The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted (37 page)

“Like I used to be claustrophobic. You know, scared of closets and tight spaces,” Charlotte said. “But now I’m the closet and the baby is the one in the tight space. And I’d never really asked myself before what claustrophobia is like from the closet’s perspective.”

“Or agoraphobia from the wide open field’s perspective,” I said.

“Or hydrophobia from the water’s perspective,” Adam said.

“Or parenthood-a-phobia from the parents’ perspective,” Charlotte said.

“The question is, Abbot, are you ready?” Adam asked.

He put down the ball, looked at his notebook sitting beside the fountain, and then at the box with the bird shifting in it by the house. “I guess so.”

“Sometimes it isn’t a question,” Charlotte said. “Sometimes you just have to be ready, and that’s that.”

“You’re lucky you get to ask yourself if you
are
ready,” Adam said.

“Is this really about you being pregnant and all?” Abbot said.

Adam nodded. “Right now, everything’s about being pregnant. Where are you going to let the bird go from?”

bbot and I took a walk after lunch to find the highest, most accessible spot in the area—the perfect locale
for pitching a swallow. Abbot decided that it was the roof of the Dumonteils’ house.

“You’re not clambering around on a roof,” I said.

“But it’s perfect,” he said, fiddling with the spiral of his notebook, which he had with him, as usual. “We could wear safety gear.”

“Like parachutes?” I said. “No, it’s not happening.”

“What about up there?” Abbot asked, pointing to a balcony off of one of the Dumonteils’ second-floor bedrooms.

I didn’t want to ask Véronique for access to one of her balconies so that we could pitch a hobbled sparrow off it. I didn’t want to walk up to the Dumonteils’ house at all. I realized that I was ducking Julien. In hopes of what? That Elysius and my mother would arrive, and their noise and urgent energy would distract me for long enough that I’d be able to have the right amount of distance? I wanted distance from Julien, urgent energy, and lots of noise. These were things that my mother and sister could provide. I’d never seen it as a positive before. “Well,” I said, “I think that room probably belongs to a guest, and so we really can’t—”

“It’s Véronique’s room,” Abbot said. “Charlotte and I once played hide-and-seek and I went upstairs and hid under the bed.”

I was startled by this confession. It wasn’t that I thought what Abbot had done was so terrible; it was more that I’d had no idea he’d done it. He could have gone anywhere. What if he’d decided to hide in an old refrigerator? What if
he’d decided to hide in a washer-dryer? What if he’d wandered into some twisted pervert’s room? Where had I been during this game of hide-and-seek? “Abbot,” I said. “You should pay better attention to the rules.” But as soon as I said it, I realized that I hadn’t set any rules. I was really scolding myself. I should have been paying better attention.

“It was fine,” he said. “Charlotte found me right away. I sing when I’m alone, because I can’t whistle, and so I’m always really easy to find.”

“Why do you sing when you’re alone?”

“So I don’t feel like I’m alone,” he said. “Dad taught me that.”

“Oh,” I said.

“I want everyone to be there when I throw the swallow,” he said.

This alarmed me. I imagined the public spectacle, everyone watching as Abbot threw the bird and it plummeted, wings fluttering awkwardly. “No,” I said. “Let’s just do this privately. Just me and you.”

“But that wouldn’t be fair!” he said. “Everyone helped.”

“Yes, but still, I think it’s better if we just do it together,” I said.

“I don’t want anyone to miss it, though!” His expression was grave. He was attached to the bird. He’d been tending to it all this time. I didn’t want to be dismissive of the importance of this for him.

“Okay,” I said. “Maybe when everyone is already gathering together for dinner?” I asked.

“Okay,” he said. “That’s good because he’ll see the other birds flying and he’ll remember by watching them.”

“You know, Abbot, that there’s a good chance that no matter how well you’ve taken care of the swallow, he might not ever be able to fly again.”

“Yes.”

“But you also know it’s best for him to try to fly. It’s no life for a bird in a box.”

