Legacy

Chapter 17

Brigitte

Marc and Brigitte left Paris on a sunny April morning for Brittany, in his ridiculously tiny car that made her laugh when she saw it. She had never seen anything so small, but it made sense for Paris. She wasn’t quite as amused to be on the highway in it, but he assured her it was safe. It looked like a toy car to her, and her small overnight bag took up most of the backseat. His even smaller one filled the trunk.

They drove at a reasonable speed for several hours while Marc told her about his new book. He was deeply engaged in the intricacies of Napoleon’s relationship with Josephine, and its subtle effects on the politics of France, and it sounded fascinating to her. She smiled as she listened to him. What he said and how he analyzed things were so French. He was passionate about politics, but the love relationship between the two historical figures was crucial to him as well. She loved the combination of the two, the emotional and the analytical, the historical and the political. She was sure it would be a good book. He was a very bright, erudite man.

“So will yours be when you write it, about the little Indian girl,” he said with a knowing smile. He had an intelligent face, and a kind expression, and his eyes lit up when he talked to her. There was so much about him that she liked. She was sorry that geography made anything more than friendship undesirable for both of them, especially for her.

“What makes you think I’ll write it?” she asked him, curious why he seemed so certain that she would.

“How can you not? With all that you know, have discovered, and can deduce between the lines, how could you possibly resist a story like that? It’s action, adventure, mystery, history, and romance. And think of the time they were living in, the days of slavery in America, the last years before the Revolution in France. And what happened to them afterward? Did he lose his château? Was he a Royalist resistant? What happened to their children? The Indian piece makes it even more fascinating. And from a love angle, she came to France with one brother, and married another. How did she escape the Crow? Did she really kill her captor? Was she dangerous or an innocent girl? You have enough for ten books there, not just one.” He said it almost enviously with a wistful look in his eyes.

“Maybe you should write the book,” she said seriously.

He was quick to shake his head. “It’s your story, not mine. Writers don’t respect much, but I do respect that. Honor among thieves,” he said, and laughed as he looked at her, and then grew serious again. “I truly hope you write it, Brigitte.” He always pronounced her name in French, and she liked it. “I think you should come back and do more research, and spend a year or two writing it here.” And then he added with a meaningful look, “I would like that very much. I can help you, if you like.”

“You already have,” she said sincerely. “I would never have found the court diaries without your help. I wouldn’t know as much as I do now if I hadn’t found them. I would never have known that the marquis’s younger brother brought her here and died on the way. I thought she just got lucky and married a marquis. The real story is so much more interesting than that, and more complicated.” She had to agree with him, it would make a wonderful book. It was more than just family history, it was an important record of the times, in both countries, America and France.

“That’s why you have to write it. I’m going to continue annoying you until you do. Besides, I have a vested interest in this.”

“And what’s that?” She was teasing him and enjoying their banter. They hardly knew each other, and yet she felt completely at ease with him. She wondered if Wachiwi had felt that way with her marquis, or if he had been daunting. There was nothing daunting about Marc. On the contrary, she felt relaxed and so at ease with him, and she enjoyed their conversations on a variety of subjects.

“My vested interest,” he confessed, “is that I want you to come to Paris, and stay for a while. Long-distance relationships are too hard, and I don’t like them. In the end, they always fall apart. I like Boston, but I’ve already lived there. I’m too old for the student life, and even the life of an academic, and I’m much too old to be traveling every few weeks. It’s too tiring, and I have to write. So do you. You can’t commute to Paris either. Long distance won’t work.” He spoke as though a relationship were a serious option, for both of them. It seemed premature to her.

“I thought we were just friends,” she said calmly.

“Is that all you want?” he asked her honestly, taking his eyes off the road to look at her, but there was very little traffic.

“I don’t know what I want,” she said truthfully. “Maybe it’s enough for now. And you’re right. Long distance doesn’t work, which is why my boyfriend and I broke up.”

“Do you miss him?” Marc asked, curious about how she felt. He had asked her that before, and she thought about it again now.

“Sometimes. I miss having someone familiar in my life. I’m not sure how much I really miss him. I’ll probably know when I go back to Boston.”

