Relieved, Juliette nodded, though that wasn’t what she’d meant at all.
“No. I—I wanted to talk to you about something.”
It was then that Juliette realized Lucie was holding something behind her back. Had Lucie found one of the volumes Juliette and the art dealer hadn’t been able to locate? If Lucie had done so, perhaps it would soften some of the tension between them. It would show Juliette that Lucie wasn’t trying to disrespect her past by forgetting it, and that in fact, she was working with her mother rather than against her. “What is it, Lucie?”
“I—I have something.” Lucie sounded shy, nervous. “Something that I hoped might remind you of the past—but also of the life that still lies before us. Something that I hoped would show you that the past is important to me, too, just as it is to you.”
It must be a book. Juliette smiled at her daughter. She had judged her incorrectly. Perhaps Paul had sent her here today, to remind Juliette that she and Lucie were in this together, that as mother and daughter, they could focus on making this store an even more perfect replica of the one they’d left behind. “How did you find it?” she asked.
Lucie’s forehead creased. “Find it?”
“The book!” Juliette held out her hand, feeling lighter already. “Was it the art dealer? Did Arthur give you the money?”
The confusion on Lucie’s face deepened. “Maman, I don’t…” She trailed off and cleared her throat. “I don’t have a book.”
“Oh.” Juliette let her hand drop. The familiar sting of annoyance had begun to creep back in. “Well then, what is it?”
But Lucie didn’t make a move to reveal whatever she was hiding. Instead, she stared at her mother until Juliette was forced to look away. She didn’t like what she saw reflected there. “They’re perfect, aren’t they?” Lucie asked, her voice so soft it was almost inaudible. “They can do no wrong.”
“Who?” Juliette asked impatiently.
“Alphonse. Claude. Antoinette. Papa.”
Each name hit Juliette like a separate blow to the gut. She put her hands to her belly to protect herself. “What are you saying?”
“They’ll always be perfect to you, because they died.” Lucie’s voice quivered, and Juliette knew that she was supposed to step forward and wrap her arms around her daughter in comfort and reassurance, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. “But I lived. And because of that, you see only the things I’m not, all the ways I’ve failed you simply by being me.”
Juliette felt heat rise to her cheeks, anger at her daughter’s audacity, embarrassment at the veracity of her statement, fury at Lucie’s inability to understand. She forced herself to breathe, to imagine Paul’s hands on her shoulders, comforting her. “That simply isn’t true.”
“But it is.” Lucy’s tone wasn’t accusatory, merely sad, and perhaps that was worse. “You live in the shadows of what happened, Maman, but I don’t want to anymore. I can’t. We have to move on, both of us.”
“Move on?” Juliette’s voice rose an octave, and she was aware of the way her anger was leaking out at the seams now, but she wasn’t able to control it. “How can you suggest such a thing? Do you know how lucky you were? To have lived?”
“Yes, of course!” Lucie shot back. Her hands were still behind her back, and Juliette fought the sudden desire to reach around and rip whatever it was out of her daughter’s hands. “But simply surviving isn’t everything! We must make a life, and to do that, we must live in the present, not the past. You must live in the present, Maman!”
“You know nothing about it,” Juliette retorted. “You were a child! You have no idea what I’ve been through. You hardly even remember them.”
“Remember them?” Lucie’s laugh was bitter. “Of course I do! I think of them all the time. They were my family, too! I lost them, too! But it feels as if I lose you again and again every day.”
“Lose me?” Juliette scoffed. “That’s nonsense. I’m right here in front of you.”
“Are you? Then why does it feel like you’re thousands of miles away?”
“Because I’d like to be! Because I can’t stand this life, Lucie! Because I shouldn’t be here! I should be dead in the ground in France, and you should be, too!”
Lucie gasped and stepped back, and Juliette immediately regretted the words.
“I didn’t mean that the way it came out,” she said. “I’m grateful you lived, of course.”
“No, I don’t think you are.” Tears coursed down Lucie’s face. “I think you would prefer me frozen in time like the others. Then you could love me, too.”
“I do love you,” Juliette said, but she could hear how forced the words sounded, and she could see the pain on her daughter’s face. She hated herself for inflicting it, but her limbs felt heavy, her feet rooted to the spot, and she couldn’t muster the strength to step forward and make it better. “I do love you,” she repeated. “I love you very much.”
“No, you don’t. You love the child I was on an April morning in 1943. You don’t love the woman I’ve become. You want me to stick to a script you have written in your head, Maman, but I am my own person with my own interests. Claude, Alphonse, Antoinette, and Mathilde would have grown and changed and become their own people, too, you know!”
“But they never had the chance! And you insist on becoming someone I hardly recognize!”
“Only because you don’t take the time to see me!” Lucie retorted. “You spend all your time here in this store talking to yourself…”
Juliette glared at Lucie. “I’m not talking to myself.”
“Of course you are. When there’s no one here to answer you, that’s exactly what you’re doing.”
Juliette pressed her lips together. Lucie would never understand. No one understood.
“I just…” Lucie trailed off, and she shook her head. “Maman, I want you to see me. I want you to see who I’ve become and try to love me for it. I want you to remember that there’s a whole world that exists outside the store. We’re in New York, Maman! You could stand on the street here and hear a dozen languages all at once; the lights of Broadway are like a universe full of bright stars; the skyscrapers soar higher than we ever could have imagined when we were in Paris. It’s okay to think of the past, to miss it, but it’s been seventeen years, whether we like it or not. We’re here now, not there.” Lucie was crying now, but they weren’t the tears of rage Juliette expected. She only looked lost, sad. “I want you to realize that you’re ignoring the present and throwing away the future.” She paused and then added in a small voice, “You are throwing away me.”
“I’m sorry.” Juliette felt a surge of remorse, and that was good, because it meant she was feeling something. “I am sorry, Lucie. I don’t intend to hurt you.”
“This isn’t about your hurting me. This is about your coming back to me. Coming back to Arthur, even. Coming back to life.”
Juliette was about to say that she’d never left and that she would try harder to make Lucie see that, but then Lucie ruined everything, for she finally withdrew the item she was holding behind her back and held it up for Juliette to see.
“This is for you.” Lucie took a step closer as Juliette stared in horror at the image. Was Lucie mocking her? “I remember, too, Maman. I think of them all the time. Perhaps if we go back to Paris together, if we see it in the present, if we visit their graves, you can put the past to rest and remember what it is you loved about France…”
But Juliette was hardly listening to her daughter anymore. She snatched the painting from her hands and stared at it, rage clouding her vision. Who did Lucie think she was? “Where did you get this?” she demanded.
“I—I painted it.” But she sounded uncertain now, like a frightened little girl. “I thought perhaps you could hang it in the shop. A reminder that the past shaped both of us, but that we’re here now. I thought maybe it could be a fresh start.”
“A fresh start.” Juliette repeated her daughter’s words flatly. The painting was a violation of everything, a betrayal. It showed the rooftops of Paris under a twilight sky, the Eiffel Tower hulking in the falling darkness, the amber and crimson fading from the roofs, life happening in the shadows of the windows. “You thought this would be a fresh start?”
Lucie’s face had grown red, her eyes glassy with tears. “Why can’t it be?”
“Because this isn’t who we are!” Juliette spit out. “This Paris doesn’t exist anymore!”
“Of course it does! It always did. It was always right there, but you wanted to freeze time, to pretend that—”