Page 61 of The Little Provence Book Shop
Her fingers itched to write a response, but she didn’t want to fire something off without thinking about it – and had no time to think about it as Lili, newly energised from her sugar intake, rushed around the shop, the customers flowed in and out and time seemed to move at a frustratingly stilted pace.
By six o’clock, things had quietened down. Lili was in the apartment watching YouTube on her mother’s phone – a rare treat but much needed – and Adeline was tidying and stacking and making the final checks on the shop before closing time, when the bell at the door tinkled.
She straightened from where she’d been reorganising a low shelf, ready to serve yet another customer and determined to – this time – stay focused enough to at least hand them the right book.
Except it wasn’t a customer.
Standing just inside the door was a woman she recognised, but who didn’t look quite like herself. Her skin was paler, eyes seemed larger, their shadows deeper and more ingrained into the skin. Her hair was tied up but strands escaped to wildly frame the face. Her cheeks and eyes were tinged pink, her dress rumpled. The bag she was carrying dropped from her hand.
‘Monique!’ Adeline exclaimed, alarmed at her friend’s appearance. She rushed forward to support her, picking up the bag and guiding her to a chair. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Oui.’ Monique’s voice was flat, monotone.
‘But you seem… Have you been crying? Was it OK? Was it awful? Did your mother?—’
‘It was incredible.’
‘It was? Oh, I’m so pleased. Did you… your mother – did she answer your questions? Did she…’ Adeline realised she was babbling. She took a breath, steadied herself. Part of her longed to blurt out the fact that she’d heard from her own mother. But it wasn’t the right time, clearly. ‘Did you get some answers?’ she asked at last, her tone carefully controlled, more measured.
‘Oui. But Adeline, I did not expect the answers I received,’ Monique said, her expression unreadable.
‘Oh.’ Adeline was trying to phrase a question correctly – forming the words in her head before blurting them out. She wanted to ask whether that was a good or bad thing, whether Monique’s mother and sister had been friendly or hostile. Whether she had more information about what had happened all those years ago. But she didn’t want to overstep the mark. This was Monique’s story, Monique’s private business. She didn’t want to push her before she was ready.
But Monique suddenly turned to her, clutched at her hands, making her jump. ‘I found out that my mother lied to me,’ she said, her eyes filled with an indefinable emotion.
Adeline nodded, seeing that there was more to come.
Carefully, her voice trembling slightly, Monique looked her in the eye. ‘Adeline, my baby. My little girl. She is not dead. She didn’t die.’
28
Adeline dialled Stacey’s number, then after the phone began to ring she almost wished she hadn’t. But too late, Stacey answered the phone with a friendly ‘Hi!’
‘Hi, it’s Adeline from the shop,’ she said, feeling suddenly shy. ‘I thought I might take you up on that offer of a coffee, if you’ve got time?’
‘Sounds good to me!’ Stacey said, instantly friendly. ‘Everything all right?’
‘Yes. Well, kind of. There’s a couple of things…’
‘Long story?’
‘Long story.’
Once they’d agreed on the venue and time and ended the call, Adeline wondered whether she’d made a mistake. It was one thing to get to know a new person, quite another to dump what was proving to be a rather complicated dilemma in their lap. But something about Stacey – her openness, friendliness and the fact that she wasn’t part of the story herself – made her seem like the best option Adeline had when it came to unburdening herself and seeking advice.
Over the past few days, since Monique’s visit to Paris and her life-changing discovery, her friend had been quiet and withdrawn. It was hardly surprising; but Adeline was worried about her all the same. The combination of the revelation and Monique’s obvious shock had also meant she’d felt unable to tell Monique that her own mother had responded; it seemed the wrong time to ask advice about the meeting they were planning, wrong to offload her fears and hopes onto someone who had so much to process.
On the day that Monique had returned, pale-faced, to the shop, carrying the news that she’d never dared hope she’d receive, they’d sat up late into the night in the apartment, Lili fast asleep in Monique’s bed and excited to be having a ‘sleepover’ at herMamie’s.
Monique had told her how her mother – with misguided but loving intentions – had told her that her baby had died, in the hope that it would give her some sort of closure; free her from the idea that her child was out there somewhere and needed her. ‘She thought she was saving me from a lifetime of wondering, that I would grieve properly, deeply, but be able to move on with my life without the shadow of what had happened hanging over me.’
‘But what about when she realised how much it had affected you?’ Adeline had asked, incredulous.
‘Ah, she was trapped,’ Monique had said, pouring them both another glass of red wine. ‘She knew I was angry, that I blamed her first for the adoption and then for the fact that my baby had died – because I was convinced it would not have happened if she had been left with me. She wanted to mend things with me and was afraid that confessing would simply make things worse. And I think she still hoped that I would eventually be able to build a new life after my grief.’
‘But you couldn’t…’
Monique, calmer after a couple of glasses of wine, had shrugged. ‘Well, I did in a fashion. Just not the kind of life my mother imagined I’d have. No husband. No more babies.’