“That’s not missing him then. That’s just missing having a generic boyfriend. If you missed him, as a person, you would miss him here too.” She thought about it and realized he was right. And the odd thing was that after six years of evenings and weekends and dinners and daily phone calls, she didn’t miss Ted that much. She missed being able to tell him things, like what she had discovered about Wachiwi, but she didn’t long for him like a woman who had lost the love of her life. He hadn’t been. It had been easy. And she had been too lazy to want more. She thought that was a terrible statement about herself, and she shared it with Marc. He was less critical of her than she was of herself.

She had thought a lot about the relationship with Ted since it had ended. There hadn’t been enough there to justify keeping it going for six years, with no future plans between them. She had just “assumed.” It was so stupid, and yet it was so easy to do. Easier than facing what wasn’t there. And now she was thirty-eight years old with no man in her life, no future plans, and no kids. Not even a job now. Because she had assumed that that would last forever too. And the worst of it was that she had been passionate about neither, neither the man nor the job. She had settled for “good enough,” mediocrity, and no passion. Worst of all, for the last decade, she realized now, she hadn’t been honest with herself, or demanded much. She had settled. She didn’t want to do that again. Nor did she want to get into something she couldn’t handle, or that didn’t make sense. Like a long-distance relationship between Paris and Boston. And he didn’t seem to want that either. So they would have to be friends.

“What about you?” she asked him. “Do you miss the woman you were with?”

“Not anymore,” he said, truthful again. “I did in the beginning. It was convenient, but not enough. I’ll never do that again. I’d rather be by myself than settle for so little.” And then he smiled at her, looking very Gallic. “Or with you.” He was charming, and had been enormously helpful to her, but it was too soon to know if he was sincere. Maybe he was just smooth. But it sounded good when he said it, and she took it at face value. A flirtatious thing to say and nothing more.

They rode on in silence for a while after that, and stopped for lunch at a quaint inn he knew in Fougères. He told her about the region they were in, and its history. He knew a lot about many things-literature, history, politics. He was an intelligent man, and she was grateful she had met him. He had been invaluable to her research, and her mother would be thrilled with all that she’d found. The project seemed to have grown beyond its original purpose, and she now knew so much more than just a list of her ancestors, and when they lived and died. Wachiwi had become a little sister, a symbol of courage and freedom, an inspiration, a best friend.

“Tell me about the Chouans,” Brigitte asked him as they finished lunch. He had referred to them several times now, and she knew it had to do with Royalist resistants in the aftermath of the French Revolution, but she didn’t know much more than that, and it was obvious that he did.

“You should read Balzac’s book on the subject,” he suggested helpfully. “Les Chouans were the nobles and their supporters who refused to give in to the Revolution. In Paris, with rare exceptions, they lost their heads, and whatever they had-their houses, châteaux, lands, money, jewels, and mostly their lives, unless they were able to escape, but few did. The revolutionaries wanted revenge for years of oppression and inequality, and they wanted all the royals and nobles and aristocrats killed, and they made it happen. But the heat of the battle was in Paris. Farther away, particularly in a region called La Vendée, and Brittany, where your ancestors lived, the battle was not so thick, and the resisters were stronger. Many of them refused to surrender their châteaux, and put up a fight. Les Chouans are all of those who resisted, and also les Vendéens, but the heart of the resistance was in Brittany. Many kept their châteaux, although some were badly burned by the revolutionaries. But they weren’t able to kill as many aristocrats in Brittany. They didn’t have the forces they did in Paris, so the Royalists held their ground. Many were killed, and some of the châteaux were destroyed, but many survived. It will be interesting to see how your marquis fared when we get to Brittany. He may have been forced to surrender his château. It obviously wasn’t entirely destroyed if it’s still standing and they have tours there, or it may be nothing more than a burned-out shell. Many of the burned-out châteaux were never restored. It’s a great pity.”

And then he added some gratuitous information. “Many people blamed Marie Antoinette for the excesses of the time, and the direction in which she led the king. One can’t put it all at her door, but the nobles in those days, and the royals, certainly created a terrible situation for the poor, and didn’t seem to care. They paid for it dearly. Les Chouans were the only resisters, and their neighbors in La Vendée. But they weren’t as overwhelmed by sheer numbers as they were in Paris. It served them well that they were so far away. They were safer in Brittany, as safe as anyone was during the Revolution.” It shocked her to realize that the Revolution had been barely more than two hundred years before, which didn’t seem so long ago. Napoleon had come just after. The monarchy had been replaced by an empire, which wasn’t much better. And Napoleon had been just as excessive in his own way.

