At the Edge of Summer

I thought I’d wake to a sleepy repetition of the night before, or at least to awkward yawns and blushes. I was already blushing before my eyes were open. I didn’t expect to wake to an empty apartment.

Maybe he was down the hall at the toilet or talking to the concierge. Maybe he’d stepped out so that he wouldn’t disturb me with his pipe. Maybe he’d gone in search of breakfast.

I stretched and waited. And waited. From the street below came the sounds of Paris waking up. Carts rattled, horses snorted, the rare engine from an automobile growled.

I stood and straightened the sweater. The window was cracked and the room chilly. My arms wrapped around my chest, I walked the length of it. I hadn’t even heard him get up. I tried to picture him soundlessly moving around the room, quietly pulling on his clothes. His blue shirt and tie were kicked to the corner, but his jacket and trousers were gone. I picked up the shirt, shook it out, folded it, found his drawer with a few others.

The room looked smaller, dingier than I’d thought yesterday. Was this really where Luc lived? On the desk he’d left a small stack of paper and a fancy gold pen. That one little reminder of his château life.

But that wasn’t all on the desk. He’d left a note, written in a morning-after haze. You’re my happily ever after. I let the note fall back down to the desk and leaned against the chair. Happily ever after.

The night I’d gone with Finlay, I’d stopped myself before anything had happened that I’d regret. I’d remembered my plans. I didn’t need anything beyond a good friend. I didn’t need anyone to take care of, anyone to disappoint, anyone to make me disappoint myself. But last night, when I stepped into Luc’s apartment and remembered that long-ago kiss, I’d stopped thinking. Plans, worries, expectations; I thought of nothing but how perfect it felt to be near him.

His note hinted at a promise I hadn’t made. My words, my kisses, my stepping into his apartment, his bed, his heart—maybe I had made one without realizing it. Maybe I wanted to.

“No,” I said aloud. I pushed through the romantic haze of the night before. I could be pregnant right now, I realized. In that moment of impulse, I might have changed everything.

I lowered the basin of water to the floor and washed, squatting over it. My teeth chattered. No one had ever told me what to do the morning after. I hoped it was enough. I hoped it wasn’t too late. I scrubbed and worried and thought about how quickly plans could change. I poured the water out of the window onto the roof. The morning suddenly seemed too glaring bright.

I didn’t want that. Did I? With a house, a husband, a child, I couldn’t have anything else. The women at the School of Art left when they married. They left or they convinced themselves that art as a hobby, in between planning meals and arranging vases, was enough. I wanted more. I wanted everything I had now.

But I also wanted Luc.

The whole walk home, I tried to pretend that I was simply another Parisian taking the morning air. That I hadn’t just spent the night, alone, with a man. That I didn’t stand on the edge of my future, not knowing how many steps to take before I fell.

When I walked in, Grandfather was sitting hunched at his desk in his shirtsleeves, surrounded by balls of paper and empty teacups. The curtains were shut tight and the kerosene lamp was smoking. The way he turned, blinking, when I opened the door—he hadn’t even realized it was morning.

I waited for him to say something about me appearing well after breakfast, about my skirt wrinkled from a night on the floor, about my hair knotted and pinned without benefit of either mirror or brush.

He didn’t look me up and down, didn’t do more than scratch his nose and say, “Is it suppertime already?” and “Where’s your scarf?”

I went across the room, slipping off my coat, and kissed him on the forehead. “It’s morning, Grandfather. When did you last eat?”

“Noon.” He yawned. “Is that right?”

“That was yesterday.” He’d been using his left cuff as a pen wiper again. “Change your shirt, dear, and I’ll make you a cheese sandwich.”

Though bread was still hard to come by, his baker friend kept us supplied. When he wandered out of the bedroom, it was in a sweater that the laundress had shrunk. The knobs of his wrists poked from the sleeves. He picked up a sandwich, looking faintly puzzled.

“Were you just arriving?” he asked around a mouthful of cheese.

“No, leaving. I have to be to work.”

He nodded and chewed, but wasn’t satisfied. “But then why are you humming? You haven’t hummed in years.”

“I wasn’t humming.” I gathered up the empty cups. “Tea?”

“I’ll make it.” He set down his sandwich. “You think I can’t take care of myself?”

I slipped into my room to change into a fresh blouse and skirt. “Why else are you in Paris?” I called through the door.

“Patricia Clare, you give yourself too much credit.”

I pulled open the door. “Clare.” I brought my comb and hairpins out into the large room while he made tea. “I was only teasing.”

“And see, that’s why I came to Paris.” Between haphazard measuring of tea and water, he ate the rest of his sandwich. “Because I enjoy your company.”

“And my sandwiches.”

He grinned. “Mostly your company. Marie makes better sandwiches.”

“Marie?”

“The baker. You’ve met her.”

I shrugged and attacked the knots in my hair.

“You take care of me, it’s true, but you let me take care of you in between. Alice, she taught me that.”

“Grandmother did?”

“We didn’t have much time together, but in the time we did have, it was a privilege to take care of her.” He set down the spoon, scattering tea on the table. “I loved her so.”

I set aside the comb. “Grandfather, did she plan to give up her art? When Mother was born?”

He swept up the spilled tea leaves onto his palm. “She was painting up until the day the baby came. She wouldn’t have stopped even if I’d asked her. And I never would have. Her passion for art, it awed me.” He brushed his hands over the wastebasket. “It’s like yours. You glow with it, Patricia Clare.”

“I still don’t feel I’ve accomplished it all.”

He poured out the water. “You have the years your grandmother didn’t. You have the talent and the stubbornness and the compassion to accomplish even more. I’m honored to have been part of your journey.”

I left the pile of hairpins on the end table and crossed to where he stood by the kitchen table. “I’m happy I didn’t have to do it alone.”

“You never have to, you know.” He wiped out a mug. “Be alone.”

I inhaled. Those who love us don’t ask us to mask our true selves.