Girl in the Afternoon

by Serena Burdick

  The sun was high in the sky. His skin tingled under the glare, and beads of sweat formed on his forehead. Blackberry bushes grew thick along the road, and the thorns snagged the sleeves of his coat. It made Henri smile, this bit of nature holding on to him. London had been awful, all that noise and filth. The fetid smell of the inn had only gotten worse in the summer heat, and he hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks.

  The hum of the river felt like a blessing. The smell of wheat drying in the sun, its golden stalks bowing and rippling in the wind, the clusters of thick, purple grapes hanging heavy on the vine walls were like small gifts.

  Jeanne was the first to see him, crouched in the grass with her skirt hiked over her knees. She was diligently poking a beetle that kept rolling over and playing dead.

  “Papa!” she cried, and Leonie and Jacques looked over from where they were picking pole beans in the garden.

  Jacques came running. Laertes bounded from under a shady bush and let out a sharp, excited bark. And then children and dog were flinging themselves at Henri, who, finding it impossible to keep his balance, came down on his knees in the road. Jeanne smothered him in kisses, and Jacques, as if he weren’t almost a boy of seven, wrapped his arms around Henri’s neck and buried his face in his chest.

  Laughing, Henri stood up with the children clinging to his legs. Leonie was standing under the plum tree brushing dirt from her hands. Thin strands of hair scattered across her face. The branches hung low around her, heavy with fruit, filtering the sunlight that flecked the top of her bare head. Her sleeves were rolled, and her arms and chest were a rosy pink. Henri had forgotten how lovely she was.

  He walked over and put his hands on her round hips and kissed her. She resisted, pulling back with a tight purse of her lips, but when Henri slipped a firm hand to the small of her back and pulled her in, her whole body softened.

  Leonie had seen him from a distance, relief choking her up. She’d wanted to run into the house and make herself presentable, but her anger had kept her rooted.

  When he pulled away, she was crying. “I thought you weren’t coming home,” she said, slapping a gentle hand against his chest.

  He wrapped his arms around her. “Nonsense,” he said, kissing the top of her head.

  They stayed up very late that night. The children hadn’t wanted to go to bed, and when they finally fell asleep, Leonie and Henri hardly made it to their room before their clothes dropped to the floor.

  Henri desperately gripped Leonie’s fleshy bottom as he thrust into her, her body supple and forgiving. She rose up, tightening her legs around him and his hip bones dug into her inner thighs. She draped her arms around his neck, her breasts heavy against his chest, the hard tip of her tongue flicking to the roof of his mouth. Henri tried to slow himself, but he couldn’t, and he shuddered and moaned and fell on top of her.

  “Forgive me,” he said, rolling to the side, hot and breathless, holding an arm across Leonie’s damp stomach, a hand on her breast.

  “It’s to be expected.” Leonie wove her fingers through the fine chest hairs that grew in a line from Henri’s belly button to the top of his groin. “You’re home now,” she said. “You’ll have plenty of time to make up for it.” But there was no confidence in her voice. She wanted him to say it, or at least concur.

  Instead, Henri smiled and closed his eyes, sleepy, the air still and moist, the murmur of the river, the chorus of the frogs and crickets, peaceful and soothing.

  As his breath deepened, Leonie made a sharp noise in her throat, wiggled out from under his arm, and sat up, pulling the sheet over her lap, her breasts heavy and free. “Don’t for one minute think we’re done here.”

  Henri blinked and looked up at her. Cool moonlight lit the room. Leonie’s bare chest and the bloom on her skin reminded him of the times she’d modeled for him and then they’d gone directly to bed. “You’re beautiful,” he said.

  Leonie laughed and pinched his arm. “You’re trying to excuse yourself. What with that ridiculous kiss in front of the children, and this?” She swooped her hand over the bed.

  Henri smiled. “I’m apologizing,” he said, pulling himself up next to her.

  “And I accept.” Leonie offered a noble nod of her head. “But that does not excuse the fact that you did not show me the courtesy of a single letter, which means you have a lot of explaining to do. I want to hear every detail of your trip.”