“It’s fascinating the role that women played in all that. Marie Antoinette before the Revolution, and Josephine after. It fits into my women’s gender studies. I should write a paper on it one day,” she said, looking pensive. She liked the idea.

“And don’t underestimate the courtesans. They were powerful women as well. The intrigues and manipulations at court were tremendous, and in some cases, women held all the power, and the key. Men are always willing to ride into battle. Women are much more clever, and can be very dangerous at times.”

“What a book that would make,” she said, smiling. “And to think I’ve spent seven years researching women’s right to vote, and I thought that was interesting. It’s nothing compared to all this.” But the French were singularly committed to intrigue, and when she said it to Marc, he didn’t deny it.

“That’s what makes our history so interesting. It’s never what it appears to be on the surface. All the important pieces are on the underside of the story, and you have to search for them to know what really happened.” Not unlike the details she had unearthed about Wachiwi. “How do you feel about having an Indian in your ancestry?” he asked her. He had wondered about it.

“I like it,” she said simply. “At first I thought my mother might be upset, since she’s such a snob about our aristocratic French background, and such a purist. I wasn’t sure being part Sioux, even by a fraction, would please her. But she seems to like it too. And I love the idea that there’s something more exotic in my DNA than a lot of French nobles with titles, with all due respect,” she said, glancing at him apologetically for the comment.

Marc laughed when she said it. “Don’t worry, I don’t have a single aristocrat in my background. My ancestors were all peasants.”

“Whatever they were, they were courageous people, judging by the book about your parents and grandparents.”

“I think going against the tides is in our nature. That’s very French too. We never want to do what we’re supposed to. It’s much more fun to start a revolution, or be in the resistance. We’re oppositional people, and we never agree with each other either. That’s why we love talking politics here, so we can disagree with everyone.” There were heated debates in cafés constantly, and on campuses, about meaningful subjects. It was one of the things Brigitte had always liked about France.

They talked all the way to Saint Malo, and it was too late to visit the château when they got there. They checked into the hotel where he had booked rooms for them, and they walked around the port. The town was old-fashioned and pretty. He told her it had been a whaling town long ago, and he entertained her with more stories about the region.

They stopped and bought ice cream, and sat down on a bench to eat it, looking out at the ocean.

“Can you imagine the size of the boat Wachiwi must have come here on?” She looked dreamy when she thought about it. What a brave girl she must have been. And the man she loved and was traveling with had died on the trip. It must have been terrifying for her.

“I don’t want to think about it,” he said. “I get seasick.” He finished his ice cream, and they walked back to the hotel. They each had a tiny room barely bigger than the bed, and they shared a bathroom, but it was cheap. They each paid for their own room. He had offered to pay for hers, and Brigitte wouldn’t let him. He had come here to help her with her research, and there was no reason why he should pay for her. And she didn’t want to be obligated to him.

They ate dinner at a fish restaurant that night since their hotel served no food. The meal was delicious, and he ordered an excellent bottle of inexpensive wine. And dinner with him was lively and interesting. She always had a good time with him. He was so well educated and knew so many things about history, art, literature. She was astounded at his memory for historical facts and dates. He knew more about some aspects of American history than she did. And he was well informed about politics in the United States too. He was incredibly bright without being pompous, which was rare. So many of the professors she knew in academic life were disconnected from the real world and thought they knew it all. Marc knew a lot but still managed to be humble and make fun of himself. She liked that about him, and he had a good sense of humor. He told her some funny stories about his student days in Boston, and they were laughing when they got back to the hotel, said goodnight, and went to their respective rooms.

She was wearing an old flannel nightgown and brushing her teeth when he walked in on her in the bathroom. She had forgotten to lock the door, and he was wearing boxers and a T-shirt and looked just like any other guy at home. He didn’t look sexy and French, he looked human and real, and she liked that about him. He apologized profusely for walking in, although her nightgown covered her from neck to ankles.

“That’s a sexy-looking gown,” he said, teasing her. “My sister used to have a nightgown like that when we were in school.” He had mentioned her to Brigitte before. She lived in the South of France, was married, and had three kids and he was close to her. He referred to himself as her black sheep brother because he had lived with a woman, never married, nor had kids. She was a lawyer, and her husband was a judge in a small provincial town. “I don’t think she caught her husband by wearing it though,” he continued to tease Brigitte.

