Page 11 of Across Time

"I'm not going to visit your mother," I say faintly. "I told you that."

Henri cups his hands and drinks, then cups them again to dump water over the top of his head, shaking it out of his eyes as it falls. I flush, suddenly aware that I’m gawking and my hands have fallen still.

"I know what you said," she replies with a small smile. "But I feel increasingly certain you're wrong. We’re out of sugar. I’ll be right back.”

Before I can ask where she’s going, her dress has fallen to the floor and she is gone. When I choose to jump, I’m a lot like someone trying to justify breaking her diet: here’s why I should make an exception and I’ve been super good and it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But Marie-Therese treats time travel as if it’s spinach or kale—something without a single negative repercussion, the kind of thing you can binge on without guilt.

I’ve barely blinked before there’s a clatter upstairs, and then she’s walking back down in a new dress, calmly grabbing a full tin of sugar from the pantry and placing it in front of me before she begins folding the clothes she discarded a moment before.

"Did you really just time travel to go buy sugar?" I ask. "That has got to be the most boring use of a superpower ever."

"Even more boring than that. I just added it to yesterday's shopping list." She sees my shock and smiles. "It just makes life easier. Surely you've gone back at some point to remind yourself of something?"

I shrug, unwilling to admit she’s right. When I’ve done it, it’s only been for important things…or things that seemed important at the time. Missed homework assignments, pop quizzes. But I’ve never done it without feeling like I was cheating somehow, whereas Marie-Therese clearly suffers no such qualms. As much as I want to look down on her for using her gift so shamelessly, a part of me is envious at the same time.

"Don't you worry you'll depend on it too much? You won't be able to just disappear in front of your husband and children."

"I would not marry a man I was unwilling to tell," she says. "Although I probably won't marry, so I doubt it will be an issue."

Her answer surprises me. As pretty as she is, I’d think her possibilities were limitless, and she’s awfully young to have given up anyway. "Why don't you think you’ll marry? I’m sure you have your pick in Saint Antoine. There must be someone here you'd consider?"

Her gaze drifts away and her cheeks grow rose pink. "There is no one suitable here."

Her choice of words is odd. "Suitable?"

The blush deepens. "The only man in this town I'd consider is not..." she takes a deep breath and looks away. "He is not available."

My eyes go wide. Marie-Therese seems so sweet and innocent, so proper. I never dreamed that she'd be lusting after a married man. "And I guess he'll never become available?" I ask. "Divorce is probably frowned upon now?"

"Divorce?" she gasps, and then flushes again. "Dieu. He's not married! What do you think of me?"

I throw up my hands. "You said he wasn't available."

She throws an unnecessary amount of vigor into rolling out the dough. "No, no, no. I don't like anyone. I was just saying there's no one here I would consider."

Except that's not what she said, and she is still blushing fiercely. Maybe it's someone Henri would not approve of? Someone poor? Someone Jewish? Of another race? I wish I were staying long enough to help her sort it out.

But, again, I am not.

* * *

That afternoon, she serves tea on the side porch, which is pleasant in the shade, and forces Henri to come inside to join us. He raises a brow as he eyes the table. “What’s the special occasion?” he asks. “Is she leaving?”

Marie-Therese frowns at him. “I thought it might help Amelie feel like she was back home.”

His mouth twitches. “Americans don’t take tea,” he says.

She rolls her eyes. “Yes, so you tell me now.”

I take a scone with clotted cream, doing my best to ignore Henri while he ignores me. Poor Marie-Therese is left to fill in the gap in conversation, and begins telling me about Henri as a teen, trying to borrow the car to meet a girl in the middle of the night without making his mother aware. It’s hard for me to imagine Henri being fun enough to sneak out with the car. He’s close to my age and yet he seems a decade older simply because of the weight he carries on those broad shoulders—I see it in his wary eyes every time he looks at me.

“His plan was to push it to the road before starting it, but instead, it went careening into an irrigation ditch,” Marie says, laughing. “So he woke me, begging and pleading with me to jump back a few hours to warn him it would happen.”

"Which you refused to do," adds Henri.

"Henri was the golden child in our house," Marie-Therese explains. "I thought every once in a while I should not be the only one in trouble. And naturally, he still didn't get in trouble, even when my mother found out."

I look toward the vineyard, stretching green and lush as far as I can see, and wonder what it would be like to live in a household where rivalries are merely amusing. Where the preference for one child is slight enough that no one minds all that much.