The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted

by Bridget Asher

  He looked at me, wounded, and then nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I think that would be fine with her.”

  “But will you ask her?”

  “I will.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Good. How about the next time we gather together? You know, around dinner. Abbot wants everyone to be there.”

  He looked out the window again. “Is that a good idea? Everyone there?”

  “He’s insisting because everyone helped.”

  “I’ll be there,” he said.

  “Good,” I said. “I’ll be there, too.”

  • • •

  dam and Charlotte stood on the ground below the balcony. Julien, Véronique, and I were in Véronique’s bedroom with Abbot. The room struck me as more modern—with sleek lines and a lack of clutter—than French countryside. Abbot was holding the box, which smelled sour and sharp, the bottom of it splotched with droppings. I was trying to concentrate on these things—décor and droppings—instead of being aware of Julien’s presence, but I was—every move, every gesture, every glance and word.

  “Are you ready?” Julien asked Abbot.

  “Yep,” he said, and then peered down into the box and asked the swallow, “Are you ready?”

  The swallow had dark, wet, darting eyes and stared up at us with its head cocked, nervously, wondering what we might do—were we going to off the bird, put it in a stew, or maybe—just maybe—let it go?

  The three of us waited.

  “He’s ready,” Abbot said.

  Véronique opened the door to the balcony, and, one by one, we stepped out onto it. The other swallows were feeding off in the distance. Their bodies blurred in the late afternoon sun. I walked to the railing, holding on to it with one hand. In the other, I was carrying Abbot’s notebook. I looked down at Charlotte and Adam.

  “You look like Madonna in that movie about Eva Perón,” Charlotte said.

  “Don’t cry for me, Argentina,” Adam said flatly.

  Abbot put the box down at his feet. “Is the hermit’s chapel up there on the mountain? Can we see it from here?”

  “Saint Ser?” Julien said. “You can’t see his chapel from here, but it’s up there.”

  “Over there,” Véronique said, pointing to a middle point of the mountain, slightly off to one side.

  “If the swallow dies, he can go live with the hermit at the Saint Ser chapel and be a protected soul,” Abbot said.

  “Yes,” I said, “that’s right.”

  “Do you want me to do it?” Julien offered. He was somber, his voice steady and deep and calm. We all knew what might be coming.

  “No,” Abbot said. “I can do it.” He reached in and cupped the bird’s fine ribs.

  “You’re like a veterinarian,” Véronique said. “You are so good.”

  Abbot walked to the edge of the balcony. The railing fit under his arms. He whispered something to the bird and then said, “One, two, three!” And in one swift upward motion, he threw the bird into the air.

  The swallow was stunned. Wings still tucked to its body, it rose with the trajectory of Abbot’s throw, its eyes beady and wide, and then began to fall. I reached out, instinctively, and grabbed Julien’s shirtsleeve, gripping tight. Julien turned and looked at me, his face, for a split second, bright and golden in the dying light. I let go.

  Abbot gripped the railing. “Fly!” he shouted. “Fly! Fly!”

  The swallow’s wings popped open, but they flapped awkwardly at the sides of its body, like wild oars.

  And then, as the bird fell with skittering wings, it gave one solid thrum. This slowed its descent, momentarily. It gave another thrum, and another, and then, as if its body remembered what it was supposed to do, the bird began to beat its wings rhythmically. The muscle memory was still within it. It was still losing ground, but it was flapping, at least.

  I drew in my breath and held it.

  “Yes!” Abbot was crying. “Yes!”

  The bird batted the air.

  “Up,” Julien urged the bird, “Monte, monte!”

  Abbot repeated after Julien. I supposed it had dawned on him that the bird spoke French. “Monte! Monte!”

  As if it were listening, the bird began to hold its own, and then its wings powered it upward. Its flight pattern had hitches, but it was making it. It was flying toward the other swallows.

  Adam and Charlotte clapped and cheered from below. Charlotte whistled through her teeth like a sailor.

  “He flies,” Véronique said, astonished.

  “He flies!” Abbot said.

  “He flies,” Julien said, looking at me. “A miracle bird! An enchantment.”

