through into the kitchen, I boiled a pan of hot milk, filled a mug with it, added a spoonful of sugar, and went into the library.
Turning on a lamp, I sat down on the sofa and slowly sipped the hot beverage. It had been Gran Rosalie’s cure-all for almost everything when I was growing up, and now I took great comfort from this childhood remedy. Perhaps it would help me fall asleep when I went back upstairs to bed.
I knew why I was restless, filled with such unprecedented unease. It was the thought of tomorrow. I was dreading the funeral; dealing with Jack and Luciana was not going to be easy, nor did I look forward to coping with Cyrus Locke and Madeleine Connors.
In my experience, families seemed to behave badly at large gatherings like funerals and weddings; I was absolutely certain Sebastian’s funeral was not going to be an exception to this rule.
In an effort to relax I purposefully shifted my thoughts away from tomorrow, focused on my own immediate plans. And after only a few minutes I made a sudden decision. I was not going to hang around here any longer than was necessary. There was no real reason for me to do so. Once the memorial service had taken place in New York next Wednesday, I would leave. I would book myself a flight to Paris for that night.
I longed to be back in France, back at my quaint old olive mill situated between the ancient villages of Lourmarin and Ansouis in the Vaucluse. There, under the shadows of the Lubéron mountains, amidst my gardens, olive trees, and endless fields of lavender I knew peace and tranquility. It was a world apart.
Certainly I am my happiest there. It was the one spot where I worked best over long periods of time, where I could truly concentrate on my writing. For some weeks I had wanted to get back to the biography of the Brontë sisters I was writing. Actually, it was vital that I did so; the manuscript was due at my publishers at the beginning of March, and I had only four months to finish it.
The thought of a long stretch of work over an unbroken period of time was suddenly rather appealing to me, and I found myself filling with that special kind of excitement which usually precedes a creative period for me.
As I settled back against the antique needlepoint cushions, feeling happier, thinking lovingly of my home in Provence, my eye caught the large photograph album on a bookshelf next to the fireplace. There were pictures of Vieux Moulin in it, and I had a sudden desire to look at them.
I rose and went to get it. Returning to the sofa, I opened the album, but instead of seeing the mill in Lourmarin, as I had expected, I found myself staring at photographs of my twenty-first birthday party in 1979.
I studied them for a brief moment.
How revealing it was to examine photographs after a long time had passed. How different we look, in reality, than we remember ourselves looking then, years ago. Whenever I cast my mind back to that particular birthday party, I think of myself as being so grown up at twenty-one. But of course I wasn’t. My image, captured here on celluloid, told me how innocent and young I was in my off-the-shoulder white lace dress and string of pearls. My dark brown hair was brushed back, fell around my face in a soft, unsophisticated pageboy style, and my high cheekbones were not as prominent as they are now. My wide mouth looked tender, vulnerable, and a very serious pair of green eyes looked out at me from the album, expectant and trusting.
I peered at my face more closely. Not a line, not a mark. I smiled to myself. Why would there be? I was very young, just a girl, inexperienced and untouched by life.
Sebastian was with me, smiling and debonair in his flawlessly tailored Savile Row dinner jacket, his gleaming white shirt punctuated down the front with those deep-blue sapphire studs which he had had such trouble removing later that night.
Here was Luciana, a bit plumpish in her pale pink taffeta, looking as if a pound of butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, her short curly hair a golden halo around her radiant face.
Even at thirteen there had been a certain lusciousness about her, despite the puppy fat. How much older she actually appeared to be in this particular shot, certainly much older than the little girl she really was at the time. And she had had the mouth of a thirty-year-old on her. I knew that only too well.
I regarded the picture of Jack for a long moment. I couldn’t help thinking he looked like a little old man. His hair was untidy and his dinner jacket was rumpled; his whole appearance was decidedly unkempt. The expression on his face was surly, disgruntled, and with a start I realized he had not actually changed much. He was exactly the same as he had been at fifteen. Jack had never grown up, more’s the pity.
Flipping the pages, I came to a series of photographs of Sebastian, which I had taken that summer, when we had been on vacation in Nantucket. My favorite was a shot of him standing nonchalantly on the deck of a sailboat belonging to his friend Leonard Marsden. It was called the Rascal, and at the time we had joked about the name being so appropriate for Leonard, who was something of a playboy.
Sebastian’s white opened-necked shirt emphasized his deep tan, and he was so boyish, so carefree in his appearance the snap took my breath away for a minute. His hair was tousled by the wind, his eyes very blue beneath the dark brows; he had been forty-one years old that year, but he certainly didn’t look it. Not at all.
Nor had he looked fifty-six at lunch last week.
I had told him this at one point during the meal, and he had laughed delightedly, obviously pleased and flattered by my comment. And then he had told me I didn’t look my age either, going on to remark that I appeared to be ten years younger.
A bit of a mutual admiration society it had been that day. And I had reached out, squeezed his hand resting on top of the table, told him that we both seemed to be defying time.
My comment had amused him even more. “You’ve always been my favorite, Vivi. I suddenly realized how much I’ve missed you. We’ve got to see each other more often, my darling girl. Life’s too short not to spend some time with those one genuinely cares about.”
I had reminded him that he was the one who was constantly traveling the world nonstop, whilst I was either sitting in New Preston or Lourmarin, and was therefore extremely easy to find. “Don’t worry, Vivi, I’ll come and find you,” he had promised, smiling into my eyes. And I knew he meant it. But that could never be. Not now. It was too late.
Sighing sadly, I moved on, turning the pages, skipping over our winter holiday in Sun Valley, Idaho, that same year, ignoring the photographs of my graduation from Wellesley the following summer.
But I did pause for a second when I came to the section I had filled with our wedding photographs. Here I was in all my young glory, the sweet little bride in a short, white-silk dress holding a posy of white roses, gazing up at her handsome groom through eyes that saw no one but him.
My adoration of Sebastian was so patently obvious, and so touching, I felt my throat tighten with the remembrance of our years together as husband and wife.
I leaned back, staring into space, thinking.
We were married in July of 1980. The summer of my twenty-second year. This was just after I had graduated from Wellesley.
Once Sebastian and I had become lovers the previous year, I had not wanted to go back to college. Instead I had wished to stay with him, to travel with him, to be at his side all the time.
He would not hear of my dropping out. In no uncertain terms, he had told me I must complete my education and graduate. That was when we had had our first really major
