‘I can sleep on the sofa,’ she said. ‘Or the little bed upstairs. And it’s for my benefit as much as yours, hinny.’ The need to be close to her child squeezed her heart hard enough to bring the threat of more tears closer, but she blinked and managed to find a smile. ‘It’s a new day tomorrow,’ she added. ‘And we’ve got Lili’s party to look forward to.’
Jeannie stood up to move to the table but she couldn’t help her gaze straying sideways for a fleeting moment to look at that painting of the ruined building in the meadow of wildflowers. She knew she was going to feel that ripple of sensation down her spine again – a mix of trepidation and conflict that added up to real fear. But there was something else there as well. Something that hadn’t been there the first time she’d seen this artwork.
Something that felt like… hope?
She glanced at where she’d left her handbag. The urge to open it and retrieve what she knew was in there was strong but she pushed it aside.
This was Fiona’s time.
And then it would also be Lili’s time.
Maybe after that it would be time for Jeannie to admit to an even bigger reason that had drawn her back here to France.
6
There was a surprising amount to do to throw a fairy party for a baby girl’s first birthday celebration.
Fi was dreading the actual party. Julien and Noah would be there and she had no idea how much her sisters might have told these men they were so in love with. They were both still virtually strangers to Fi but they were also officially a part of her family now, which kind of gave them permission to ask questions she might not want to answer. The busyness of preparing for the party was exactly what she needed to prevent the reappearance of what had been a crippling shyness when she was a teenager.
Ellie collected them straight after breakfast the next morning and took Jeannie to Laura’s house where she was going to babysit both her granddaughters while the three sisters went shopping in the biggest supermarket in Vence. With it being a public holiday the next day they needed to collect a cake that had been ordered from the patisserie and ensure they had everything they needed, like the ingredients for a charcuterie board for the adults and supplies to make cupcakes, fairy bread and a fruit platter for the children.
‘I’ve got a flower cutter for making the fairy bread so they’ll look like daisies,’ Laura said. ‘Don’t let me forget to get the butter.’
‘Don’t tell me you’ve come without a list?’ Ellie was grinning. ‘Whoareyou and what have you done with my big sister?’
‘I’ve got a list. I might have forgotten to put butter on it, that’s all.’
The banter made Fi smile. There was a new lightness in her step this morning. The colours, on food packaging she wasn’t familiar with, looked astonishingly bright – like the bags of mustard-flavoured crisps, cans of cassoulet and even the red-and-white gingham lids on jam jars. The snatches of French she could hear being spoken around her were musical drifts of sound, and the smell of an astonishing array of cheese and charcuterie in the delicatessen aisle tickled her nose and made her mouth water.
Her whole body felt like the curl of an embryonic smile. Some of the credit for feeling so much better had to be due to the deep, dreamless sleep of her first night at La Maisonette, despite having already been asleep for a good part of the day. Fi knew that far more of this new feeling was due to the level of reconnection she’d found with her family, however.
To feeling as if she was back where she belonged.
Feeling loved.
It was only now that it was lifting that she realised how heavy the burden of her secret had been and how far away it had pushed her from the people she loved the most. How had she managed to ignore the pain that it was causing on both sides? She had missed out on the support she could have had herself, but she hadn’t been there in any meaningful way when her sisters had been facing life challenges, had she? Fi had a lot to make up for, and making herself go to a party despite dreading it felt like a good first step in the right direction.
‘What are hundreds and thousands called in French?’ Ellie asked as she reached for a golden-foil-wrapped block of butter. ‘And do they even have sandwich sliced white bread?’
Laura consulted her phone. ‘Nonpareilsare sprinkles. Or possiblyvermicelles multicolores. They should be in the baking supplies aisle. I have seen the kind of commercial white bread we need.’ She made a face. ‘I’ve never bought it, though. I get all our bread fresh at the boulangerie.’
‘There are toys in here,’ Fi exclaimed, looking around as she followed the trolley. ‘And clothes. I need to get a birthday present for Lili.’
‘There are better places to shop,’ Ellie said. ‘There’s a lovely bookshop in the Grand Jardin that has toys as well.’
‘I could drop you both off in the square on the way home,’ Laura said. ‘You can go shopping, and if you can collect the cake from the patisserie near the bus stop, I can go straight home and make sure Mam’s coping.’
* * *
Ellie and Fi scrambled out of Laura’s car near a charming, antique carousel at one corner of the central square in the small city of Vence. They walked beneath the delicate green of spring foliage on the majestic plane trees that enclosed the Grand Jardin, heading for a shop on the other side of the square.
Fi was drawn straight to the shelves of stuffed animals. She picked up a panda bear and then a fluffy green frog but put them both down quickly.
‘Oh… it has to be this.’
A soft toy donkey. Grey and white with fabulously long ears and a tail with a black tuft on the end. She chose a pink gift bag with fairies on it and they made their way to the cashier, but her attention was caught by a small display of children’s picture books near the counter and she paused.
‘That was my favourite book when I was little.’ The cover of the classic story of Madeline was so familiar with the Eiffel Tower and the two straight lines of little girls walking in front of the blue-gowned nun. ‘And look – it’s in English!’
