“Of course.”
Sylvie bustled in, then stopped abruptly. “Whoa. Your apartment kind of looks like a museum.” She stared curiously at the jars, rocks, and fossils lining the shelves. “I never knew you were into all this stuff. But I guess it makes sense for someone whose job revolves around death.”
I bristled at the stereotype. “Actually, most of it belonged to my grandpa. I’ve just never really gotten around to sorting through it.” I hovered stiffly. “Would you like a cup of tea or something to eat?” Was anything in my pantry even appropriate? Sylvie’s tastes were likely more sophisticated than Triscuits and cheddar cheese.
“Green tea would be great if you have it! But wait, first let me tell you what I found out about Hugo.” She patted the sofa between her and a snoozing George. I sat down beside her.
With the wicked smile of someone about to reveal some sordid gossip, Sylvie opened her laptop partway. “So, this girl I dated for a summer in college—I also dated her brother, but that’s another story—lives in France now and she works as an art historian at a museum in Marseille. That’s where you said Claudia met Hugo, right?”
“Right.” It was hard to keep up with Sylvie’s extensive dating history.
She allowed for a dramatic pause. George woke up, startled by his own snore.
“Well, she has access to all kinds of civic and historical records and so I sent her his name and approximate age. I figured he was around Claudia’s age, which would have put him in his mid-twenties in 1956.”
“That’s probably about right.” I didn’t want to get too excited. “I think Claudia said she was twenty-four when she met him.”
“So anyway, she had to do some digging, but eventually she found this…” Sylvie opened up her laptop fully and swiveled it on her knees to face me. The screen showed a black-and-white photo of a youngish man with dark curls standing on the bow of a boat wearing a fisherman sweater. A scar interrupted the rugged stubble on the left side of his chin. And at his feet sat a shaggy Jack Russell missing its right front leg.
I peered closer. “That could be Hugo.”
“It’s totally Hugo!” Sylvie said, rolling her eyes. “There’s no way there would be two guys in Marseille with a chin scar and a three-legged dog. And I’ve got to say, the man looks good in a sweater.”
“What did you find out about him? Is he still alive?”
“So, this is where it gets even wilder. It turns out that they don’t have many records on this guy, Hugo Beaufort. Because, wait for it—” Another dramatic pause. “He immigrated to the United States in 1957.”
“What? He’s been living here all this time?”
“Yep. And so I did a little bit of further research of my own.”
“And?” I felt uneasy—this was definitely invading Claudia’s privacy—but I needed to know more.
“Turns out there’s a Hugo Beaufort, born in France in 1931, listed as a resident of Lincolnville, Maine.” Sylvie waited for me to catch on. “Meaning we could potentially track him down for Claudia before she dies.”
“Oh, wow.”
“There’s just one catch.” Her face turned apologetic. “No matter how hard I searched, I couldn’t find a phone number listed for his name. I did find an address, but it was from at least ten years ago, so I have no way of knowing if he’s still there.”
My conscience battled itself. “Is it even worth mentioning it to Claudia then? Discovering that he was so close by all this time might make her feel even worse.”
“True.” Sylvie snapped her laptop shut. “But it could also make her feel better. It can’t be a coincidence that he moved here a year after they met. Or more to the point, a year after she almost abandoned her fiancé for him.”
“I guess you’re right.” I chewed on my bottom lip. “But her health is getting worse every day—she’s probably got less than two weeks left. I don’t know if we should even put her through that.”
“Or, on the other hand,” Sylvie pressed, “are you depriving her of some kind of peace and resolution by not telling her? I would one hundred percent want to know. Wouldn’t you, if it were the love of your life?”
“I couldn’t say,” I said quietly. “I’ve never been in love.” The words sounded kind of pathetic coming out of my mouth.
“Yeah, but you’ve lived it a million times vicariously through all those rom-coms you devour.”
It surprised me how Sylvie seemed to get me in ways that I didn’t even get myself. “I need to think about it.”
I had to process the logistics, and the ethics, of what Sylvie was saying. But a long-lost lover living in coastal Maine did sound like the ultimate romance plot—even if it was a little clichéd.
“Well, don’t overthink it—Claudia deserves closure. I mean, isn’t that the whole point of your job?”
I glanced at my notebooks. “It’s one aspect of it.”
Sylvie stood up and began wandering around the room in awe. “What did you say your grandpa did again?”
“He was a biology professor at Columbia.”
“Huh.” She picked up a jar and peered at the exoskeleton inside, rotating the vessel above her head like she was slowly screwing in a lightbulb. “It’s cool that you keep all his stuff around in his memory, but have you ever thought of, you know, making the place more your own? I’ll be honest: it’s a little bit creepy for a thirty-six-year-old woman.”
Her words stung. “It is my own. I’ve lived here on and off since I was six. I grew up surrounded by all these things.”
“I get that, I do, but it’s all still your grandfather’s vibe, right?” Sylvie pulled a book off the shelf and read its spine. “Like, have you ever actually read The Insect Societies by Edward O. Wilson?”
“No,” I said, my cheeks lighting like dormant coals responding to breath. “But I might one day.”
Sylvie rolled her eyes again. “Right, I’m sure there’s a lot of romance in that one.” Returning the book to its place, she ran her finger along the row of spines and stopped on my three notebooks.
“‘Regrets’ … ‘Advice’ … ‘Confessions’ … Hey, what are these?” Sylvie grabbed the first one.
I lunged across the room. “Please don’t touch those.”
Watching Sylvie audit my space so clinically made me feel raw and exposed. Every single object in this apartment was a thread binding me to Grandpa. And with each thing Sylvie touched, I felt a tug at my heart, like the thread’s strength was being tested.
Sylvie shoved the notebook back in the wrong place and stepped away obediently. “Sorry, are they like your personal diaries or something?” She held up her hands in surrender. “I completely respect your privacy if that’s the case. I’m all for boundaries.”
“They’re not my diaries, exactly.” I couldn’t stop myself from rearranging the books to their proper order. “They’re more, well, I kind of keep a record of the last things people say before they die—you know, like their words of wisdom and stuff. And I guess it would feel like an invasion of their privacy if I let somebody else read them.”
Sylvie nodded, but looked at me quizzically. “But all of those people are dead, right? So how would they even know?”
“I would know.” I glanced over at Grandpa’s armchair, my stubbornness solidifying. “Just because no one’s there to witness it, doesn’t make it okay.” Most of the words in those notebooks had been spoken when people were at their most vulnerable. I could never betray their trust.
We eyed each other cautiously for a few seconds before Sylvie broke into a grin.
“Wow, C, I love how your moral compass rarely wavers, even when I try to corrupt it. A very admirable personality trait. I wish I could say I was as decent as you all the time. But, somehow, bending the rules is just more … fun.”
She winked as she walked toward the windows and splayed the Venetian blinds with two fingers, forming a diamond-shaped portal into the night outside.
“Hey, did you know you can see right into the building across the street?”