Page 48 of Meet Me in the Garden

She isn’t Maman. But what would she think of me if she knew? “They don’t let girls like you keep their babies either.” I want Delphine’s voice out of my head. Claire cups my chin in her soft palm, runs her thumb across my cheek. The comfort of her touch—monumental. She kisses my forehead. My sister. “You’re right,” I say. “A severing. It’s what Delphine wants, so we should do it.”

And then I’m lightheaded, chest tight, wondering what I’ve done.

We agree to wait until after Christmas to talk to Nathalie. It’s November now, a Saturday. I go alone to Lionel’s house. We sit on his front stoop, his pigeons flying and dropping above us, my throat aching with all I wish I could tell him. He wouldn’t judge me. He wouldn’t be shocked. Chances are he already suspects it. What a relief it would be, to say out loud that I’m going along with this plan not because it’s right, but because I’m terrified for myself.

But no one in my family can ever know. Clear to me now, the danger.

“What wouldyoudo?” I ask him.

“Delphine’s Nathalie’s mother. She’s losing everything. Seems only humane to do what she asks you to.”

“But it means I’ll have to lie to Nathalie. I’ll have to lie to her over and over again, so many times, for so many years, and what will that do to us?”

Lionel leans back, shakes his head. Above, one of his birds tumbles and rights itself.

“It isn’t the only thing Delphine asked me,” I say. “Don’t tell. She wants me to be the one to adopt Nathalie.”

“Sure, she does. You’re her best friend.”

“She hadn’t spoken to me in six years.”

“I’m just saying it doesn’t surprise me, that’s all,” he says. “I’m not saying you should do it.”

Anger swells inside me, heat rising. “I’m not getting married.”

He pats my knee. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.” After a while, the birds come back. I stay on the stoop while Lionel tends to them, his voice carrying. “Welcome back, KR, you handsome fella. Welcome back, Lady Bird…”

I won’t contact her. I’ll let her be dead. That part, I’ll do. The rest of it, she doesn’t have to know. But her threat—it follows me home, clings to me as I supervise toothbrushing, as I cuddle with Clément and wait for the children to fall asleep.

And then it’s later in the week. Al and Bernard and I get home from work and Nathalie is in the front yard, alone. They go in ahead of me while I hang back. She’s crouched at the edge near the flowers.

“Hey, sweetheart. Where are Clément and your cousins?”

“Playing inside. I didn’t want to play.”

A butterfly flutters past and she gasps. We watch it land on a nearby leaf.

“It’s a monarch butterfly,” I whisper to her, both of us holding still and hoping it will stay. “Back home, in New Orleans, we had them, and a kind called checkered white. And another one, the summer azure, that was pale blue.” We watch a little longer, until the butterfly flutters away. We both exhale.

She turns to me and says, “My mommy is dead.”

SIXTEEN

I’M FURIOUS WITH THEM,can’t meet their eyes at dinner.

“How does this work?” I ask them later, outside where the children can’t hear us if they wake. “What about a funeral?”

“She doesn’t know about funerals,” Claire says. “She’s five years old.”

Young, yes, but old enough to feel a lack. The way I felt a lack when Papa died. No ritual, no grieving together, no putting him to rest. I want to scream and rage like Nathalie does, want to throw my body onto the earth, dig out clumps of Adele’s lawn with my fingers.

“Listen,” Adele says.

“We knew you’d be angry,” Claire says. “And we understand.”

They’re quiet until I look at them again. “We said we’d do it after Christmas. Together.”

Adele touches my arm. “We did it so you wouldn’t have to.”