Page 47 of Across Time

Marie comes home briefly around lunch. There’s been no sign of Henri since we arrived back here this morning. I help her prepare the coq au vin, one pan going to the bible study class held at the church this evening and one pan to stay here. I’m browning the onions while she chops vegetables behind me.

“I didn’t realize priests were so attractive,” I say casually. “I see now why your mass is so well-attended.”

"Father Edouard?" she asks, shocked. "That's sacrilege."

I laugh. "You don’t actually expect me to believe you haven’t noticed? Just because he’s a priest doesn’t mean he’s invisible.”

She flushes. "It's inappropriate to look at him that way. He's chosen his path and we must respect his decision."

She’s giving up too easily. I saw the way he looked at her. “I think he'd make a different decision readily if you gave him an opening."

Her beautiful face clouds over. "He's a man of God. He'd view what we do as witchcraft."

Perhaps I’m too willing to give up time travel, but Marie is very much the other extreme. It’s as if the idea is impossible to her.

"Is being able to time travel really such a wonderful gift? I see how you use it mostly—to add to a shopping list? To fix a broken chicken coop before the animals get free? I can’t believe you’d lose the man you love in order to keep doing it."

Her eyes flash as she glances over her shoulder at me. "It's not a gift. It's what I am, and unlike you, I do not plan to deceive the man I will marry. So, even if he were to decide he wanted to leave the church, I would still never choose him."

* * *

Marie is long gone when Henri finally comes in. He says nothing to me until he’s gone into the bath to wash up and change clothes, and then he emerges with damp hair and a contrite expression that has me ready to forgive him before he’s said a word.

“Come to the hay bale,” he says. “It’s almost sunset.”

Correction: I’m almost ready to forgive him. “Hmm,” I muse, holding a finger to my lips, “that didn’t sound like an apology.”

He gives me a small bow. “I’m deeply sorry I accused you of throwing yourself at André. I’m certain that if you choose to throw yourself at him, you’ll at least have the decency to do so in private.”

I raise a brow. “That still doesn’t sound like an apology.”

“It was,” he corrects. “I just paired it with an insult. Come on.”

* * *

Marie’s coq-au-vin is too difficult to transport to our normal picnic spot, so we just grab odds and ends for dinner instead. By the time our meal is complete, the sun has set. He pushes our things off to the side and leans back against the hay bale.

"Close your eyes," he says.

I do as he says, leaning back just as he did. It's silent, and suddenly I'm aware of things I wasn't the moment before. Perhaps things I was trying hard to ignore: the heat of Henri beside me, the rise and fall of his chest moving his sleeve against my bare arm with each breath.

"What do you smell?" he asks.

I smell him—soap and freshly cut grass.

"Cow dung," I reply. "Is that not the only possible answer?"

He elbows me. "Keep trying. There are other things too."

"I smell your soap," I admit. I love the smell of his soap. I wonder if it still exists in my time. If it does, I will buy it just to remember him.

"I smell you as well," he answers. "When you arrived it was one of the first things I noticed about you, your smell. Like roses and sage and summer. I thought it was your soap, but I smell it even now.”

“Is that why you held me at gunpoint?” I tease.

“No,” he replies. “But it might be why I failed to shoot you on the spot. Let’s pray that when the Germans come they haven’t just bathed.”

I laugh, but as I take in his perfect face and his broad smile, something cracks inside me at the same time. He is so many things, too many things. He can’t die in the war, can he? Thirty million soldiers did, but it feels as if he deserves some special protection they didn’t receive. I guess this is how every woman alive feels when her husband or son goes to war, except he’s not my husband and he’s not my son and I shouldn’t care quite as much as I do.