“I know,” Abbot said. “He’s a
migratory
bird. He’s got to
migrate.
”

“Right,” I said, really realizing this for the first time. “And when you pitch him off the roof, he might not fly. He might simply fall to the ground. He might die.”

“Yes,” he said. “I know that.” He stared up into my face, squinting into the sun. “I don’t have any other choice. It’s like this. That’s what the French say.
C’est comme ça!
” And his accent was startlingly good. Impeccable, really.

“Right,” I said. “C’est comme ça.”

hoped that the bird would cause distractions, too. This was awful, but it was the truth. I knew I’d have to see Julien, but maybe amid the confusion of the bird’s flying or falling to its death, we’d both forget that he’d kissed me. Suddenly, I wondered if I’d just imagined it all. Was the moment already evaporating? I hoped it was, and I was holding on to it at the same time.

I walked into the Dumonteils’ house warily. “Véronique?” I called softly.

The kitchen was empty.

I walked back to the hall, down the long runner. The dining room was empty, too. I turned and dipped into the parlor.

There was Julien, standing by a wide window, one hand pressed to the sunny pane, just as he’d had his hand on the window of the car before his brother pulled out of the driveway with his wife and daughter. He’d abandoned his laptop. It sat on the coffee table, its screen staring out blankly into the room. I was struck by the back of his neck, the curve of his jaw, his sunlit hand. My chest ached. It had been a long time since I’d felt an ache other than grief. But I didn’t know what to call this ache. I refused to call it love, but it was something exquisite and exquisitely tinged with regret. Longing? That feeling my mother knew so well? I wanted to hear Henry’s voice, calling me in to shore.
Too far, too far
. Julien must have sensed me there. He turned around.

“Abbot wants to pitch the swallow today,” I said, fiddling the hem of my T-shirt. “He’s ready. He wants to throw it from the balcony off your mother’s bedroom.”

Julien cocked his head. “Yes,” he said as if coming out of a dream. “The swallow. Abbot wants to throw it from my mother’s balony?”

I nodded. “Look,” I said, lowering my voice, stepping into the sunlit room filled with golden drifting dust motes. It
seemed as if they were suspended like small lost planets. I, too, felt like I’d lost my orbit. That had been my advice to Briskowitz: Keep orbiting. “Yesterday was a hard day for you. I know it was.”

“Yes?” he whispered back, walking to me.

“And so if, you know, you didn’t mean to …”

He walked up closer. “We’re whispering?” he said. I could smell his aftershave. “Someone might hear us?
Chuchote
,” he said. “Whisper.” He bent his head down, almost touching his forehead to mine.

“I was saying,” I said.

“You were
whispering
,” he whispered, his lips brushing my ear.

“Yes,” I whispered, “I was whispering that I know you might not really be feeling like yourself, and I’m not, either, here, you know. Not really because I’m far away from all of the burdens of my life.” I was thinking of all the things that held me in place, that created my sense of gravity, my orbit. Where was I? “And, well, I still have real responsibilities and—” I really had no idea where I was going with this. I wanted to say that it was too complicated, that I was just a bunny, after all.

He lifted his head and looked at me, surprised. Then he lowered his head again and whispered into my ear, “I don’t want to go back.”

“Back?”

“You want to go back, to return to the moment before I kissed you, before I held your hand?”

This made it real. He had kissed me. He’d held my hand. He’d done it on purpose and he was standing by it. I paused there for a moment, frozen. I didn’t want to move. I couldn’t move. I closed my eyes, slowly. I thought he might disappear.
This is what it’s like to be close
, I thought to myself.
This is what it’s like to almost lean on someone else
. I knew that I could have tilted forward. I could have rested my head on his chest. I could have listened to his heart, and he would have let me. He’d have held me up.

“I want to go back,” I whispered. I opened my eyes. I felt breathless and stepped away from him and turned to the hall quickly, almost recklessly. I stopped at the doorway and looked at him over my shoulder. “Do you think it would be okay for Abbot to pitch the swallow off your mother’s balcony?”

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.”