“No, Suzanne.” Elise followed the girl in and marveled at how American the apartment looked, a Formica table in the kitchen nook, a threadbare pea-green sofa and matching armchair facing a small television in the corner, a framed painting of the Empire State Building above the mantel. Ruth and her children had successfully left the past behind and started anew. Why couldn’t Elise do the same? “I told your mother I would call her later, but, well, something has happened.”
Suzanne’s brow creased in concern. “Come, sit down, Madame LeClair.”
A moment later, Elise found herself pouring out the story of discovering her carvings of Mathilde in the art gallery, and of her troubling reunion with Juliette in the bookstore. “Was I—” She hesitated and cleared her throat. “Was I a terrible mother, Suzanne? Should I have taken Mathilde with me? Did I make a selfish decision? Is Juliette Foulon right? Am I the reason Mathilde is dead?”
The words sat between them, and Elise was afraid to see the truth on Suzanne’s face. What if there had been a part of her that knew it would be easier to move on alone? She couldn’t remember thinking of it that way, but what if she had? The mind plays tricks on us, and sometimes we recast the past in the way we need to see it in order to live with ourselves. Was that what Elise had done?
Finally, shaken by Suzanne’s silence, she looked up and was startled to see tears rolling down Suzanne’s round cheeks. “Suzanne? What is it?” she asked, and Suzanne choked out a little sob.
“Madame LeClair,” she said, “you were a wonderful mother. You must believe that.”
“Wonderful mothers don’t leave their children.”
“Then was my mother a terrible mother?”
Elise blinked quickly. “No, that’s not what I meant, of course.”
“I know. But think of what you’re saying. My mother left us because she had to. Because if we had stayed with her, we would have been arrested and sent to that camp with her. We would have died, Madame LeClair. Georges and I would have died. Instead, my mother made what must have been the most difficult decision of her life. She sent me and Georges away, not knowing where we would go, not knowing whose roof we would sleep under, not knowing who would feed us or love us or look after us. But she knew it was our best chance of survival. Our mother made the decision to be separated from us, not because she was a terrible mother but because she wanted us to live. Are you telling me you didn’t feel the same? You didn’t want more than anything in the world for Mathilde to survive?”
Elise closed her eyes. She could remember the terror throbbing through her body as she walked briskly west that day, the urge to pick Mathilde up and run with her, the deep certainty that if they stayed together, they’d both perish. Leaving her with Juliette hadn’t felt like a weight removed from her shoulders; it had felt like severing her soul from her body, like ripping her own heart out of her chest and leaving it beating and bleeding in someone else’s care. “But Mathilde died anyhow,” she said at last.
“You couldn’t have foreseen that.” Suzanne’s voice was firm. “Nor could Madame Foulon. Terrible things happen in wars, Madame LeClair. And a terrible thing happened to Mathilde, and to Madame Foulon’s family. But it was not because of you. You were a wonderful mother.”
“How do you know that?” Elise wiped away a tear. “How could you know, Suzanne?”
“Because you were a mother to us when we needed one,” Suzanne replied instantly. “Because even in the midst of your own grief, you didn’t hesitate, not for a second. Your heart was broken, and yet there was enough love left to make Georges and me feel safe and wanted. You didn’t just give us a home, you gave us your love. Our mother returned, thank God, but you were the one who brought us back to life while we waited. The way you cared for us is the way a mother cares, Madame LeClair.” She hesitated and added, “Do not let Madame Foulon change the way you see the past. Mathilde was a very lucky girl to have had a mother like you.”
“Lucky,” Elise murmured. It was a strange thing to think of, that Mathilde had been lucky at all. But for each and every day of her life—all 1,188 days she had lived on this earth—she had been loved deeply. Elise had never fallen asleep without whispering to her, had never passed a day without begging God to protect her, hadn’t passed an hour without thinking of her. Elise had done her very best to protect her, and the rest had been simply a cruel twist of fate.