“I’m not in the market for a husband tonight,” she quipped back. “I left all my sexy nighties at home.” The truth was that she didn’t have any, and hadn’t bought sexy lingerie or nightgowns in years. She didn’t need them. She’d had Ted.

“What a pity, I was just about to propose.” He put toothpaste on his brush while he chatted with her, and a minute later, they were both brushing their teeth at the sink. It was a funny thing to be doing with a man she hardly knew, but somehow she didn’t mind. They were becoming real friends, despite his teasing her about relationships and proposals. For them, there was no risk of either one, she was determined to be friends.

When they finished brushing their teeth, he said goodnight, and they went to their rooms and locked the doors. Or she did. He left his unlocked just in case. He would have been perfectly happy if she had become overwhelmed by a tidal wave of lust during the night. Instead, she slept like a baby, and felt fresh in the morning. He expressed his disappointment over it at breakfast, and was teasing her again. In fact, he would have been startled if she had turned up in his room. She had made her boundaries perfectly clear to him, and despite what he said, he respected them, and her. He thought her a very impressive woman, and Ted a fool for having left her. No royal mummy he found in Egypt, or pharaoh’s tomb, would be worth it, in Marc’s opinion. Brigitte was a good woman and brighter than anyone he’d met in a long time.

They drove to the center of town after breakfast, and Marc stopped at the town hall. He had told her that marriages, births, deaths, and whatever had happened in the county were recorded here. It would confirm what she already knew, and perhaps unearth some things she didn’t. And once again, he was right. After paying a small fee, they spent several hours poring over ledgers. They found the entries for Tristan’s birth and his younger brother’s, and their parents’ births and deaths; both had died relatively young and within days of each other. Marc guessed they had died as a result of some epidemic, and he noted that Tristan had been only eighteen at the time, and his brother ten years younger, so he had inherited the title and everything that went with it when barely more than a boy.

They found the record of the births of Tristan and Wachiwi’s children, the first one named after his late brother. She had seen those names and dates already in the photographic records of the Mormons, but here they were, right where they originally came from. It moved Brigitte to see them in the ledgers. She made notes on everything for her mother, and when they walked into the courtyard afterward, there were young couples with bright expectant faces waiting to be married. Marc explained that in France one had to have a civil wedding before a church one, so all of the young couples there were having their civil ceremonies, and then would marry in church a week or two later. They all looked excited and happy, as Brigitte and Marc walked past them in the courtyard. The various sets of parents were chatting with each other. Brigitte smiled as she walked by, and then she and Marc got back in the car and drove to the château. They had timed their day perfectly. The guided tour was starting in less than an hour. She wanted to hear what they had to say, and to finally see what had once been her family’s château centuries before.

They drove up the same road that Wachiwi had traveled when she got there, to where the château sat on a cliff, looking out to sea. The Château de Margerac was a government-run monument now. They bought two tickets at the entrance to the gardens, and strolled together. Brigitte was amazed at how enormous it was. It looked like a fortress and had changed very little over hundreds of years. There were still bright flower beds in the garden, a maze, and benches where you could sit and look out at the view. They had no way of knowing that the bench where they sat for a few minutes was the one where Tristan had proposed to Wachiwi. But just being there made Brigitte feel steeped in her own history.

The stables were long empty, and there were a few ancestral portraits but not many, and those had been reclaimed at auction by the Department of Historic Monuments. Brigitte noticed some dusty hunting trophies, as people gathered at the foot of the grand staircase to take the tour, led by a young woman who explained who the Margeracs had been.

She said the château had been built in the twelfth century, and she reeled off a list of names of the generations who had lived there, and what they had done in the community and county. She said that the château was one of the largest in Brittany, and its owners had successfully fought off their enemies in the Middle Ages. And then she explained that that had been the case after the Revolution as well. They were taking the tour in French, and Marc translated for her as the guide spoke quickly, leading them through the master bedroom on the second floor and through several other grand rooms that were empty. They were told that there were bedrooms on the upper floors, as well as the nursery, but they were empty and closed to the public.

