by Sarah Jio
The man who runs the charcuterie next door is locking up his shop when he looks over at me as if I’ve quite possibly lost my mind.
“Excuse me, monsieur,” I say, unable to remember his name. “Do you know why Jeanty is closed? Where’s Victor?”
He regards me with suspicion. I must look like a disaster, soaked the way I am, but I don’t care.
“Did he say anything to you?” I continue. “Anything?”
The man shrugs. “I’ve owned my shop for more than forty years, and the bistro hasn’t been closed a single day. And then an American woman comes in and sends everything into chaos.” He throws up his arms. “What will I eat for dinner tonight now?”
As he storms off down the street, I detect movement inside the restaurant and run to the door again, knocking loudly against the glass door as a figure moves closer.
The handle turns, and the door creaks open. But it’s not Victor who greets me. Instead, it’s a woman in a fitted blue dress. She’s blond, tan, and…beautiful.
“Emma?” Victor’s voice is coming from the kitchen. My heart sinks. “Oh,” I say, taking a step back. “I’m sorry, I…”
“Wait…Caroline?” She squints. “I’m not wearing my glasses. Is that you?”
I nod, confused, looking at her more carefully. Do I know her?
She wraps her arms around me. “I’m sorry; Victor told me about your accident. Maybe you don’t remember me. I’m Emma. Victor’s cousin from Nice.”
I smile, nodding. “Of course!”
“I came to your wedding,” she continues. “I know it’s been a long time. And I got my hair highlighted.” She runs her fingers through her honey-colored locks. “But anyway, I’m so happy you’re here! Come in! My boyfriend, Antoine, and I are in town for a few days on our way to Rome, and Vic invited us to come stay.”
“Why is the restaurant closed?” I ask.
She looks at me quizzically. “You haven’t heard? Victor has decided to sell it.”
I gasp. “What?”
“I know, a tragedy,” she continues. “See if you can talk some sense into that cousin of mine.”
She continues chattering on, but I tune her out when I see Victor sitting at a table at the back of the restaurant, quietly sipping a glass of red wine by candlelight.
As I walk past Emma into the restaurant, our eyes meet, and mine well up with tears. In all of my anger, I’d forgotten that Victor’s heart hurts just as much as mine does. I may always grieve, but it is time to forgive.
“Oh, Victor,” I cry, kneeling beside him. His eyes light up and he caresses my rain-soaked hair.
“I love you so much,” I say. “I’m…so sorry that I…I’m so sorry for everything.”
“I’m sorry, too,” he cries, cradling my face in his hands.
“It’s my fault,” I say. “I should have pulled her hair back before she got in the pool that day.”
“I should have had the pool inspected,” he says, shaking his head. “I had no idea the filtration system was a hazard.”
I fall into his arms and we both weep in each other’s embrace.
“Will you forgive me, my love?”
I nod. “Will you forgive me?”
“Yes,” he says, looking into my eyes. “Can we start again? Can we, please?”
“Yes,” I say, tears streaming down my cheeks. “Yes.”
CHAPTER 30
CAROLINE
TWO YEARS LATER, SPRINGTIME
Paris
“Just one more,” the photographer says, camera in hand. “Maybe hold up the book a little higher. There, just like that. Now look out over the city, and smile!”
“Doesn’t Estelle look great?” I whisper to Victor, who stands beside me. She’s invited us to a special luncheon to celebrate the publication of her book about Cosi and Céline, and I couldn’t be prouder of her, and her accomplishment.
I turn to my left and take in the view from the top of the staircase in Montmartre. Paris has never looked lovelier. Cherry trees in bloom, flowers bursting to life after a long winter slumber.
I glance at the book in my hands, admiring its beautiful cover and title: All the Flowers in Paris. The French edition comes out in a week, the U.S. edition, next month. The publisher decided to use my painting of peonies for the cover. I’d been shy about it at first, but now, as I hold the final product in my hands, it fits.
My life finally fits, too. Victor and I exchanged marriage vows for the second time, then honeymooned in the Greek islands. After moving out of the apartment at 18 rue Cler, we bought an apartment in Montmartre, not far from the little garden with its patch of wooly thyme, and we’re happy there with our sunny balcony overlooking the city. We even converted one of the bedrooms into an art studio, where I paint every day.
