The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted (27 page)

“Warthogs are natives in West Africa,” Julien said.

“I’m done,” Charlotte said, and with that, she started walking back to the car.

I kept my attention fixed on the wart hogs. I was impressed with how the warthogs were
of the earth
—that was the expression that kept coming to me. They were of the earth—not off in their heads, not always living in their minds. They weren’t, from what I could tell, obsessed with the past.

Abbot said, “They live in all that dirt and their own poop.”

“And they’re completely fine,” Julien said, “except they’re in exile, in a little foreign prison.” I thought of Julien’s divorce and how much he must have been missing his four-year-old daughter, Frieda. I wondered if she looked like him—his dark eyes, his quick smile.

“But at least it’s a real prison,” I said. “Not a metaphor, like the Parisian couple who thought the burnt house was a symbol of their life together.”

He smiled at me. “Very true!”

“They’re really of the earth,” I said. “Look at them. They
blend in with the dirt and the log. They root around and they wallow.”

“In dirt and poop,” Abbot said.

“You can touch them,” Julien said. “They live in dirt and poop, but they are happy with it.”

Abbot looked at me. The shiny blue welt on the middle of his head reminded me of the small candy-coated robin-sized eggs that showed up on shelves just before Easter.
I’m just a bunny, you know. There’s only so much that I can understand
. I stared at the warthogs. I wondered what Henry would think of us here—Abbot’s head doubly blessed, standing by the filth of warthogs. I imagined that if Henry were here, he’d be worried—not a lot, just that small stitch of worry in his brow, the leftover guilt from his brother’s near drowning still tugging on him in ways he couldn’t control. We would both convince the other that Abbot was fine. We’d tell each other that it obviously wasn’t a concussion, that he was going to be okay. Abbot was our only child, and so there was no one to diffuse our parental anxiety, but we were also a good team, balancing out worry with reason. “Pet a warthog,” one of us would have said. “Live a little!” the other would have chimed in.

But Henry wasn’t here to help strike that balance. I had to make up for his absence and worry for two. What would happen if Abbot did touch them and then later regretted it? Would he melt down? Was this a breakthrough, or was he not himself really yet, still dazed by the knocks to his head?
If I had to worry for two, didn’t I also have to encourage for two as well? I felt paralyzed. Finally, I just blurted, “Do it, Abbot! You’re a kid. Do what kids do!”

Abbot stared up at me, baffled, as if he had no idea what kids do.

“They will not bite you,” Julien said gently. “They feel like rubber.” Julien reached out and pushed his hand to the fence near a warthog’s nose. The warthog shoved its snout into Julien’s hand, its tusks scraping against the fence. “They are ugly but very tender.”

Abbot looked up at Julien, and then he pulled his hands out of his pockets. He lifted one hand and then flattened it, just as Julien had, against one of the holes in the fencing. Another warthog wobbled up on his little hooves and pressed against the fence, then nuzzled Abbot’s palm, probably rooting for food.

Abbot turned around but kept his hand pressed to the warthog’s grunting mouth. I thought for a second,
Is this the miracle? Is he enchanted?
Because there was Abbot, biting his bottom lip with his two oversized front teeth, smiling, and then laughing. “It’s a real snout!” he shouted. “A real live snout!”

hen you’ve felt shut down and then begin to open back up, what comes alive first? You think of all the usual suspects: the senses, the heart, the mind, the soul. But then maybe all of these things are so interconnected that you can’t differentiate a stirring of the heart from a scent, the rustling of the soul from a breeze across your skin, a thought from a feeling, a feeling from a prayer.

If I were pressed now to pinpoint a moment when I began to open up again, I don’t know that I could. Maybe it was the jolt of being terrified in the rain after the robbery. Maybe it was the gravity and expanse of the mountain. Maybe it was in the bakery, amid the heavy scent of bread in the oven and carmelized sugar and cocoa. Or was it watching my son, doubly blessed on his head, holding his hand up to the rubbery snout of a warthog?

Or was it, quite simply, while eating?

That night, we ate a Provençal feast at the long table in the dining room, dimly lit by the late-day sun. The chairs were uncomfortable. The seats were lumpy. They put you at the wrong height and tipped you forward. But I was so tired, so hungry, I allowed the seat to seat me at the angle it wanted.

There were no guests, no spare archaeologists, and so it was just the three of us with Véronique and Julien. Charlotte set out the bread I’d bought at the bakery with a grainy, dark spread made of crushed olives to put on the slices.

Julien walked Abbot through the syrups that sat on one of the lowboys in a metal tray, the kind that milk may have been delivered in once upon a time, with a metal handle. But these were bottles of thick syrups—blueberry, mint, raspberry … He taught Abbot and Charlotte how to mix the syrups with water to make sugary-sweet non-carbonated drinks, the syrups swirling and thinning to just the right shade of blue or green or deep purple.