And as she finally led them back to the great hall, she announced almost proudly that the Marquis Tristan de Margerac had joined the forces of the resistance, after the Revolution, les Chouans, and had succeeded in keeping the château from being taken from them or invaded. She said that local history showed that he had kept his family sequestered there, despite a fire set in one part of the château by revolutionaries. But the marquis had prevailed and there were local stories that his wife had fought valiantly at his side. Tears sprang to Brigitte’s eyes as she said it. She could easily imagine Wachiwi fighting to defend her home, her family, and her man, a Sioux to the end. The guide said that the château had remained in the family until the mid-nineteenth century, when they had migrated to America. And at the turn of the century, after other owners sold it and it changed hands several times, the Department of Historic Monuments had taken it over and restored it. She said that much of what they saw there was as it had originally been, although in the time that the last generations of marquises had lived there, it had been far more grand. There had been antiques, many of which had disappeared, many servants, extensive lands, all of which had been sold off when the château changed hands. She said the stables had been filled with Thoroughbred horses, and she mentioned that Marquis Tristan de Margerac’s wife had been an exceptional horsewoman of legendary skill in the county. She made a passing comment that she was remarkable in that she was a Native American, believed to be a Sioux, and had come to France to marry him, although she didn’t know the details. She said that her name was Wachiwi, and both she and her husband were buried in the family cemetery behind the thirteenth-century chapel on the estate, where members of the family had been buried for hundreds of years. She added that no direct members of the Margerac family still existed in France. They had all emigrated to America during the nineteenth century and possibly died out.

Marc squeezed her hand when the guide said it, and it made Brigitte want to wave her arms and shout, “Here I am! I’m one of them!” She was still looking deeply moved and vibrant and excited when the tour ended and they walked back outside. She had bought several pamphlets and postcards for her mother, and she looked around feeling a deep tie to her ancestors and their château, and most especially to Wachiwi, who was an inspiration to her now.

She was intrigued to know that Marc had been right. Tristan de Margerac had been a Chouan, and had been able to keep the château, despite the revolutionaries’ attempts to capture it and set it on fire. He had held his ground like others in the region, and Wachiwi had helped him, with all her Sioux fierceness and courage. It must have been a frightening time.

Hearing about it made Brigitte want to write about it, but she still didn’t know how. Fact or fiction? Historical novel? Anthropology? History? Romance? She didn’t know which avenue to pursue, or if she ever would. Maybe it was enough to just know about it, and realize that she was part of it in some way.

She and Marc went down to the small cemetery behind the chapel, although the others didn’t. They had no interest in looking at the headstones and vaults of dead Margeracs for centuries of generations. The chapel was empty when they went inside. One side looked as though it had been damaged by fire long ago, but it was still standing. Brigitte couldn’t help wondering if it was part of the damage done by the revolutionaries or if it had happened later on.

They wandered out into the garden behind it. There were several somber-looking mausoleums, and many headstones, some of which had been worn smooth by time and the names on them lost. Brigitte knew what she was looking for and what she hoped to find, as Marc followed her into the first two mausoleums, and then a third. All were the names of Margeracs of previous generations, and the carvings of their names were well preserved. They were mostly sixteenth and seventeenth century, and some from the mid- and early 1700s. Tristan and Jean’s parents were there. Brigitte was disappointed to find that Tristan and Wachiwi weren’t, as they walked back outside.

There were two handsome monuments at the back of the cemetery, under a tree, with smaller headstones around them. She had lost hope of finding Tristan and Wachiwi by then, but there was something soothing about reading the names that were her forebears’, and part of the ancestry her mother had been pursuing and chronicling for years.

Marc saw them before she did. He had walked all the way back to the rear of the cemetery to read the names on the last two monuments, and he waved excitedly to Brigitte. She climbed through some tall weeds to get there. The path that meandered through the cemetery was long since overgrown.

He was standing there reverently with tears in his eyes as he silently held out a hand to Brigitte. Their names were clearly marked. They had both died in 1817, within less than three months of each other, twenty-eight years after the revolution, three years after Napoleon’s abdication, and two years after the battle of Waterloo. Wachiwi had died thirty-three years after she had come to France, and thirty-two years after she became the marquise. When they searched through the tall grasses, they found many of the others, her children, their spouses, and two of their children who had died in France. Still others had gone to the States. So many of the names she had seen recorded recently in ancient ledgers were there, with Tristan and Wachiwi in their midst. Their monuments sat solemnly in the peaceful garden, side by side just as they had lived. Tristan had died at sixty-seven, which had been a considerable age for those times, and it was hard to know how old Wachiwi had been. If she had been around seventeen when she left her village, and eighteen when she married Tristan in that case, then she must have been fifty when she died, and perhaps had died of grief without him, although it wasn’t unusual to die at that age. He was more unusual for having lived much longer. The dates of his birth and death were recorded on Tristan’s tombstone; on hers only the date of her death was inscribed. Probably no one had ever known her precise age-nor had she, since there was no record of her age when she left her tribe, and later fled with Jean.