It was harder than I thought it would be to leave the old apartment. It sat empty for a long time, but the release of Estelle’s book has brought a lot of interest, and I hear there’s talk of a group of charitable investors who want to convert it into a museum, much like the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.
The money from my father’s estate helped me fund a small nonprofit organization for women in need (an ironic but happy coincidence, which I would have loved to share with my mother if she were here right now; I’d make her president). After much consideration, I named the organization the CCA Alliance after Céline, Cosi, and Alma. We have a hotline for victims of domestic abuse and offer meals, advice, job training, housing, and other assistance through a network of volunteers throughout Paris. We’re not looking to win the Nobel Prize, but if our work can make one teddy-bear-clutching little girl feel safe when her world is falling down around her, then it’s all worthwhile.
Vic didn’t end up selling the restaurant after all, but he’s offloaded many of the day-to-day tasks to Julien, who’s proven to be a very reliable and talented understudy, which gives us the freedom to travel as often as we like. Victor has his eye on Iceland next; I’m thinking Costa Rica.
Monsieur Ballard (Nic) passed away in January. But I will always feel good about one thing: he got his kiss, and even more. The lifelong friendship he’d maintained with Cosi had sparked into something more in Nic’s final years, but I think the flame had been there all along.
“It’s funny,” Cosi had said to Inès. “I had a crush on him my whole life, and he finally noticed me when I became an old lady.” Notice her he did. In fact, they shared two happy years together before Nic became ill.
After the funeral, Victor hosted a lunch in his honor at Jeanty. We still keep his favorite table waiting and miss him dearly, but no one more than Cosi.
But old love breathes life into new, and shortly after the funeral, Margot’s handsome-suit guy proposed. He loves Élian as much as he loves her, and his family, which owns the largest office-supply company in France, has welcomed them both with open arms. Just the same, Margot insists on staying at Jeanty.
Monsieur de Goff finally retired from his post at 18 rue Cler, his promise of protection kept. I’m happy to hear that he’s in good health and has taken up bingo.
Cosi made that trip to California she’d always dreamed of, though, sadly, without Nic. While her health has been failing of late, she made it to the book-launch party and handled questions from the media with grace, reading passages from her journal. She’d given Estelle her full support and even wrote the book’s foreword. Her sentiments made me weep.
“Thank you,” Inès said to me, wiping away a tear, just as the party was wrapping up. “I could never have predicted that one of my own students would give my family the clarity and healing that we didn’t know we needed.” For whatever reason, Cosi had never shared her story with her daughter, and the truth had brought them closer together than ever. “Just tell me,” Inès continued, pressing her hand against her chest. “Has your heart healed?”
“Oh,” I had said, glancing at the doorway, where Victor stood waiting for me. “I don’t know that my heart will ever heal. Maybe not completely. But I’m better. I’m whole again.”
“You did great today,” Vic says, squeezing my hand.
All the Flowers in Paris is Cosi’s and Céline’s story, of course, but in some small way, it’s also mine, and Alma’s.
I smile. “Thanks.” Estelle has done a marvelous job with the book, unearthing so many details of Cosi and Céline’s struggle, which culminated in a story that was both tragic and heartbreaking, but also redemptive and triumphant. Apparently, Madame Jeanty had a change of heart, too. Though she succumbed to cancer shortly after the war, before her death, she’d renounced her ties with the Germans and begged her son’s forgiveness. Francine and Maxwell Toulouse, the neighbors who had turned in Céline and her father to the Nazis, would forever be banned from Jeanty.
The wind picks up, sending a gust that rattles an old cherry tree to our right, its branches heavy with pink blossoms. We stop for a moment and watch as thousands of tiny petals dance and swirl in the breeze. For a magical moment, it looks like a veritable pink blizzard.
“Alma would have loved that,” I say, grinning, after the wind has settled.
Victor nods. “She would have.”
We can talk about her these days without it sending us into an emotional abyss. In fact, we talk about her a lot, like what she would be like as a teenager (spunky), whether she’d like Paris or not (definitely), what she’s doing right now at this very moment in heaven (stockpiling cotton candy—duh).
