There was silence for another few seconds, and then a choked voice asked, “Juliette?”
Time froze, for Juliette knew the voice in an instant, the American accent coated with the rich honey of time spent in Paris. Her name had never sounded as musical as it had when Elise LeClair spoke it, pronouncing the J like a native English speaker, and the -ette with the effortless lilt of the French. But how could Elise LeClair possibly be here, in New York, an ocean away from her trail of devastation?
“I told you she would come,” Paul whispered in her ear. She should have listened, should have prepared for this. But now, the past was here, uninvited, and there was nothing she could do to brace herself.
“Paul?” she said, but he had gone silent as he often did when customers entered the store.
“Juliette?” came the familiar voice again. “Are you there?”
For a second, Juliette considered hiding. But if it really was Elise LeClair, she would know all the spots that Juliette went to seek solace and privacy. She closed her eyes briefly and was surprised when the image that flashed through her mind was not the one in which Elise irresponsibly abandoned her daughter, but rather the one in which Elise found her one day, curled under the counter, sobbing. It had been just two months after she’d given birth to Lucie, and Lucie had been going through a phase where she never seemed to stop crying. Juliette hadn’t slept in days, and she was at the end of her rope. When Lucie’s squawks had escalated to a siren wail that morning, Paul had been out with the boys, and something in Juliette had simply shut off. Instead of going to her daughter to comfort her, she had put her hands over her ears and hidden under her desk with her eyes closed, repeating to herself again and again, “I’m a terrible mother.”
It was Elise who had stumbled upon her, and Juliette had opened her eyes to see her friend standing before her, Mathilde on one shoulder and Lucie on the other, both babies calm and quiet. “Sometimes, I wish I could hide, too,” Elise said with a smile that didn’t seem to hold any judgment or accusation about Juliette’s failures. “Lucky you, having a counter just your size.”
Juliette had blinked at her friend in confusion, but after a few seconds, she had unfolded herself from the space and reached out her arms to take Lucie, who was cooing contentedly now. “How did you do that?”
“I have a little screamer myself,” Elise had said, kissing Mathilde’s head. “I can’t explain it, but bouncing Mathilde around while I sing ‘Night and Day’ in my head always seems to calm her down. Somehow, it’s just the right rhythm.”
“The Fred Astaire song?”
“That’s the one. Try it next time.” Elise had smiled and abruptly changed the subject. “There’s a book I’m looking for, for Olivier. Can you help me find it, Juliette?” And just like that, Juliette had felt normal again, like a mother capable of soothing her daughter, like a woman capable of running a bookshop.
Now, when she opened her eyes, she found Elise standing before her once again. “Juliette, it is you,” Elise said.
Juliette was so dumbstruck by the strangeness of it that for a moment, she couldn’t speak. Of course it had been eighteen years since she had seen the woman who had once been her best friend, and she knew that she herself had changed, too. But somehow, she had expected Elise to remain frozen in time, just as Paul and the boys had. Instead, Elise had aged, although even Juliette had to admit she’d done so gracefully. Her hair, though still long and thick, had gone gray at the temples, and there were lines on her forehead and between her brows, a new pair of parentheses framing her mouth. She looked as tired as Juliette felt, and the light had gone out in her eyes the way it did when one had lost something irreplaceable. Juliette felt a jolt of recognition. Was it possible that Elise was just as lost as she was? But no, that couldn’t be; Elise had abandoned her daughter. She had no right to be sad. Having reminded herself of that, she pulled herself up to her full height and said, “Elise. What brings you here?”
From the way Elise blinked at her, Juliette had the sense that she’d taken the wrong tone, one far too casual and detached to use with someone who shouldn’t logically be standing here. But then she noticed that Elise’s face was tear-streaked, and that she appeared to be clutching a wood carving of a pair of arms holding a baby. Juliette looked at the piece of art in confusion. Was Elise coming unraveled? That would be an interesting development. It gave her a strange jolt of pleasure to consider it.
“Juliette,” Elise said after a long, awkward pause. “Ruth said you were here. That you’d re-created La Librairie des Rêves. Still, I didn’t quite believe it until…” She let the sentence trail off as she looked around the room, and Juliette could feel a swell of pride rising up within her.
“It’s perfect,” Juliette said, forgetting momentarily that she’d spent nearly two decades nursing a grudge against this woman. “It’s just as you remember it, isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is,” Elise said, drawing the words out, and Juliette had the strange sense that they weren’t intended to be a compliment.
“Why have you come?” Juliette asked, cutting right to the chase.
Again, Elise blinked at her, and Juliette had the feeling again that she’d said something wrong. “Because I want to know,” she said. “I—I want to know what my daughter’s final months were like. I—” Elise seemed to be having trouble speaking. “Please, Juliette. I know I have no right to ask anything of you. But if you could do me that kindness…”
Juliette could feel a storm gathering inside her. She could hear Paul whispering to her, telling her to calm down, but the anger was too great, and his voice faded into the dark clouds and thunderclaps. “You do recall, don’t you, that you chose to leave your daughter with me?”
Tears formed in Elise’s eyes, which startled Juliette. “Yes, I did,” Elise said, her voice breaking. “I can never thank you enough for taking her in. I know how difficult it was for you, and what it meant that you did that for me in the midst of a war. It has haunted me for nearly twenty years that I haven’t been able to thank you properly, or to return the favor.”
“Return the favor?” Juliette’s skin felt like it was crawling. “How could you return a favor like that?”
Elise took a step back, visibly startled. “Well, I—I couldn’t possibly. I only mean that if there’s anything I can do for you and Lucie…”
“Lucie is fine.” Juliette could hear the ice in her own voice now, and she could see in Elise’s face that she could hear it, too. Something tugged at her, a sense of unease.
“I’m glad you think so,” she said, and Juliette bristled at her choice of words. Juliette was Lucie’s mother! She was the only one who had the right—and the insight—to determine whether her daughter was well. “Please, Juliette,” Elise went on after a short pause. “It has already been a very difficult morning. It would mean so much to me if we could—”
“What is that, anyhow?” Juliette asked, cutting her off. Her full attention was now on the carved infant in Elise’s arms. “Why are you carrying that around with you?”
Elise lifted the piece and gazed at it with fresh tears in her eyes. “It’s a piece I carved long ago. Of Mathilde.”
She turned it around slowly, and Juliette gasped. It was beautiful; she had seen Elise’s birds and a few of her abstracts, but she had never seen anything like this. Elise had captured the exact curves of a baby Mathilde’s face, and the wood, so smooth and pale, seemed to be almost alive. “I remember,” she whispered without meaning to as she stared at the tiny Mathilde. She remembered when the girls had been this size, only a few months old, so tiny and helpless, but already on the way to becoming themselves. Lucie had been wide-eyed, inquisitive, and a chatterer; Mathilde had taken the world in more slowly, more quietly, like she was thinking about everything. Juliette remembered marveling to Elise about how two little girls who looked so similar could be so innately different from the start. “But what on earth are you doing with the carving now?”
“The gallery on the corner had it,” Elise said, her voice tight.
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s a long story.” Elise suddenly looked very weary. “Please, Juliette, would you talk to me? There’s so much I want to know and—and so much I owe to you.”
Juliette wasn’t sure whether it was Paul murmuring in her ear, the familiarity of the carving, or the intense sadness in Elise’s eyes, but she found herself nodding, and before she could stop the words from coming out, she had agreed. “I’ll close the store, but only for a little while,” she told Elise, already hating herself for what she was about to do. “We can talk in the back.”
* * *