It was deeply moving, standing there. There had been generations of her ancestors that had come later, but it was Wachiwi, the little Sioux girl who had stolen her heart, whose story she loved. The wild girl from the Dakota Sioux had survived being kidnapped, crossed a continent, an ocean, and come to France, found love and stayed, been presented to a king and queen at court, lived through a revolution and defended her home, and had been an important link in a long chain of generations that ultimately connected her to Brigitte, who felt a deep bond to this girl. Standing near Wachiwi’s final resting place, and her husband’s, made Brigitte feel as though she had come full circle in some way, and found her roots at last. She felt a part of this place, and these people, almost as though she knew them, and in many ways, thanks to what she had read about them, she did. She was suddenly deeply grateful to her own mother for leading her on this path, albeit reluctantly at first.

She and Marc stood holding hands in the cemetery, and then slowly, reluctantly, they walked away, past the chapel and the château. He put an arm around her, and they walked back to where they had left his car. It was an unforgettable afternoon. And she felt sad to leave them, and the château, as they drove away.

“Thank you for letting me come here with you,” Marc said quietly as they drove back to the little town. It had been moving for him too. The story had been so intricate until now, so mysterious, like a puzzle they had been trying to solve, and now it was laid out before them like a stained-glass window, all the pieces fit and the light was shining through it. He was proud to have been a part of it, and grateful to have shared it with her.

“I would never have known all I do about her now, if it weren’t for you,” Brigitte said, smiling at him. The court diaries she had found had made a huge difference in her understanding of who Wachiwi was and what had happened to her.

“I think it was destiny that brought us together,” he said with a sigh. He believed that. Stranger things had happened.

“Maybe,” she conceded, but she hadn’t done as much for him, and wished she had. She liked listening to his stories about his book.

“Perhaps it’s your destiny to stay in France too, like Wachiwi,” he said cryptically, and she laughed. He was definitely taken with her, enjoyed her company, and didn’t want her to leave. She had finished everything she had come here to do. And after they got back to Paris, she had to go home.

“I have to look for a job,” she said practically. “In Boston.”

“You can find one here.” He mentioned the American University of Paris again, and conveniently he had a friend there in the admissions office, whom he offered to call on her behalf.

“And then what would I do? I have no apartment, no friends. I have a dozen years of history in Boston.” And boredom, she thought to herself, but didn’t say it.

“You have me,” he said cautiously, but they were both aware that they hardly knew each other. Nothing had happened between them, and maybe never would. She couldn’t move to Paris for a man she liked talking to. That wasn’t enough, and they both knew it. And Brigitte wasn’t an impulsive person. She was sensible, and always had been. “I think you should write the book here, about your Sioux ancestor,” he insisted, but she wasn’t convinced. It was a wonderful story, because it mattered to her, but she wasn’t sure if it would make a book, nor if she could write it. She wasn’t a novelist or a historian, she was an anthropologist. This was different, it was full of the raw emotion she had no experience writing. “It might do you good to spend a year in Paris,” he said, still trying to convince her. “At some point in our lives, we all have to do something crazy that makes no sense but warms our heart.” And he knew that Wachiwi did.

“I don’t like taking risks,” Brigitte said quietly, and he turned to look at her.

“I know. I can see that. Maybe you should.” But it wasn’t his decision to make, it was hers. And hers was to go home to Boston. It felt like the right thing to do.

They had dinner at a different fish restaurant that evening, and spent the night in the little hotel. And on Sunday morning they drove back to Paris. They chatted occasionally on the drive, and part of the way Brigitte fell asleep. Marc looked over at her with a smile. It was nice having her there next to him, dozing peacefully as he drove. He was glad he had gone to Brittany with her. And he was sad thinking that in a few days she’d be gone. He only hoped that the days since he had met her had convinced her to stay.