After Julie came along, she had only added to the fun. She and her grandfather—she called him Papi, like a French kid—had a special bond. The two of them lit each other up, and always had. Thanks to Henry, Julie now spoke excellent French. He read her all the books Camille remembered reading as a child—Babar, Astérix, Le Petit Prince, Mon Petit Lapin—and they laughed themselves silly over the zany French movies he brought back from his travels. He was the father figure Julie had lost, and he reveled in the role.
There were two rules of Friday-night dinner, and the rules never varied. First, they had to speak French and listen to Papa’s music selections. And second, they had to cook together at home. No sending out for pizza or getting a corn dog at the Tastee-Freez.
The promise of summer lingered in the evening air when Camille and Julie arrived for their weekly visit. They found Henry in the garden, gathering greens for the salad. His straw hat and gardening clogs might have looked funny on anyone else, but on Camille’s father, they only made him seem more French.
“Ah,” he said, setting down his basket. “There you are, my lovelies.” He gave them each a hug and three kisses, one on each side and a third for good measure in the French way. “It’s such a fine evening, I thought we would have our aperitif on the patio. We can make socca on the grill.”
“Sounds perfect.” Camille set down her bag, grateful to have reached the end of a trying week. Socca was comfort food—a simple flatbread made of chickpea flour baked on a grill with caramelized onions and finished with flaky salt.
“I bet you’re the only guy in town who owns a socca pan,” Julie said in French, taking down the flat copper pan that hung near the outdoor grill.
He set it over the flame. “And you are the only young lady in town who knows what socca is. I learned to make it by watching the street vendors in Nice when I was about your age. I need a few snips of rosemary.”
Julie went to the flourishing bed of herbs to find it.
“What can I do?” Camille asked.
“Take the salad greens inside and give them a wash. And bring the wine when you come. There’s a bottle of Apollinaris for Julie.”
She picked up the basket and headed inside. The kitchen smelled amazing—something simmering in wine. Her father had bought the historic colonial house the year he’d married her mother. Bearing a historical plaque, it was a classic of architecture peculiar to the shore, once known as a “big house, little house, colonnade, and kitchen.” The original dwelling had begun life centuries before as a simple home—the little house. As the family and fortune grew, the colonnade and kitchen were added, and finally the big house, a two-story structure with three lovely bedrooms upstairs. There was a porch set on an east–west axis to catch breezes from the shore.
Together, Henry and Cherisse had restored the place, staying faithful to the traditional style. But after Camille came along, the family didn’t grow, and most of the rooms in the house sat empty. In the wake of the divorce, Camille had spent most of her childhood with her mom, stepdad, and two half sisters, setting aside Fridays for Papa.
Her mother had declared that she had enough of drafty rooms, creaky floors, and the like, and she and Bart moved to a modern townhome near the beach. It had been an unusual childhood for Camille, shuttling between Mom and Papa, but she’d always felt loved and supported. When her half sisters came along, she never felt like the odd one out. It was her normal. And it was a good normal, right up until she had lost Jace. After that, finding normal was impossible.
So she did what was possible. She took care of Julie, spent time with friends and family, worked at the shop, and rescued other people’s pictures. It wasn’t the life she’d once envisioned for herself, but it was the only one that made sense to her.
She placed the greens in the sink and turned on the water. The plumbing shuddered and groaned. A house this age was a constant repair project. More than once, she’d asked him why he needed such a big place.
“It’s too much house for me,” he readily agreed, “but I do love old things.”
Camille did, too, and she was glad he’d kept it. Sometimes, though, she worried that the upkeep was getting to be too much for him. She didn’t like to think of him all alone in his historic, too-large house, tending his garden and cooking beautiful meals for friends. Though he was retired, Henry often poured samples at the Grand Crew Tasting Room on busy summer evenings. People loved him, with his quick, expert way of pouring and his in-depth knowledge of wine.
Camille liked knowing he got out every once in a while, especially now that his cancer had gone into remission. Still, she worried about what would happen to him when he grew too old to manage the big house.
When she was young, she expected her father to meet a woman and bring her home. She used to envision what it would be like to have a stepmother, which caused her some apprehension. As she grew older, she wanted him to find someone, the way her mom had found Bart, wearing her new happiness like a glistening mantle.
Henry was good-looking even now, at seventy-two. He was stylish and interesting . . . and so very French. He was also a master gardener and an excellent French country cook. He was creative and sure of himself, and totally resourceful. Sometimes when they worked in the kitchen side by side, he would give her a wink and say, “I would make someone a wonderful wife, eh?”
Every few years, she would ask him the same question. “Papa, why have you never remarried?”
After Jace died, her father had asked her the same question. “Why have you never remarried?”
That shut her down entirely. After that conversation, she never asked her father again why he went through life alone. Because now she understood. After Jace was gone, everyone had expected her to move on, including Camille herself. It hadn’t happened. Five years later, there didn’t seem to be room in her heart for anything but grief. It was the one constant in her life, and she knew there was a part of her—admittedly irrational—that didn’t want to let go of her grief, because that would mean losing him completely. Holding on to sadness kept him from fading away forever. She knew—on an intellectual level—that this was not the healthiest way to grieve. She’d gone to months of therapy to arrive at that realization. Yet knowing this hadn’t helped her move on. She had never remarried because she’d come to believe that no love was worth the pain of loss.
After emerging from the fog of shock and grief, she had put together a life for herself and her daughter that made sense—most of the time. Except for those moments when she felt so lonely that her heart felt like a bottomless well.
Her dating life was mostly ridiculous. Her relationships had been short—mercifully short—until Drake Larson. She’d stuck with him for six months before admitting defeat.
People said she was attractive. She had her father’s dark hair and eyes, and her mother’s dramatic cheekbones and full lips. But when she looked in the mirror, she didn’t see a beautiful woman. She saw a woman who worried constantly, who lived inside a sadness she couldn’t manage to climb out of, and who regretted how daring and incautious she had once been, long ago.
Perhaps in matters of the heart, she took after her father. Perhaps she was only meant to have one shot at marriage.
She spun the greens in the colander, at the same time trying to shake off a wave of melancholy and the residue of a rotten week—Julie’s accident, and ruining Professor Finnemore’s film. Then she found the wine and sparkling water, and brought a tray outside.
“The garden looks wonderful this year,” she said, surveying the oblong patch on the south side of the house.
“I put in two more rows of tomatoes this week,” he said, pointing out the staked plants on the end. “Brandywine and Belgian Giant. One can never have enough homegrown tomatoes, eh?”
“Exactly. Yours are the best, Papa.”
“Come, let’s sit,” he said, gesturing at a small café table on the brickwork patio. The socca was done, crunchy around the edges and fragrant with the onions and herbs. He poured a chilled rosé wine from Provence, the traditional pairing with socca, and sparkling water for Julie.
“Santé,” they said together, lifting their glasses.