Véronique then limped into the room, placed the Crock-Pot on the center trivet. When she pulled away the lid, a breath escaped, and the room filled, and my mind emptied.

I could see the pale gold chicken resting in its deep sauce of tomatoes, garlic, peppers. I could smell the garlic, wine, and fennel. Véronique served and the juices ran sparkling to the edges of my plate, carrying a hint of citrus. And the smell bloomed.

“Lemon?” I asked.

“No, orange,” she said. “This is chicken. It is common.” Véronique put the serving spoon back in the Crock-Pot and seemed to wave the contents away as she sat. “There’s more, if you like.” She seemed disdainful of the meal, which also included beautiful russet potatoes and a brimming salad. It was as if this was what she cooked when she didn’t really feel like cooking.

I began to eat, and it was like eating for the first time since Henry’s death. Why now? Was it because I was someplace else? Was it because my senses had already begun to give in? Was this what it was to feel enchanted?

The first bite was almost too much for me, so much flavor, and I was so hungry. Julien offered a bottle of rosé from a local vineyard. I said, “Yes, please.” He poured me a glass, and I took a long drink and let it all wash down. I usually avoid rosé, tending to think of it as too girly, too sweet. But the Provence rosés were complicated, the cool bringing out the fruit, but not allowing it to topple into sugary sweet.

I couldn’t remember anything, not the day, not the night. I was entirely focused on what was in front of me. With the next bite the sweetness of the onions and peppers swelled quickly with the lightly salted, melting chicken. The orange and fennel came later but finished the mouthful sweetly.

I looked over at Abbot, who was head-down and shoveling. This was its own type of compliment.
Abbot is fine
, I thought to myself.
Look at him. He’s fine
. He’d washed his hands before eating, per usual, but he didn’t scrub them.
He’s fine
.

Julien said, “This is a meal of genius.”

“No,” Véronique said. “It is simple.”

“It’s so good,” Charlotte said. “I won’t even be able to ever explain it!”

I, myself, was speechless.

And then the cakes. Véronique set them out, one little cake after the next, a long seemingly endless row that ran the length of the table. I picked up the citron tart and tasted it. It was almost how I remembered my mother’s tarts tasting that fall when she came home from Provence, and I followed her around the kitchen. “My mother made French desserts after she came back … and we almost got it right. We were close,” I said to the air.

Véronique looked at me and then Julien. She raised her fork in the air. “She started baking when she came home?” she asked.

“Yes.” I nodded. “It’s when I first started baking myself.”

“Yes,” she said. “Your mother told me that you have a bakery.”

“I don’t do much baking anymore, but I’m a pastry chef, by trade.”

Véronique nodded. “So that is what stays. How funny, these things.”

“What things?”

“No things,” she said. “Eat. Enjoy.”

I caught Charlotte staring at me from the other side of the table. “So you’re really tasting this, right?” she said. “I’d hate to have to describe it all to you later.”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m here.” And I thought of the verb “to
be,”
être
. I thought of being. I thought,
Here I am. In the present. I am
.

“Are you okay?” Julien asked.

I probably looked a little crazed. Glassy-eyed, I imagined. Exhausted and enthralled.

Without thinking, I said, “I am. I’m amming.”

He looked at Charlotte for a translation. She shrugged. “Is that an expression?” he asked.

“It’s not even a word,” Charlotte said. “Am I right?”

“Yep,” I said. “It’s just how I feel.”

“I’m amming,” Julien said, trying it out.

“I’m amming, too!” Abbot said.

“I’m definitely amming,” Charlotte said, slipping more chicken into her mouth.

“Are you amming?” Julien asked his mother.

“Amming?” she said.

“Are you living in the present?” Charlotte said.

“The present? What is the present?” she said. “I am
le passé
. I am the past.”

hat night as I was walking across the Dumonteils’ yard to our house, feeling full, my chest warm with wine, Julien called out from the back door, “We didn’t eat all the cakes. Come and have them for breakfast.”

The air was clear, the night cool. The mountain was a deep, velvety purple. Abbot and Charlotte weren’t too far away. They’d fought through some weeds, clearing spots to
sit down on the edge of our broken fountain. Abbot had his hands cupped to his ears, fluttering them to modulate the sounds of cicadas. Charlotte was staring up at the night sky.

“We will and thanks,” I said to Julien. “For everything. For today, really. It was great. Abbot touched a warthog! Maybe it was a miracle.”

“Maybe,” he said.

“He’s a little high strung,” I said, “like his mother.”

“High strings?” Julien said. “Abbot has good strings, like his mother.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It
is
a compliment,” he said.

“You’re a very nice little boy,” I said.

“I thought I splashed you too much,” he said.

“You’ve outgrown the splashing,” I said.

“And you’ve outgrown the flower barrette.”

“Are you flirting with me, Monsieur Dumonteil?”

“Me?” he said. “Of course not. I’m too miserable.” And he smiled, dipped back into the doorway, and disappeared.