Page 51 of Meet Me in the Garden

Adele bends over the sink, stays that way. Silence but for the clock on the wall. She straightens again, smooths her hands down her skirt. “Let’s hang the mistletoe.”

It’s late at night. I’m at the table, writing a list of all I’ll need for the apartment. Claud’s told me about a flea market with bargains on cookware and dishes. Sally and Janine have offered to go around to garage sales on Saturday mornings with me, and Sally says that if we find some good furniture, her husband will move it for me in his truck.

In the kitchen, Claire and Adele have been planning Christmas giftsfor the children, and Al and Bernard are there, too, smoking cigarettes in the doorway.

“Odette,” Bernard says. “Can you come in here for a moment?”

I’m focused. I don’t want to. I go in anyway, lift myself onto Adele’s sparkling clean counter—strictly against the rules—sit with my legs dangling over the edge. “What is it?” I ask.

No one answers at first. A mood I can’t identify hovers in the room, turns me uneasy.

“Go ahead, honey,” Bernard says.

Claire rests her palm against her flat stomach. Invisible, but real. I can only imagine what it’s like, to have a person growing inside my body and feel hope instead of dread. Wish I could go back and give Clément that kind of welcome. She takes a breath. “I haven’t wanted to say it. But I’ve been having doubts.”

Quiet again.

“Doubts about what?” I ask.

She twists her mouth, she looks to the floor. “Nathalie,” she says.

“It’s okay,” Adele says. “It’s hard, being a parent. And we’ve only just known her for a couple months. No one expects you to fall in love immediately. Or develop a special bond so soon.”

“But Idid,” Claire says. “I do love her. I just don’t know if love is enough. Especially when there’s another person who’s better suited.”

She looks at me. They all do. Claire with an open question in her eyes. Bernard, composed, solemn. Adele, tentative. Al, dragging off his cigarette, a slight amusement behind his eyes at the sight of me on the counter, my small act of rebellion. And maybe there’s more in his gaze. Maybe he’s telling me that we’ve known this all along. That it’s about time someone said it. I feel Delphine here, too, with all of us.Not Claire, she’s saying.You.

“Let me explain,” Claire says. “Nathalie came into our lives, and she gave me a gift. For the last couple months, I’ve felt like a mother. I got to give all my love to her. Learn everything I could. Ask myself what she needed. And the answer’s so clear. The way you are with her. It’s something special. It can’t be replicated. I don’t even want to try.”

“But what if…” I start. I don’t want to say it.

She nods, her hand still pressed against her stomach. “I know it’s a risk. But if I get to be a mother, I want to be an unselfish one.”

“Odette,” Adele says. “You have a choice in all this, too. You know what it means. You don’t have to say yes.”

But that first glimpse of Nathalie in the laundromat, the way she took my wrist. How Delphine lives in me, still, after everything. Binding Nathalie and me together. Turning the two of us inevitable. Impossible to deny it any longer. “I’ll do it,” I say.

And a sob rises in me, and as soon as it comes, I can’t stop.

The next morning, I get up with the first light and go outside. Hair unbrushed, robe pulled over my gown. I’ve barely slept, the sunrise a relief, pacing the perimeter of the yard, grass underfoot, stopping when I see a cluster of blackberries at the top of the fence, more than I thought possible this late in the season. I tiptoe back into the house and to the children’s room and scoop Nathalie up. I carry her outside. She’s smiling, rubbing her eyes, warm from sleep.

“What are we doing?” she asks.

“I want you to see what I found.”

She gasps in delight. I hoist her small body higher and she plucks the berries one by one, plopping them into her mouth and, occasionally, into mine. And for a few minutes, all that exists is her: hands stained blue-black with berries, body solid in my arms, morning sun on her skin.

SEVENTEEN

IBREAK THENEWSTOClément that we aren’t moving to the apartment after all, and he’s confused at first, but then relieved. “So we’re staying here?” he asks.

“For now,” I say. “For a little while.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know.”

Time pushes against me, physical and constant. My sisters field calls from the social worker, tell him there’s a man in my life, that it’s serious, buy me time. At work, I pay close attention to who’s newly broken up, who’s newly together. Marcus is dating Abigail from the Art Department. She’s pretty, with dark-brown hair that she pulls back with barrettes. Her laugh rings out like a wind instrument, airy and light. I’m glad for him. I’m getting nowhere.