  “It’s another house story!” Abbot said, his face lit up with joy. “A real one!”

  “I can’t believe he flies,” I said. “But he does fly.”

  “You did it, Abbot,” Julien said.

  “Yep,” Abbot said, but he still seemed anxious. I thought that maybe he was simply charged by the miraculous bird, but in retrospect, I wonder if he was feeling a little undone by it all, that this wasn’t over. He turned back to the railing, folded his arms on it, and then rested his chin on his hands.

  “Dinner!” Véronique said.

  “And not chicken or fowl. Nothing with wings,” Charlotte said.

  “Let’s go eat,” I said to Abbot.

  He shook his head without looking at me. “I’m going to stay here for a while,” he said. “Leave the notebook, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said. I set it down near the box. I put my hand on the crown of his head. “Are you happy?”

  He nodded.

  “Come down when you’re ready,” I said.

  He nodded again.

  e stepped into the bedroom. Véronique asked Julien to go downstairs and help Charlotte and Adam begin setting the tables. “I want to talk to Heidi,” she said.

  He looked at his mother and then me. “Do you think Abbot is okay?” he asked.

  “The swallow flew!” I said. “We were practicing joy, living a little, and it worked!” I could still feel Julien’s shirt in my fist. I’d grabbed ahold of him to steady myself. Maybe I needed steadying. Maybe I shouldn’t have cut things off. And, too, I was wondering if this was a second miracle for Abbot. Was it a clumsy miracle that he ran into the Plexiglas guarding the alleged remains of Mary Magdalene and then touched the warthogs and had since stopped compulsively washing his hands? What would this second small miracle lead to?

  Julien nodded but still looked worried. I was getting used to this expression on his face. There was something deeply tender about it. He was a father, after all, and a good one, I was sure. He walked out of the room, closing the door gently, leaving me and Véronique, with a view of Abbot through the balcony doorway. Abbot—the bird flew! I was still ecstatic, awash in relief.

  Véronique sat on her bed and nodded to the bedside table. There sat a wooden box. “For your mother,” she said. “She’s coming, and so you can give it to her.”

  “This is the thing that she left behind?”

  Véronique nodded. “She will open the box and understand what is there.”

  I picked up the box. It was slightly charred on one end. I held it in my hands. “And what is there?” It was light. When it transferred from her hands to mine, there was no shift—as there would be if it were jewelry.

  “The proof,” she said. “Proof of her love for you.”

  “Does he still live here, the man she fell in love with?”

  She shook her head. “He moved to Paris after she left. He dedicated himself to his work. He became well known in his business. You would like him. He was handsome. He had a great presence and a beautiful voice.”

  “He sang?”

  “Beautifully.”

  “It just seems so strange. I can see why she didn’t tell me, but still …”

  “I saw him not too many years ago. I was in Paris and found him. He asked me if I talked to her. He wanted to know everything. I told him all I could.”

  “Do
you think he’s a good person?” I asked. I wasn’t sure why this was important, but I had to ask.

  “Yes,” she said. “And he loved her deeply, as she loved him. It was one of those types of loves.”

  I nodded.

  “She told me her secrets. I told her mine.”

  “One of those loves,” I said.

  “You have a heart like your mother.”

  “No, the doors are shut,” I said.

  “Yes, but the doors do not have locks.” Did she know about Julien? I assumed that she did. She seemed to know everything.

  “I didn’t know that Patricia was with Pascal now,” I said. “Julien didn’t tell me.”

  “Pascal,” she sighed. “He didn’t know how to build it himself. He stole his brother’s life. That is a real thief. I love Pascal, but this will not continue.”

  “His relationship with Patricia?”

  She nodded. “It will end.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then nothing. We live in the ruins.”

  The box—was it filled with papers? “Are these love letters?” I asked.

  She thought about this for a moment and then nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Love letters, in a way.”

  In what way? I wondered. They were love letters or they weren’t. “She can barely talk about that summer and what happened,” I said. “She refuses to hand down her lessons.”

  “But she is coming here,” Véronique said. “Things will change when she is here again. It’s necessary to have hope.”