  “Right now?”

  “Right now.”

  Scooting back down, Leonie settled her head in his lap. Henri pulled the sheet over her hip, running his finger down the dip in her waist and up her side, cupping his palm over her shoulder.

  It came out willingly, but, as Leonie expected, without emotion, just the bare facts, about his father’s death, Abbington Hall, the money, and the lawyers. Not once did he mention Aimée, but Leonie had expected that too.

  “We don’t have to leave France.” Henri stroked Leonie’s hair. “We can sell Abbington Hall. Buy something of our own here.”

  Leonie was quiet. She’d expected a family to contend with, parents, possibly siblings, not an estate. Not once had Henri mentioned that he came from wealth.

  She rolled onto her back and propped her knees up, the top of Henri’s thigh round and firm under her head. “I certainly don’t want to leave France,” she said. “But I don’t want to leave this home either. It’s perfectly suitable, and the children are happy here. Although the money is exciting, isn’t it?” She reached up and touched Henri’s cheek. “I can order that silk from the draper’s Jeanne begged me for. What do you think Jacques would like? Perhaps a new fishing pole? You can finally buy me a proper engagement ring,” she said, pausing for a response. Henri only smiled at her. “More importantly,” she added, “we can finally stop taking money from Auguste Savaray.”

  Henri nodded, but it made him sorry. He couldn’t tell Leonie that he saw those monthly installments as small symbols of forgiveness, reminders that Auguste still cared for him and Jacques.

  “Henri.” Leonie’s voice turned grave.

  “Yes?”

  “I must tell you something.”

  She kneeled in front of him with her hand flat against his chest, and told him about Colette.

  Chapter 35

  Being home was harder than Aimée imagined, everything familiar, and at the same time different.

  That first day back, she went into her maman’s bedroom. The sun had stretched and settled into the day, and Aimée moved through the bright clarity, past her maman’s neatly made bed, the untouched pillows and the tightly tucked covers. She stood in front of the dressing table and looked at the crystal perfume bottles lined in a row at the base of the mirror.

  There was a particularly pretty bottle with gold leaves pressed into the glass. Aimée lifted the stopper and brought it to her nose. It did not smell like the maman of her childhood; it was a newer scent, the one her maman wore the day she hugged Aimée good-bye.

  She ran her fingers over a glass jewelry box, touched a cluster of pink roses painted on a pot of rouge. From a silver hairbrush she pulled a strand of dark hair, thick as thread, and curled it around her finger as she walked to the armoire and opened the doors.

  She expected to find her maman’s many magnificent dresses hanging as they used to. But there were only two, a solid blue and a striped pink with sprigs of flowers in ruched fabric. Both dresses were shoved aside to make room for a mound of neatly folded cloth. Aimée lifted a piece of white muslin. The material hadn’t been hemmed, and the edges were frayed around a border of embroidered yellow roses. In the center rose a great, black bird with a bright red beak. Aimée laid the fabric at her feet. Taking the stack from the armoire, she unfolded each piece and spread them on the floor, covering the room from end to end in her maman’s brilliant embroidery of flowers, dragonflies, and exotic plumed birds.

  Kneeling down, she spread the last piece across her lap. The bird stretched its colorful wings over her thighs and looked up at he
r with a single beady eye.

  Her maman’s desires—her rage and passion and need and longing—were in every stitch, in each fantastic, lustrous color. It seemed to Aimée that the air pulsed with the beat of a hundred wings, and from it her maman rose, glorious and free, having found a way out.

  * * *

  A week later, Aimée stood above Colette’s grave, dressed in mourning with a veil over her eyes. She found the fresh mound of unsettled dirt thoroughly disturbing. It was foolish to have expected a tidy, comfortable patch of grass, but Aimée had.

