Page 22 of Saint Céline
Mrs. Montgomery appeared behind my mother, glancing into the room. For a moment, all four of us stayed quiet.
Then Mrs. Montgomery said, almost to herself, “Well. That’s new.”
Katherine looked down at the book in her lap. My mother looked at me. I could not read her expression exactly. Relief, maybe.
“Come along,” my mother said gently. “Dinner’s waiting.”
I stood reluctantly. Katherine stood too.
“Can she come tomorrow?” she asked.
My mother opened her mouth. Mrs. Montgomery answered first.
“If her mother says yes.”
Katherine turned to my mother right away. My mother hesitated. I knew what she was thinking. That this was too much. That we had to be careful. That kindness from rich people always came with invisible rules we would not know until we hadbroken them. But she looked at me. Really looked. And I think she saw how badly I wanted it.
“Only after homework,” she said.
I nodded quickly, even though I did not have any homework yet. Katherine looked pleased. Not smiling exactly. But pleased.
As my mother and I walked back through the garden toward the cottage, rain misted lightly around us. The main house glowed behind us, golden and enormous against the dark.
“You like her,” my mother said.
I looked down at the wet stones. “She’s nice.”
“She’s lonely.”
I glanced at her. “How do you know?”
My mother gave me a tired little smile. “Because lonely children notice other lonely children.”
I did not answer. At the cottage door, I looked back once. Katherine stood in the library window. Watching again. This time I lifted my hand first. She lifted hers back almost immediately.
My mother unlocked the door and stepped inside, but I stayed outside for another second, cold air on my cheeks, the ocean roaring faintly beyond the cliffs. For the first time since leaving Portland, I wanted tomorrow to come, because someone in that enormous house was waiting for me.
7
Vincent
Thad Rodriguez had the kind of face people trusted at charity dinners. Open smile, straight teeth, good hair. A watch expensive enough that the right people noticed it, but understated enough to pretend it did not want attention. He wore privilege with the bland confidence of a man who had never once wondered whether a room would welcome him.
I disliked him the moment I saw his hand settle on the small of Céline’s back as they crossed the courtyard outside Westgrave Hall. He guided her through a space she already knew how to command without any help, and she let him do it. That was the part that irritated me most.
She leaned into his side just enough to make it convincing. The courtyard stayed busy between afternoon classes. Students moved along the wet stone paths in small groups, coats pulled tight against the wind blowing off the cliffs. A few of them glanced toward Céline as she passed. They always did. Grief hadmade her more interesting, more luminous somehow, the way certain flowers looked brightest right before they began to rot.
Thad said something close to her ear. She smiled perfectly. I watched from the steps of the science building with one hand in my coat pocket and the other holding the folder for Friday’s orientation. Inside it were the accepted students’ lab assignments, safety forms, and the usual research group expectations.
Pipette protocols. Tissue culture access schedules. Instructions about contamination control. Céline Martin’s name sat neatly typed on the first page. I had placed it there myself.
They stopped near the fountain. He kept talking. She kept looking at him like she was listening, her face soft and attentive and quietly affectionate. A good performance. Not her best. Grief had slowed her down around the edges. She took half a second too long before she smiled.
There was the faintest retreat in her eyes whenever someone touched her. A stillness around her mouth every time Katherine’s name came up. Thad noticed none of it. He kissed her temple, then turned toward the business school buildings with his phone already in his hand before he had even stepped fully away from her.
Céline watched him go. For the first time since she had entered the courtyard, her face emptied completely.
There you are,I thought.
