Page 64 of The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth

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Amber made a soft sound. “This is saving my life, babes.”

“It’s also saving mine, so we’re even.”

They discussed the logistics of getting the key, making sure Veronica could have a roommate, and how to move things in. “I don’t have a lot, you know. My kids can sleep on air mattresses at first. I won’t get into your room until you get back.”

“Amber, thank you.”

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As they set out the next morning, Paris was dripping with Christmas decorations. Veronica had seen some around London, but here, there were trees and wreaths and garlands everywhere, all of them hung with ornaments and sparkling lights. It pricked some underlayer of her internal body, sticking pins in at random points. A wreath made her think of one her mother had loved, made of pine cones and red velveteen ribbon. A shop window was hung with a set of old-fashioned glass ornaments from the fifties, which were very much the same as the ones Veronica had collected over the years. She had not unboxed them last year because Spence and the kids had gone to Breckenridge and she’d only just managed to move into the apartment. Obviously, she wouldn’t unbox them this year, either.

What would Christmas be going forward? This? Traveling to faraway places without any of her beloveds just to avoid the pain she felt? Avoiding the beautiful Christmas traditions she loved because the center had fallen out of her world?

Emotion swelled her throat. She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything. Her entire future was as murky as muddy water, where before she had not liked everything she was looking at as an empty nester (the words gave her a vision of a mother bird perched on a tree branch,peering into the distance), but she’d had a general idea of how her life would look.

Now she had absolutely no idea. It seemed particularly brutal that she wouldn’t use her Christmas ornaments again; wouldn’t bake cookies with her kids and decorate the tree, then have brandy with Spence after the kids went to bed.

At least the carols were all in French, making them different enough that they didn’t pierce her like everything else did.

So she was already feeling off-kilter when they went into Angelina. There were two lines—one for the counter, one for the dining room—and they took their place in the one for the dining room. In contrast to the cheeriness of Christmas shoppers and the shining lights, the sky overhead was dark enough that yellow light spilled out of the upper stories of buildings across the street. It was cold. She wished for a different coat, something fluffier and more stylish, rather than her very warm but boring performance fleece. She’d draped a scarf around her neck and pulled a blue cap over her ears, but she still felt like she stuck out as a gauche tourist.

Henry constantly took photos, unobtrusively and obviously, of shop fronts and streets lined with trees and lights, the backs of two women in red coats holding hands, a little boy chewing on his mitten as if he were a dog. He took photos of Mariah, who mugged for the camera, and Veronica, who only looked at him. He smiled. “That’s a good shot. You have expressive eyes.”

Inside, the air smelled of a heady mix of coffee and yeast and sugar. The baroque interior had not changed a bit, and still felt ever so faintly seedy, but crystal chandeliers glittered and the tables were set for a busy day. As they sat down, Veronica looked toward the mirrored wall and remembered exactly where she’d sat with Spence on a long-ago day, twenty-eight years ago. She could see him quite clearly, as if he were a ghost: his thick white fisherman’s sweater sitting so cleanly on his broad shoulders; his long, blond hair curling around his neck, falling over his forehead. He was always deeply tan in those days from being on theslopes or outside hiking; he’d been the most vigorous man she’d ever met, and had pulled her along with him, teaching her how to hydrate, how to tie her boots. She’d tried skiing and snowboarding both, but they terrified her. The hiking, however, she loved.

It had been a wild, deep bonding from the first. They were from different worlds and yet shared a view of how life should be, filled with books and knowledge and the things that went into making a good life. She loved his passion for philosophy, for ideas, and his boyish exuberance. He loved her drive toward making a comfortable home, loved that she wanted to write about intellectuals and artists in history.

They had been so entwined on that honeymoon trip! Newly married, three years into their remarkable love story. Everyone admired them, wanted to be them. They had a rare accord, a meeting of bodies and minds. He was known to kiss her passionately at parties, dance in a very sexy way when the music lent itself to that.

An all-too-familiar hollow feeling filled her chest. How had that all just disappeared? Had she been mistaken about what it really was?

No. She remembered a night during the pandemic, the children gone somewhere, just the two of them over a meal they’d cooked together, dancing to a playlist, making love on the floor by the fire. So happy.

So happy.

As if the memories had turned to arrowheads in her chest, Veronica’s lungs suddenly ached. It was hard to take a deep breath, and she looked around wildly to distract herself with anything so that she wouldn’t burst into tears.

“Where is the loo, do you think?” she asked Mariah.

“Um—you have to go upstairs.”