  She wanted to hurry away, but she forced herself to stay. She placed her palm on her maman’s gravestone and said a short prayer. Just to the side was Léon’s tiny headstone. Aimée hadn’t thought of him in so long. She hardly remembered the day they buried him. Only that she had cried because she couldn’t lie next to him and hold his hand. Reaching down she wove her fingers into the cool blades of grass over his grave. Eventually, the grass would spread. Leon’s grave would blend into his maman’s, just as his grave blended with his baby brother’s on the other side. Over time, Aimée thought, her maman would be as settled here as her children.

  A gust of wind scattered a handful of leaves over the ground, and Aimée bowed her head. These children weren’t alone anymore. They had their maman, and her maman finally had her sons back.

  Aimée yanked a clump of grass and sprinkled the blades in her lap, green against black. She had not yet cried, and for a moment she let herself believe the tears she shed behind her veil were for her maman. But it was Jeanne she was thinking of. The last time Aimée had walked the streets of Paris, Jeanne was nothing more than a mystery growing in her womb. How frightened Aimée had been. And yet, in that uncertainty and fear there had been room for hope and possibility. Nothing had been decided yet. Now, everything was fixed. She would grow old with her papa; and then she would be alone. Not even in death would she be reunited with her daughter. They would never know each other. Their graves would never touch.

  Chapter 36

  Standing in front of his old home on the rue de Passy, Henri realized he’d made the silliest mistake. The Savarays did not live here anymore. They hadn’t lived here since the war, and yet this was where he had come.

  The sun was mild, the day slightly cool. Henri stood with his hands in his pockets, thinking of the first time he saw Aimée, a thin girl with a determined look as she peered at him from the doorway of the parlor, slapping at her dress as if to beat the pleats into submission. It was in this house where he had first felt Auguste’s firm hand on the top of his head, and wished that he were his real papa. Where Colette had so lovingly tucked him into bed at night and kissed his forehead, filling the place inside him that desired a mother’s love.

  Henri turned from the house, knowing that it would be for the last time.

  He took a cab to the rue l’Ampère, where he’d originally intended to go. That day he’d confessed to Auguste, he’d been too fearful and tongue-tied to offer a real apology. At the very least, he owed him that.

  It was Marie who answered the door. Henri was glad to see her shock of red hair, now flecked with silver. Her eyes widened in surprise, and her lips curled into a smile. She’d always liked Henri.

  In the parlor, she took a lemon candy from her apron pocket. “For Jacques,” she whispered. “You sit tight. I’ll be back directly.”

  Henri smiled and thanked her, slipping the candy into his pocket.

  It was very quiet, and he waited, nervous.

  He heard footsteps first, light and quick, and when she rounded the corner Henri stared, stunned. All he’d dared hope was that Aimée was safe somewhere in the depths of Lady Arrington’s lair, but she was here, right in front of him. She had not disappeared. She had simply come home.

  The window was open, and a breeze sent Aimée’s curls scattering across her forehead. Attempting indifference, she reached up and brushed them back into place. Henri’s presence could still, after all this time, affect her so deeply.

  This was the reason she had not wanted to see him again in England. Her first year there—her stomach soft and folded from childbirth, her insides torn up—she’d piled all of her memories into a neat corner of her mind and covered them up with grief. When Henri had shown up at Lady Arrington’s, full of compassion and apology, she’d felt a stirring, a coming back to life, and she hadn’t wanted to come back to life, not without Jeanne.

  “My apologies; Papa is not at home.” She rounded the back of the divan and sat down.

  Henri sat across from her, unable to wipe the shock from his face. She was as thin as the last time he’d seen her, but healthy, her skin above the line of her dress flushed with color. “I came to offer my condolences,” he said.

  Of course, Aimée thought. Of course he had come about her maman. “That is exceedingly kind of you.” There was a small lifting in the corner of her mouth, a near smile.

  “I suppose it’s best for Auguste to be out. I’m not sure he’d be inclined to receive me.”

  “I believe he’d find the gesture thoughtful, nonetheless. I will be sure to pass on your sympathies. It can’t be easy for you to come.”

  “No, it’s not, but necessary.”

  The tenderness in Henri’s eyes sent a familiar ache through Aimée. She turned her head away. “Would you care for something to drink?”

