Epilogue: The Shop on the Rue du Commerce
The shop has a window that faces east, which means that in the morning, before the town has fully committed to the day, the light comes in at an angle that catches the jars on the display shelf and makes the dried flowers and herbs look like something from a painting. I have been here long enough to have opinions about the light in every season, and the March light is my favorite — the new light, tentative, the light of things deciding.
Hugo works here on Saturday mornings. He started at thirteen, officially, though he had been in the shop since he was old enough to be trusted near the jars without opening them, which was eight. He has an aptitude for the business side — the inventory, the numbers, the logistics — that he applies with the same methodical thoroughness he applies to everything he cares about. He has plans. He has told me some of them in the kitchen, late, when Luc has gone upstairs and it is the two of us, and I listen to his plans and think about Michel, who also made plans at kitchen tables in the specific serious way of people who intend to act on them.
Luc works here on Saturdays too, though his relationship with the work is different — he is interested in the customers, in the conversations, in the way the same product means different things to different people and the way you understand that by listening. He has told me he wants to study food science. He has also told me he wants to study literature. He may study both, which seems consistent with his character.
They are twelve. They have years ahead of them in which they will become the people they are becoming, in increments that I intend to watch closely and with great attention.
The ruling stands. Isabelle has ensured that it is thorough and documented. Claire has not appealed, which Isabelle told me was not surprising given the audio recording and the judge’s stated rationale. There has been no contact.
I think about Théo sometimes, standing in the garden with the climbing rose. I think about what he would have thought of his sons — who they are, what they said in that hearing room, the specific quality of their courage. I think he would have found Hugo’s precision exactly right and Luc’s velocity exactly right and the combination of the two of them together exactly right, which is what I find, which perhaps means we would have agreed.
I am seventy years old. I am, by Claire’s argument, too old for this.
I made tea this morning at six-thirty, before the boys were up, in the specific early quiet of a house that is full of people who are temporarily asleep. I sat in Michel’s chair and watched the garden wake up and thought about nothing in particular and everything in general, which is what I do in the mornings, which is enough.
The boys came down at seven-fifteen, one after the other, in the way of people who have had the same morning routine for twelve years and who have made it their own. Hugo made toast with the focused competence of someone who takes toast seriously. Luc poured orange juice and told me about a dream he had had, which involved a flamingo and a mathematics examination and which had the internal logic of dreams that does not survive description.
I drank my tea and listened to them and felt what I feel every morning: that this is the thing, the actual thing, the thing that nothing can substitute for.
That they are here. That I am here. That this is home.
End
