Page 71 of The Little Provence Book Shop
Adeline shifted up on her elbows and eyed her phone. It was 8.30a.m. Flinging the covers back she made her way to the little en suite and stepped into the shower, feeling the warm water cascade down her body. It made a change from the rather less decadent bathroom facilities in her tiny cottage, where she’d taken to having baths, as the water barely dripped from the showerhead.
Dressed, she went to knock on Monique’s door, Lili in tow, and the three of them went down to breakfast.
They didn’t speak in the lift, except to give Lili permission to press the buttons, but made their way to the breakfast room in silence. There, they were greeted by a light, airy room with modern tables, set on a carpet that was a riot of colour in contrast. Adeline selected a croissant and a tiny pot of jam and ordered a coffee, but found she couldn’t stomach any of her food. She looked up during the meal to see Monique regarding her, her brow furrowed. ‘Can’t eat,’ she said with a shrug.
‘Non, nor can I,’ came the reply, and she noticed that Monique’s food was also untouched. She was quite surprised that Monique was feeling so nervous on her behalf and gave her friend a small smile.
Lili seemed to have no such problems with her appetite and managed to work her way through two pains au chocolat and an orange juice, chattering all the while into the near silence. Adeline wondered whether, even if Lili knew what was going to happen today, she’d realise its significance to their lives. She was so in the moment, so accepting of new things in the way that children can be, taking whatever happens to them as simply a sign of the way things are – never realising how their life differs from that of their friends’.
Then it was 10a.m. and she was back in the room, carefully changing her clothes and brushing her hair. Monique had takenLili off straight after breakfast, giving her a hug before they left that almost squeezed the air out of Adeline’s lungs.
Away from her two travelling companions, Adeline had felt time slow to a painful speed. She took her time on her hair, noticing that it had grown since her arrival in St Vianne and quite liking the slightly softer look it gave her. She applied her mascara, curling her eyelashes first, more out of a need to kill time than any sort of vanity. Spritzing herself with Coco by Chanel, she stood in front of the mirror and concluded that this was as good as it was going to get. It was only twenty past ten; forty minutes to go and far too early to make her way down to the hotel bar.
Instead, she flicked on the TV in the room and watched mindlessly as scrolling headlines ran across on the screen on which a woman was talking. Her eye kept being drawn to the digital clock in the corner, torturing her every time a minute passed.
Eventually, she snapped off the TV and told herself enough was enough. It was 10.45a.m., and although she’d resolved not to be first, not to risk sitting there and scanning the room and trying to recognise someone she’d never met, she felt that if she stayed in her bedroom any longer, she’d go mad. She straightened, grabbed her purse and keycard and made her way along the carpeted corridor to the lift.
Inside, as the lift dipped, she turned away from the mirrored wall, not wanting to see herself, see the fear that was no doubt in her eyes. A couple got into the space with her, chatting about their day ahead, and she moved to the corner to accommodate them. Then they all spilled out into the foyer, into bright light and movement and, beyond, the double glass doors of the exit.
She felt sick as she made her way to the bar entrance andstood just outside the door, checking the tables within. Most were empty, but a few were occupied with people on their own, reading or checking their phones. A couple sipped from espresso cups in the corner. A woman was sitting close to a pillar, her hair swept up with just a few strands escaping. Adeline stepped in and the woman, perhaps sensing some shift in the atmosphere, turned.
When asked about it later, she’d tell people she’d recognised Sophia instantly. And not because of the photo, but because something inside her tugged the minute their eyes locked onto each other. And suddenly it didn’t seem to matter why her mother had had to give her up, or that she’d grown up not knowing that she was adopted, or that she wasn’t quite sure how to fit this new information about who she was into her life, her sense of self.
She found herself walking quickly, not caring what she looked like, or what Sophia might be thinking, but just carrying herself as fast as she could towards a woman she both did and didn’t know.
Sophia, stepping forward, her face already crumpling slightly with emotion, then rushed to meet her. And although Adeline was not a natural hugger, she fell into her mother’s outstretched arms without a thought. As they locked together in this strange place with its smell of coffee and carpet cleaner, the quiet chatter, the squeal of the cappuccino machine, with the unfamiliar sounds from the street outside, the only thing that Adeline could think was that she was home at last; that here was somewhere she truly belonged.
They stepped back after a moment and looked at each other, Adeline feeling her face stretch into a smile and seeing her own happiness reflected in her birth mother’s features. ‘Maman,’ shesaid, feeling a pang of guilt at using the word so freely with this stranger when the woman who raised her had earned the title each day of her childhood.
‘Adeline,’ Sophia said, her own voice choked with emotion. ‘Thank God. Thank God.’
34
‘You’re back!’ Adeline exclaimed the minute Monique entered her room with a tired, but sugar-energised five-year-old some two hours later.
‘Oui, and you are too!’ Monique smiled, letting Lili run forward and leap into her mother’s arms. ‘Was it OK?’
‘We had ice cream!’ Lili shouted.
‘That’s wonderful, darling. And yes, it was OK. More than OK. And I know we thought we might go out this afternoon before the train. But would it be OK if I saw her again? We barely touched the edges of what we need to say. And I didn’t think I would – but I really want Sophia to meet Lili.’
Lili looked up, interested for the first time at the mention of her name. ‘Who?’ she said, her lips, coated with sugar, glistening slightly in the light that streamed through the open curtains.
They’d sat together for two hours, talking incessantly, barely remembering to order coffee until a waiter started hovering by their table, coughing slightly. It had been absolutely effortless. And wonderful. And she hadn’t wanted it to end. But she’dpromised Lili she’d be back in the room when she returned, and hadn’t wanted to spring the whole thing on her daughter out of nowhere; she’d need to prepare her.
‘But of course,’ Monique said gently. ‘We can stay another night, also, or take a later train. So that you have enough time; so you don’t have to worry.’
‘But the shop?’
‘Ah, it is just one day. What is the point of having your own business if you become a bad boss to yourself!’ Monique told her. ‘I will have Michel put a note in the window and people will have to come back on Wednesday, that is all.’
‘It’s so kind of you.’
‘Ah, it is not so kind.’ She seemed about to say more, but a shadow crossed her face and she closed her mouth.
Lili was now camped on the bed. ‘Can I watch SpongeBob?’ she asked. She’d become a big fan of the yellow cartoon sponge in the moments when Monique let her watch cartoons on her laptop.
‘I’ll find something for you,’ Adeline said, nearly bursting with all the things she had to tell Monique, but unable to do so properly in front of her daughter. She found the remote control and selected a Disney film. Lili was soon transfixed, her eyes looking set to close at any minute.
