously. It was a small volume, thin with an orange cover. She read the title:The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson. She looked up, a question on her face.
‘Read it, when you can. When you want. You will see,’ Monique said.
‘To… to fix me?’ she asked. Suddenly, forcefully, she wanted tobelieve that it was possible for a book to do this, for Monique to know exactly the remedy she needed.
‘To speak to you.’
‘I…’
The bell tinkled and suddenly there were three others in the shop bringing with them a flood of reality that tore her away from her problems for an instant. Adeline tucked the book out of sight; she’d look at it properly later.
7
‘And then we painted animals and Maîtresse Caroline said mine was the best,’ Lili finished triumphantly. She was propped up against the soft, square pillows Adeline had bought for her single bed, having just listened to a couple of chapters ofThe Faraway Tree, a favourite book they must have read at least five times together. She was sleepy; her eyelids blinking closed for a few seconds at a time. But her eyes, when visible, were sparkling.
‘What animal did you paint?’
‘Duh. A cat of course!’ came the response.
Adeline brushed the soft curls that had fallen forward out of her daughter’s eyes and kissed her forehead. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘And I am so glad you’ve had a good day. I’m really proud of you.’
‘Mummy, can we make pop cakes, like Moonface does?’ her daughter asked then.
For a moment Adeline was disorientated, then she remembered the lovely honey cookies from the chapter they’d just read. Cookies that melted in the mouth of whomever waslucky enough to eat them. ‘Well, we can try,’ she said, ‘if you want.’
‘I told my teacher we might bring her some.’
Adeline laughed at the thought of it – trying to fashion biscuits described only in a book. The delight Lili might feel bringing such things to school. ‘Well, let’s see.’ It was a parental cop-out phrase, she knew, but sometimes the only words that would both soothe her child and keep her from making a promise she couldn’t necessarily fulfil. ‘Love you, baby.’
Her daughter didn’t respond, but turned over on her side, suddenly too overcome with tiredness to interact. Moments later, her breathing took on the familiar rhythm of sleep.
Adeline got up to leave, but stood for a moment in the doorway, feeling a sense of peace that comes with knowing your child is happy, safe and sleeping. The magical moment when all the stress of feeding, entertaining, worrying about them falls away and your heart swells with love – and a little relief that the rest of the evening is your own.
She pulled the door towards her, leaving a gap to allow a sliver of light into the dark bedroom, and made her way down the small staircase to the ground floor.
She would get a phone soon, she decided, and maybe a TV. Perhaps that didn’t fit with the idea she’d had of living a simpler life here; but she missed her home comforts – missed the easy distraction of instant entertainment. As it was, of course, she had access to plenty of books – and was already reading her sixth novel in two weeks.