“Madame LeClair?” Suzanne said after a moment. “Are you all right?”
“I will be, Suzanne.” She breathed in and out. “I think I will be.”
* * *
Ruth came home an hour later, and though she looked surprised to find Elise sitting in her living room, she welcomed her with a hug and insisted she stay for dinner. It was the third night of Hanukkah, and she was planning to roast a chicken.
“Think of how happy we would have been to have a whole bird during the war, Elise,” she said with a smile, nudging her friend. “It would have been a seudah, a feast! I try never to take it for granted. Please, have a meal with us. Georges will be here soon.”
And so Elise stayed and hugged Georges tightly when he came through the door, and fought back tears as Suzanne lit the third candle on the menorah, for Ruth and her children had not only survived but had kept their religious observances intact after all that had happened. They ate roasted chicken and potatoes and drank sweet red wine, and Elise teared up several times as she watched Suzanne and Georges laughing with their mother. What a gift that they had one another.
By the time dinner was over, it was pitch-black outside, the moon obscured by clouds, the streets dusted with snow. “You should stay the night,” Ruth said, but Elise shook her head.
“I need to get back to my hotel. I have to go by the gallery in the morning.”
“The gallery? Which gallery?” Ruth asked, and Elise realized she had been so caught up in being a part of the family tonight that she hadn’t told her friend what had happened.
“I’ll explain later.”
“Shall I come with you?” Ruth asked. “Make sure you get back safely?”
Elise smiled at this, her friend’s urge to protect her. “I’ll be fine.”
A few moments after saying her goodbyes to the children, Elise stood outside with Ruth as the older woman stepped toward the street, her hand raised to flag down a cab.
“Juliette doesn’t want anything to do with me,” Elise said as they waited. “But now that she has told me about Mathilde, now that I’m here in New York, I think I should try to see Lucie, too, just once. I have to make sure she’s all right. I owe it to Juliette, even if she’s no longer the person I remember.”
“We’re all the people we once were, my friend,” Ruth said, giving Elise a sad smile. “Even if life transforms us, we are all who we are at our core, our whole lives through.”
* * *
Elise woke just after dawn the next morning, and she peered out the window at a fog-draped city street. New York was just waking up: lights turning on behind curtained windows, the groan of a garbage truck, the first notes in a symphony of car horns that would escalate as the sun came up. It was snowing again, the flakes gently drifting down, though the dark clouds in the distance portended a coming storm.
Elise felt lighter this morning, more herself, and she knew it was due, in large part, to the conversation she’d had with Suzanne the day before. You were a wonderful mother, Suzanne had said, and there was finally a piece of Elise that could believe that. It’s difficult to look at one’s own past with clarity, but Suzanne had seen her for who she was. Ruth had, too.
Now, Elise just had to find a way to see herself. She had to reclaim the past, and she would begin by settling things with Constant Bouet. She dressed quickly in a wool dress, nylons, and her overcoat, and pulling a toque on to shield her from the cold, she left the hotel.
She didn’t realistically expect the gallery to be open yet; it was just past 8 a.m. She was prepared to wait until Constant waddled down the street in one of his expensive suits, but as she approached from down the block, she was surprised to see the lights on, and a figure already moving around inside. She pressed her face to the glass and looked in. It was a man, though he was younger and in much better shape than Constant, dressed in faded black slacks and a shawl collar gray wool pullover. It must be Constant’s business partner. A confrontation with Constant would have been more satisfying, but this man owed her, too, and she was ready to give him a piece of her mind. She tried the front door of the gallery, which was unlocked, and went in.
“I’m sorry, but we’re closed,” the man said, his back still to her as she entered in a burst of snowflakes and wind. She braced herself as the door swung closed behind her. She would not be dismissed from her own life anymore.
“I’m the artist whose work you’ve stolen,” she announced, her voice shaking. “So don’t you dare tell me you are closed.”