  “Thank you, kindly, but no. I hadn’t planned on staying.”

  On the table next to Aimée’s chair sat Colette’s thimble, which the maid had found between the couch cushions earlier that morning. Aimée looked at the tiny gold mushroom dome, indented with miniature holes, and the scroll of flowers carved along the bottom. It seemed her maman had just set it down and stepped out of the room, that at any moment now she was going come back in to retrieve it.

  “I feel utterly out of sorts.” Aimée gave a little laugh. “Sad, and yet grateful to see you.”

  Henri stood up. For one brief afternoon, he wanted nothing to have gone wrong between them. “It would be a great pleasure, Mademoiselle Savaray”—he extended his hand to her—“if you would walk with me. It’s a fine day for it.”

  Aimée’s hands tightened in her lap. “I don’t believe that’s a good idea.”

  Reaching down, Henri pulled her hands apart and took hold of one. “I beg you? Walk out of doors with me. Point things out like you used to, colors and light. Tell me I’m a fool not to see it the way you do.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  Henri held her hand and waited, watching as her face shifted from resistance, to reluctance, to consent.

  “Very well,” she said.

  In the Tuileries Garden, they strolled side by side and said nothing. It was five o’clock, and the light was beautiful. But Aimée did not point this out. They didn’t talk about the breeze, or how the tops of the great chestnuts made a sound like rushing water. Neither mentioned that Aimée’s dress kept blowing into Henri’s legs, or that he did not step aside to avoid it.

  It was as painful as Aimée imagined, walking in the park at twilight with Henri, the surreal beauty of it, the feeling that he wanted something from her, and the anger she felt toward him for wanting it too late. It was the same set of tangled emotions she’d felt that day in Thoméry by the river, when he’d tried to kiss her. Then, Henri’s desire had seemed like an apology. Today, it felt like his need to make up for everything they’d lost. Couldn’t he see that it was impossible to make up for the past, that there would never be any reconciliation or understanding? Aimée had realized this, fully, with the death of her maman. That you could hate someone and love them and wish they were here and be grateful they were gone, all in the same instant.

  “All I want,” Henri said suddenly, “is to know that you are happy.” He stopped walking and looked at her. “Are you at least a little happy?”

  They were on a small footbridge. Aimée turned her back and looked into the water. It was a mere trickle bumping over the stones, nothing like t
he rushing river that day in Thoméry.

  “No,” she said. “But I am not miserable anymore either. I am coming into contentment, I think.” What she wanted, more than anything, was to ask after Jeanne, but she didn’t dare. She was sure if she spoke the name she’d come apart in front of him.

  Henri put his hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he said delicately, leaning his head near her ear, the softness of his breath on her cheek. Aimée thought he was going to say he was sorry about Jeanne, but instead he said, “I’m sorry I left you.”

  She turned around and looked at him, and it was not a look of gratitude or forgiveness, but one of crushing, insurmountable pain, and it was then Henri knew, for certain, what he had to do. He’d known since England, but hadn’t been able to face it until now.

  Taking Aimée’s hand, he pulled her off the path into a grove of English hawthorn. Standing there, his shoes crushing the bright red berries that had fallen to the ground, he put his arms around her. Aimée did not resist. She sank into the warmth of his body, slid her hands into his, and let him kiss her. All of the things they couldn’t say passed between them. It was an acknowledgment, a memory, an apology, and, finally, a pulling away, and a good-bye.

  Henri did love her, Aimée thought. It was just a useless love. A love that had never been able to find a way out.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Then she turned and walked away, unaware that those were the last words she would ever speak to Henri, and that they would turn out to be the perfect thing to say.

  Chapter 37

  Leonie fought hard. But, in the end, after weeping and pleading, she gave in; there was nothing else she could do.

  “Not tonight,” she begged. “Give me one more day.”

  Henri agreed, holding her in his arms, promising they would be all right, while in his own heart he felt a shattering of regret. This was the exact undoing he had been afraid of in England.