  “J’espére,” I said, I hope—and in the word I heard despair, air … I heard I’m air.

  couldn’t go to dinner. I excused myself quickly and walked to our house. I stood in the kitchen with the box in my hands.

  I looked at the charred stonework where the new stove would soon be installed. Was that where she’d hidden the box? And why? What was in it? I set it on the kitchen table. I wanted to open the box, of course. But it wasn’t mine to open. It was one of those types of loves, I thought to myself. The type that I’d had with Henry. Was that what she had sacrificed for me and my sister? If she did, well, it was too much to ask for and too much to give, I decided.

  I was unable to be still. I paced the kitchen. My father wanted me to help my mother get to the root of this. How? I was in no shape for that kind of role. I was trying not to fall for Julien. This took all of my effort. Was I going to hide some memory of this summer in this kitchen somewhere? Was that to be my future? Was I going to allow Elysius and my mother to swoop in and take over, packing up Charlotte and hauling her back home? And then would Abbot and I stay on without her until our six weeks were over, and then we’d pack up, too? Abbot and I would go home, pretending that it never really happened at all?

  I decided that I couldn’t stare at the box. I had to get on with my life. Abbot had probably gotten hungry and come down for dinner. I should eat, too, I thought, even though I wasn’t hungry.

  I let the box sit there and walked back to the Dumonteils’ house. I walked past the kitchen, where I saw Julien’s back, his shirt stretching from shoulder to shoulder. He was washing the dishes. Véronique was talking to a lone guest, a French woman wearing a floaty dress and sandals. Charlotte and Adam were in the front yard, in serious discussion, in the dim evening light. They were likely gearing up for Elysius and my mother, who would be arriving before long.

  I walked up the stairs, down the hall, and opened the door to Véronique’s bedroom. “Abbot?” I called. “Time to come down for dinner.” I could see immediately that he wasn’t on the balcony. There was only the empty cardboard box and his notebook, which was splayed open in the corner of the balcony as if it had been thrown there. It was open to a page where Abbot had drawn his father wearing a Red Sox hat. This time his father wasn’t connected to the earth at all. He was darting around with the birds. He had his human face but giant wings and a swallow’s forked tail.

  I stood up and looked down to the ground below the balcony, out across the backyard, the vineyards, the distant archaeological dig. It was hard to see. It was getting dark.

  “Abbot?” I shouted. “Abbot?”

  I turned and raced down the stairs. “Where’s Abbot?” I shouted to Julien in the kitchen.

  “He is upstairs?”

  “He’s not there!” I shouted.

  I ran past Véronique in the dining room. The French woman, a guest, looked up at me, shocked. I ran to the front yard. “Abbot’s gone!” I shouted at Charlotte and Adam.

  “I’m sure he’s fine,” Charlotte said, knowing that I had a history of panicking over Abbot for no good reason.

  “Start looking!” I said.

  Adam looked stricken. “What? Where is he?”

  “I don’t know!” I shouted at him.

  Charlotte started calling for him in the front yard, and Adam followed behind her, dazed.

  Véronique searched the house. Even the French woman, a complete stranger, took to looking for places a boy would hide.

  “Listen for him!” I heard Charlotte shouting to everyone. “He sings when he’s alone.” She was right. I’d been too panic-stricken to think of that.

  I ran out the back door into the yard.

  Julien was already ahead of me. He was searching to the left of the dig. I could hear him calling Abbot’s name, and I could see the flash of his white shirt.

  I took to the vineyards. I ran up one row and down another. “Abbot!” I called, and I could hear the echo of all of the other voices calling for him, too. “Where are you? Dammit, Abbot!” I said. “Don’t do this! Where are you?”

  Was this a delayed reaction to seeing Julien hold my hand at the Bastille Day celebration? Had that frightened him? Or was it something about the bird and his father? I couldn’t shake his drawing of his father among the swallows. I ran until I couldn’t run anymore. I wished I were in better shape. I needed to be able to run forever. What kind of mother was I? I dropped to my knees in the soft dirt, breathless. It was almost completely dark now. “Abbot!” I shouted again.