“We’ll see her again,” Victor said the other day. It was just a passing comment in the kitchen, a response to some insignificant thing I said about her old ballet slippers, the ones she used to insist on wearing everywhere. His reply gave me such comfort. Because he’s right. We will see her again. That’s what love does. It binds people together, with ties that are stronger than time, stronger than war and destruction, evil, or pain.
I look up to the sky, thinking of Céline and Cosi, and my own sweet daughter, as a single pink petal goes rogue from the pack and lands on my cheek. I catch it and hold its silky softness between my fingers.
* * *
—
THE TRUTH IS, all the flowers in Paris—every last petal—could never fill the void that Alma left, and I know I may always grieve. But I have come to learn that we can never lose what we love deeply and truly. It becomes a part of us.
I close my eyes and think of our old house in San Diego. Yes, Alma had taken her last breath there on that tragic day, but she’d also taken her first steps under that roof, and danced and sang and gave us a million beautiful memories there. I let my mind recall the big, sunny kitchen. All of our jazz records. The garden. My art studio. Even the pool.
“Vic,” I say, blinking back tears.
“Yes, babe?”
“I think I’m ready,” I continue, swallowing hard, “to go home.”
My husband tucks his arm around my waist as I take a deep breath, then exhale, blowing the little pink petal back into the air, surrendering it to the breeze.
For Evangeline and Petra
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This story was born, in part, from conversations with two very wise women in my life: my longtime literary agent, Elisabeth Weed, and my editor at Ballantine Random House, Shauna Summers, both of whom pushed me to set one novel-in-progress aside to focus on this one. Scrapping a project that you’ve put a lot of time into isn’t easy, but both Elisabeth and Shauna had the savvy and foresight to know that this was the book, and they were so very right. Thank you both for weathering the creative process with me as this story took shape!
There’s another rock star who deserves megagratitude from this author: my foreign rights agent, Jenny Meyer. Smart and fiercely loyal to her authors, Jenny has been a champion of my books since the beginning. Because of her, my novels are sold in more than twenty-five countries, and I’ve become a bestseller in many. I still pinch myself for that, and, Jenny, I am deeply and forever grateful for your representation and friendship.
I couldn’t have written this book without the moral support of my parents, especially my mom, who talked me down from the ledge a few times when life got stressful and book deadlines tight. I realize what a gift it is to have a mother who is truly your friend. Dad, you’re pretty great, too!
To my boys, Carson, Russell, and Colby Jio, you’re still young and you may think your mom is a little weird, but, guys, look on the bright side: It builds character! And when you grow up, I hope you’ll look back and think that all those bedtime stories I told were pretty cool. But even if you don’t, I will always love you. Being your mom is the greatest joy of my life.
Also, shout-outs to my awesome stepkids: Josiah, Evie, and Petra. You guys rock! And thanks, Petra, for introducing me to your sweet friend Cosi, whose name inspired the character in this book.
Thank you, too, to the terrific team at Ballantine—marketing, publicity, sales, copyediting, and everyone behind the scenes—you guys are the best!
And, last but not least, I want to thank my husband, Brandon, who’s selflessly journeyed around the world to accompany me on my book tours and research trips, who’s lugged my heavy bags, taken thousands of photos, made me laugh until I’ve narrowly avoided peeing my pants, kept me hydrated, and best of all, made me feel loved—wholly and unconditionally. Finding you in this second chapter has been a dream come true.
BY SARAH JIO
All the Flowers in Paris
Always
The Look of Love
Goodnight June
Morning Glory
The Last Camellia
Blackberry Winter
The Bungalow
The Violets of March
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SARAH JIO is the #1 international, New York Times, and USA Today bestselling author of ten novels. She is the host of the Mod About You podcast and also a longtime journalist who has contributed to Glamour, The New York Times, Redbook, Real Simple, O: The Oprah Magazine, Bon Appétit, Marie Claire, Self, and many other outlets, including NPR’s Morning Edition. Jio’s books have been published in more than twenty-five countries. She lives in Seattle with her husband, three young boys, and three stepchildren.
sarahjio.com
Facebook.com/sarahjioauthor
Twitter: @sarahjio
Instagram: @sarahjio
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