One Summer In Paris. Sarah Morgan

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СКАЧАТЬ was a man at war on the inside. Good versus bad. David, the good guy, trying to slide into the skin of bad guy and finding it didn’t fit comfortably.

      “What have you turned into, David? What’s happened to the man I married?” She stood up quickly, frightened that her emotions would tumble onto the table between them. “Go. I said five minutes, and you’ve had your five minutes.”

      His fingers curled and uncurled. “I know it’s been stressful for you, but it’s also been stressful for Lissa.” He slid her a look. Wild. A little desperate. “Some of the people in town don’t even speak to her anymore. She’s finding it upsetting. She’s young, Grace. She’s struggling to handle all this.”

      Grace almost choked. “She’s struggling?”

      “I’ve lost a lot, too. I’ve lost my house, my standing in the community and also my close relationship with my daughter.”

      “She isn’t a pair of socks you’ve abandoned under the bed. You haven’t lost her. You chose something different.” Even as she said the words she was wondering what about me. Why wasn’t she on that list? Hadn’t she ever been important to him?

      She looked more closely at him and saw that he looked haggard. Why hadn’t she noticed that right away? If anything he looked worse than she did. Maybe having a girlfriend half his age was proving harder work than he’d imagined.

      “You need to leave now.” Before she picked up a skillet and clocked him over the head with it. That would give him the best headline he’d ever had in his time as editor. Shame he wouldn’t be alive to read it.

      He stood up. “Let me pay you, Grace. I don’t want you to lose money.”

      “I won’t lose money, because I’m not canceling.”

      It was difficult to know which of them was most surprised.

      David couldn’t have looked more dazed if she had clocked him over the head. “You’re surely not planning on going?”

      “Yes, I’m going. I’ve been looking forward to it for ages. Why would I cancel?”

      “Because—” He seemed lost for words, even though words were his job. “You don’t— You never— You travel with me. I’m the one who takes care of the passports and—”

      “I can carry my own passport, David. And yes, in the past we’ve traveled together but you now have a new traveling companion, so I’ll travel alone. If Lissa needs a trip to Europe, you can arrange your own.”

      “I— This isn’t like you.”

      “Maybe we don’t know each other as well as we thought.”

      “Maybe we don’t.” He took a deep breath. “Can I see Sophie?”

      “No.” She’d discovered a layer of steel inside her that she didn’t know she had. “You’ll upset her and she has a test tomorrow.”

      “I was the one who always reassured her before tests.”

      “Maybe, but right now she doesn’t find your presence reassuring. Call her tomorrow, and if she feels like seeing you then she can. It’s her decision.”

      She stalked to the front door and was relieved when he followed.

      She’d half expected him to make a dive for the stairs.

      He paused in the doorway, and his eyes were sad. “I know you’re never going to forgive me, but I didn’t want it to be this way, Grace.”

      She gave him a little shove and closed the door between them, not because she wanted to be rude, but because she didn’t trust herself not to break down and cry.

      She’d always believed she could control the things that happened in her life and keep her world in the shape she wanted it to be. Discovering that wasn’t the case was as frightening and heartbreaking as losing David.

      Tears poured down her cheeks. She couldn’t let Sophie see her this upset.

      She waited until David’s car disappeared into the distance, called up to Sophie to tell her where she was going and then drove to the one person who always made her feel safe.

Mimi

      Through her kitchen window, Mimi saw Grace flying down the path toward her cottage.

      The edges of her coat flapped open and the rain had dampened her hair into curls so that each strand appeared to be fighting with the next, but what really caught Mimi’s attention was her expression. Everything she felt showed on her face.

      Instinctively Mimi reached for her camera but then put it down again. She’d recorded many things over her lifetime, but she wasn’t going to record her granddaughter’s pain.

      As a child Grace had learned to hide it with most people, but never with Mimi. It was as if she’d given her grandmother the key that opened the door to her soul. In that moment she looked so like her mother that Mimi was immobilized, her memory transported to another time. It was like seeing Judy again, like being given a second chance.

      Some women weren’t meant to be mothers. Mimi was one of them.

       It was all my fault, and I’m sorry.

      Her silent apology to her daughter went unheard and when Grace lifted her fingers to brush tears from her cheek, Mimi saw only the differences. The nose was different. The mouth was different. Grace’s face was oval and thinner than her mother’s, although Judy’s appearance had altered toward the end.

      Mimi clutched at the kitchen counter, steadied herself.

      Why did life come with so much tragedy?

      Right now she felt every one of her ninety years, and for a fleeting second she wanted to lie down and curl into a ball and let life do whatever it needed to do.

      And then Grace drew closer, and Mimi knew that while she was still able to function, she would never give up and let life do its worst. And she would never abandon Grace.

      It was a relief to discover that the fight, the anger that she’d thought had maybe left her along with much of her hearing and her previously perfect eyesight, was still there.

      She opened the door, heard the hiss of the rain on tarmac and breathed in the smell of damp grass.

      Winter had been nudged aside by spring, but the sun had yet to emerge from hibernation. Every day brought a dank wetness, and skies heavy with cloud. The cold made Mimi’s bones ache. She longed for summer when she could fold away the extra blankets she kept close.

      “Grace.”

      Grace tumbled through the door into her arms, and Mimi almost staggered. It was as if grief had made her heavier. She led her to the pretty blue sofa that made her think of Mediterranean skies and azure seas. She sat, and Grace slid to the floor and sobbed into Mimi’s lap.

      She’d СКАЧАТЬ