  What if he was dead? What if he was already gone?

  I couldn’t breathe. I curled on the ground, my head pressed to my knees. I couldn’t break down. There was no time for it. I lifted my head and shouted his name again from deep within me.

  And then I heard Julien’s voice. “Heidi!” he called. “Heidi!”

  “Here!” I shouted. “I’m right here!” I got up and ran to his voice and he ran to mine. “Julien!”

  He was holding a flashlight and the light swept across me.

  What if he went for a swim, struck his head, and drowned? “The pool!” I shouted. I sprinted to him and grabbed his arm to steady myself.

  “I looked. He isn’t there. My mother is calling the police,” he said. “They will arrive soon, but I have this thought.”

  “What is it?” I said breathlessly.

  “Saint Ser,” he said. “On the balcony with the bird, he wanted to know where the chapel was. My mother pointed to it. The hermit was the good phantom. The protector of souls. Abbot believes the stories of the house, the miracles and enchantments. He is a boy who believes.”

  “But the bird flew!” I said. “It’s alive. He said that the bird’s soul would go to the chapel if it died. But it didn’t die.”

  “Maybe that’s not the soul he is looking for,” Julien said.

  he climb up Mont Sainte-Victoire was difficult in the daylight, and, at night, harrowing. The shadows shifted on the narrow path, turning every stone into a huddled boy. I was breathless, shaking with adrenaline. The path was steep, mostly graveled but also rocky. Julien and I were calling Abbot’s name. The brush beside the path was dense and dark. What if Abbot had fallen? What if he was unconscious? Our flashlights barely penetrated the undergrowth. Was it possible that we’d missed him? Each second, each empty shout, each time Abbot did not answer our call, was torturous. I couldn’t lose him. I’d lost too much already. I was furious in the way that terror can quickly give wa
y to fury. Henry had abandoned me. How did he expect me to do all of this myself? It made no rational sense, but I blamed myself and felt Henry blaming me, too, so I blamed him back, and then my mind cast around wildly through my memories of the last few days, trying to piece together what had gone wrong and why. My chest felt like it might heave and contract into sobs at any moment. I tried to keep my breathing calm. It isn’t Henry’s fault, I told myself. Finally, all of my anger and blame came back to me, but not me alone. This was Julien’s fault, too.

  “Abbot saw us,” I told Julien while heaving myself forward. “He saw us holding hands at the Bastille Day celebration. He may have even seen us kiss. I should be at home. I should be simplifying my life—if anything. I should be at home right now dating Crook Nixon!”

  “You want to date Nixon?”

  “No!” I shouted. “You’re too complicated! You were trying to be Abbot’s father.”

  “His father?” he said, shining the flashlight at me. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  I kept climbing, my body trembling. “You can’t be the father to your own kid, so you were trying to play father to mine.” This made perfect sense to me as I said it. I slipped, scraping my knee against a rock. I winced but regained my footing. “He has a father. You’re just a distraction. If you hadn’t been here, I could have stopped him.”

  “I wasn’t trying to be Henry, not for him or for you,” Julien said.

  “Don’t say his name!” I shouted, my hands gripping a rock. I was filled with fury. My head felt like a hive. My eyes stung from trying to see into the darkness. I was as angry as I’d allowed myself to be since Henry’s death—fueled by desperation. “Don’t even say his name!”

  He stopped and stared at me. The beam of light pointed at my feet. “We’ll find him, Heidi. We’re going to find him.”

  I could see the dim features of his face, the watery glint of his eyes. This was what I needed to believe, and his voice was calm, hopeful and tender, but it wasn’t enough. I bowed my head, took a steadying breath. We’re going to find him. Yes, I wanted to say. And then I will go back to my life—my safe life—and I’ll leave all of this behind me. I thought of my mother hiding a box in the kitchen and returning to her life, pretending her lost summer hadn’t happened. Why not? I was my mother’s daughter after all. That’s all I wanted now: to turn back to how things were before, holed up in the house with Abbot, unaware of the passage of time. Charlotte? How could I help her?