Page 2 of The Paris Agent
I’d never been an especially cheerful sort of woman and I’d never been an optimist, but those past months had forced me to stare long and hard at the worst aspects of the human condition and I’d come to accept a certain hopelessness even when it came to my own future. But on that train, bathed in early morning sunlight and basking in a full stomach and pleasant company, my spirits lifted until they soared toward something like hope.
For the first time in months, I even let myself dream that I’d survive to embrace my son Hughie again. Maybe, even after all I’d seen and done, the world could still be good. Maybe, even after everything, I could find reason to have faith.
C?H?A?P?T?E?R1
CHARLOTTE
Liverpool
May, 1970
Dad and I sit side by side on a picnic blanket on Formby Beach, gazing across the blue-gold gradient of the sunset reflecting off the Irish Sea. A red thermos full of hot tea is propped into the sand in front of my legs, and between me and Dad, our golden retriever Wrigley lies flat on the checkered rug, staring longingly at the newspaper on Dad’s lap. There’s only a handful of chips left, but the scent of salt and fat and vinegar seems to be driving poor Wrigley mad.
If Dad wasn’t here, I’d let Wrigley tear into that newspaper. I always did find it hard to say no to that dog, but since my mother’s death, I don’t even try.
Today should have been Mum’s fifty-fourth birthday. Christmas was miserable, but this, the first of her birthdays since her death, is somehow an equally confronting milestone. Mum always liked to make a fuss of birthdays, and we always did the same for her. This should have beenherday, so now that she’s gone, it’s a day when her absence is all I can think about. Even Wrigley seemed miserable this morning, sulking around the house as if he knew the date as well as we did. That’s when I decided we had to get out of the house this evening. Yes, this feels stiff and awkward, but this pathetic, depressing picnic is at least some attempt to mark the day.
Geraldine Ainsworth would never have tolerated sulking.
“I’ve been worried about you, Lottie,” Dad says suddenly. His words are slow and careful, ever-so-slightly slurred as they always are—the unusual pattern of his speech the lasting result of a traumatic brain injury from a car accident when he was young. But I have no trouble understanding him, and I turn to look at him in disbelief. He’s worried aboutme? That’s rich, coming from him. Even the new notches he’s punched into his belt aren’t enough to keep his trousers from sagging off his hips these days. He’s a shriveled version of his old self but even as my defensiveness rises, I note the deep concern in his eyes. That gives me pause. Dad clears his throat and says hesitantly, “You don’t seem yourself since—” He breaks off, obviously searching for words, then settles on a muttered “Well. Since your mum left us.”
“She didn’t leave us, Dad,” I snap. “She wastakenfrom us.”
I wince, immediately regretting my sharp tone, but Dad doesn’t react. He stares right into my eyes and waits, almost as if he’d wanted to generate a reaction in me.
Well, he got one. And now I feel awful for it.
If it had been a friend or colleague who died, I’d have gone to Dad for support. I’d have cried all over him and blubbered about the injustice of it all. I’ve always known Noah Ainsworth as a man who could do a passable impersonation of an extrovert when the situation commands it, but who’s truly most comfortable listening one-on-one. And given I have always been someone who loves to talk, this suited me just fine right up until my mother died. I’ve had so many words I wanted to say since then. I still have no idea if my father will ever be ready to hear them.
The problem is this: I lost my mother, but Dad lost the love of his life. He’s been my emotional rock since I was a child, but I can’t burden him with my pain when his is even greater.
It hits me suddenly now that Dad has seemed every bit as broken and furious about her death as I have, until the last week or so. Flashes of memory cycle through my mind—things I noticed but didn’t pause to be curious about at the time, lost in my own fog of sadness. Dad up early last Saturday, making himself eggs for breakfast. Dad ironing his clothes for the week on Sunday night, just as he always used to. Dad smiling as he walked out the door to go to work on Monday.
And the most telling of all—how did I miss it? Every night this week, Dad waiting for me in the evening with robust, hearty meals—rich beef stews and pastas and baked chicken. He’s eating well again! He’s been quiet, but it’s the old kind of quiet—the kind that allows space for me to talk, not the kind of tense, miserable silence that told me he was too bereaved to listen. And now, after months of introspection, he’s prompting me to share.
“You’re doing a little better,” I blurt. He tilts his head a little, thoughtful.
“I will miss your mother every minute until I join her on the other side, Lottie,” he says quietly. “But she wouldn’t want me to spend the rest of my life bitter.” He paused, then added with a wry chuckle, “She wouldn’t have allowed it, actually, and I know that for a fact.”
There are unspoken words at the end of that sentence. About me. About my bitterness and the ferocious anger that still burns so fiercely in me, every bit as destructive as it was when I found out she was gone. And that’s too bad, because I’m still not ready to let any of that go. I’m curious about the change in Dad though, because now that I’ve acknowledged it to myself, I start to wonder.
He isn’t just calmer, he’s focused. Steady. Somuch more his old self.
As for me, I haven’t missed a day at work, but I haven’t been fully present in that classroom since I returned from my bereavement leave. I’m with those five-year-olds all day long and I spend every second of my work hours pretending I’m the woman I used to be. My heart isn’t in it anymore. The loss of my mother has changed me in a way I’m not sure I can come back from.
“What’s the secret, Dad?” I whisper, throat tight. “How do I stopfeeling like this?” Some days, the students in my class do something Iknowis funny or adorable but I have to force myself to smile. Last week, little Aoife Byrne finally mastered the letters of her name. It’s a feat that’s taken a year of concentrated effort because of her developmental challenges, but I felt no spark of pride or relief. Instead, I am numb or sad or angry all the time, no longer capable of the joy I once took for granted in my life and my job.
“I lived such a wonderful life with your mother, you know,” Dad says. “Truly, we shared so many wonderful years—”
“But she was only fifty-three,” I interrupt him sharply. “You were meant to have more time. Don’t you feel cheated?”
“Cheated?” He considers the word, then gives me a soft look. “There would never have been enough years, love. I’d never have had my fill of that woman! And think of all we shared. You...your brother...a beautiful granddaughter. We built a marvelous home, and we supported one another in our careers and we spent all of those lovely Saturdays in the garden and honestly, when I look back, it feels like a glorious dream.” When Dad becomes emotional, his speech slows even more, the slur becoming more and more pronounced. He pauses now, collecting himself, then adds roughly, “I’ve felt stuck since she died.”
“That’s how I feel.”
“A few weeks ago, I was looking at our old photo albums and I found one of us standing together outside of her family home in 1941. Just a few weeks before that day, I’d learned that my family was gone and the look on my face... I was still in shock when that photo was taken.” He pauses, overcome with emotion again, and my heart aches at the pain in his voice. He was the eldest of five children, but his parents and siblings were killed during the Liverpool Blitz when their home was destroyed in an air raid. “I could barely drag myself out of bed but your mother told me I needed to find a way to move forward. She had much the same advice for me in the dying days of the war when I was confronted by a whole other kind of grief. She used to tell me‘Noah, you will not bring any one of your loved ones back for even a moment by refusing to live your own life.’” I look out to the water, my eyes stinging with tears. I hear those words as if she’s whispering them to me herself, but I still don’t have acluehow to apply them. “Twice already she brought me back to life by pointing me to look beyond the immediacy of my loss. This time it was the mere memory of that advice that woke me up. I need something to focus on so I’ve decided to take on a new project.”
“At work?”
