Elin Hilderbrand - The Love Season

“I’ll bet your father never told you that,” Marguerite said.

“Never,” Renata said. “Do you think he even remembers?”

“He remembers,” Marguerite said. “He swore I put something in the food that made him fall in love.”

Renata smiled. She was wallowing in this talk like a pig in mud; she was sucking it in like a dog with his snout stuck out a car window. Her parents together, her parents in love-it was Renata’s own history she was hearing about.

“Your father thought I was back in the kitchen stirring potions in my cauldron, my uncut hair graying in its braid. Even before your mother died, he never fully trusted me.”

Renata kept quiet; she sensed this was probably true. She marveled that it was growing so late and no one from Vitamin Sea had called-not her father, not Cade.

“No one has called,” she said.

“I unplugged the phone,” Marguerite said.

“And no one has come by.”

“Not yet,” Marguerite said. She sipped her water and took a rejuvenating breath. She enjoyed telling Renata about the good times: the restaurant open, Marguerite and Porter together, Candace alive. Was she making herself clear? Could the child see her mother as Marguerite saw her-showered after a long day of exercise and sun, in one of the cocktail dresses that left her shoulder bare. Her blond hair freed of its elastic and spilling down her back. Her easy manner, like the best women of that time, full of simplicity and grace.

“She desperately wanted to go to Africa,” Marguerite said. “She wanted to open a restaurant in the Sahara.”

“She did?”

“We went to Morocco together, your mother and I.”

“You did?” In her mind, Renata heard the metallic rain of coins falling from a slot machine. Jackpot. This was something she never would have known about her mother if she weren’t sitting right here. Her mother had been to Morocco. She had gone running through the medina in a Boston Red Sox cap; the men who owned the carpet shops, the men who carved thuya wood, the men who served conical dishes filled with tagine , the men who drove the taxis, the men who pressed juice out of oranges on the Djemaa el-Fna, they had called after Renata’s mother in wonder. It was her blond hair, her smile, her sweet and awkward French-the whole country fell in love with her.

“Your mother was one of those people,” Marguerite said. “Everyone was drawn to her-friends, perfect strangers. She could do no wrong; she could get away with anything. I can’t tell you how many times I wished I could be like that. I wanted to …be Candace.” Marguerite arranged her silverware carefully at an angle on the side of her plate and folded her napkin. She had never admitted this to anyone; she hadn’t even thought it all the way through in her own mind-but yes, it was true. When Marguerite stood in front of Madame Verge’s mirror she thought she would grow up to be like Candace. Marguerite smiled. “I’m going to guess you take after your mother.”

Renata’s first instinct was to deny it. Her father loved her unconditionally, of course, and Action and Cade. She attracted people easily-like Miles and Sallie. Renata wasn’t sure what all these people saw in her; she wasn’t sure who they thought she was-she didn’t even know herself yet. Her mother had had a magnetism, something natural she emitted from her heart: love, maybe, patience, understanding. Whereas Renata felt like she was constantly giving pieces of herself away, she was engaged in a juggling act to keep everyone in her life happy. Yes, I’m being careful; yes, you’re my best friend; yes, I love you the most .

Renata shook her head. No, not me. I’m not like that . “Whatever happened with the restaurant in Africa?”

“Nothing happened,” Marguerite said. “While we were in Morocco, your mother discovered she was pregnant.”

“With me?”

“With you.”

“So I ruined her dream, then?”

“No, no, darling. It would never have worked out anyway, for a million reasons. It wasn’t meant to be.”

“You could still do it,” Renata said.

Marguerite laughed. “That time has come and gone.”

“No, really,” Renata said. “You could open a restaurant over there like you and Mom wanted. You could leave this place for a while.” Renata’s voice sounded concerned and Marguerite wondered if it contained any pity. The last thing she wanted was for the child to pity her.

“Leave?” Marguerite said, as though the thought had never occurred to her. It had, of course. Sell her house and move to Paris. Or Calgary. Start over someplace new, like she was nineteen instead of sixty-three. “I’ll have to think about that.”

Marguerite cleared away the dinner plates and left Renata in the dining room to enjoy the champagne, the flowers, the ticking of the old clock. All this information at once, it was a lot for a person to process; Renata could use a few minutes of quiet. As Marguerite rinsed the dishes she pondered the girl’s words. Out of the mouths of babes. You could still do it . Marguerite thought about the night Candace first mentioned the restaurant. She remembered Candace’s anger with her, her frustration. I want you to reimagine . She could reimagine now, with ease: A restaurant with walls of canvas, swathed like the head of a Bedouin. A place in the middle of the desert that would be hard to reach, where some nights it would be just Marguerite alone, enjoying enough romantic atmosphere for fifty people. She would wait those nights for the ghost who left footprints in the sand.

Before she set out dessert, Marguerite retreated to her bedroom to fetch the photographs from her dresser. There were only the two that Marguerite had to show, though there were hundreds of others-pictures from the restaurant opening, benefit nights, pictures from Candace’s wedding, from Morocco-that Marguerite kept in a wooden wine crate in the storage space of the smallest of the five upstairs bedrooms. Maybe one day down the road she would have the courage to pull that box out and sift through it, but for now there were just these two pictures. Marguerite set them down in front of Renata. Renata picked up the christening picture first and squinted. Admittedly, there wasn’t much light in the dining room, but Marguerite didn’t want to spoil the atmosphere by making it brighter.

“That’s me?” Renata said. “The baby?”

“That’s your christening party.”

“It was at the restaurant?”

“Of course. You’re my godchild. The one and only.”

Renata gazed at it with the most heartbreakingly earnest expression Marguerite had ever seen.

“You don’t have pictures of Candace at your house?” Marguerite asked.

“Oh, we do,” Renata said. “Just not this one.”

“Right,” Marguerite said. The girl’s life had more holes than Swiss cheese. But here was a hole Marguerite could fill. Renata, Marguerite, and Candace at the party following Renata’s christening. “It was probably the most glamorous christening party any child ever had. We had foie gras, black truffles, champagne, thirty-year port, Cuban cigars, caviar-”

“Really?” Renata said. “For me?”

“Really. For you.” Daniel had insisted on footing the bill for everything, though Marguerite had given a case of champagne and Porter had, somehow, conjured up the cigars. “It was a big deal, your arrival in the world.”

“I love this picture,” Renata said.

“Yes, so do I.” Marguerite studied it, trying to see with fresh eyes. Both she and Candace looked so proud, so awestruck, that they might have been the baby’s parents: mother and godmother.