“Please, if it helps in your efforts, I am happy to let you hold on to it a bit longer.”
I tucked the photograph safely into my bag.
“Are you finished? Would you both like to stay for Mass?” Father François asked.
“Thank you, but it’s been a long day. We should probably start heading back to the inn,” Elliott replied.
“Actually, I’d like to stay, if that’s okay?” I said.
Elliott did a double take. “You would?”
“I’m not a particularly religious person, but after everything we learned today, it feels only right to pay our respects.”
He nodded, and we followed Father François down to the chapel where, together, we lit seven candles: one each for Luc and Imène Adélaïse, Marthe and Grégoire Archambeau, and Ginette and Alain Grenouille, and one extra for all the other brave men and women we would never know the names of.
After Mass, Elliott and I took a seat on a stone wall outside the church that overlooked lush lavender fields outlined by rows of tall cypress. Elliott was pitching small pebbles into the road, and my eyes trailed them as they tumbled down the steep hill.
“How are you holding up?” he asked.
I was swimming in my own thoughts. “Sorry, what?”
“I asked how you’re holding up?”
“They were around our age, right? The Adélaïses, the Grenouilles, the Archambeaus.”
“I think so. They looked to be, anyway.”
“They could’ve easily stayed under the radar through the end of the war and gone on to lead full and happy lives.”
He considered this for a moment before responding. “I think could’ve is a relative term. They literally could have looked the other way and stayed safe, sure, but maybe they couldn’t have lived with themselves if they had an opportunity to do something and didn’t. They did what they felt was right, even knowing what could happen to them. It’s remarkably courageous.”
“I know. It’s incredible. So selfless and brave. When I think back to the girl I was, the girl who fretted about her luggage not fitting into the car, I’m ashamed.” I looked up and into Elliott’s warm eyes.
“You’re a good person, Plum. I’ve really gotten to know you, and you’re a good person.” Elliott’s eyes crinkled in the corners as he hopped down from the wall. “Hungry?”
“Actually, I am.”
He craned his neck toward the bottom of the hill. “C’mon, there’s a little ice-cream shop in town Agnès told me about that supposedly serves legendary lavender ice cream. Not normally my kind of thing, but I’m feeling inspired to open myself up to a world of new possibilities.”
I smiled and nodded. “You know what, so am I.”
And for possibly the first time since we met, we found ourselves in absolute and total agreement.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The bell chimed on the door of the ice-cream shop, and we were greeted by a middle-aged couple who could have passed for siblings. With similar wavy brown hair and rail-thin physiques, they looked a bit like a cartoon duo. “Bienvenue!” they announced simultaneously.
“Bonjour,” we echoed back. I stepped up to the counter and leaned over to Elliott. “Allow me,” I said and gestured playfully with my hand to my chest. “Nous voudrions deux boules de glace à la lavande, dans deux cornets, s’il vous plaît.” The phrase came out painfully slow, but I guess I said it well enough that the woman nodded and bustled away behind the counter to grab our order.
Casting Elliott an aren’t you impressed face for my stellar (enough) French, to which he slow-clapped, I jokingly took a bow.
“Seriously, Plum, you really are getting so much better. I mean, when we first met you knew like four words, and one of them was shit.”
“Funnily enough, I think that one’s gotten the most mileage, actually. But thank you for saying that. I’ve really begun to enjoy my lessons with Pascal once I started to see them as more than just a means to an end, but actually something I wanted to learn, just for me.”
The woman handed us the ice creams piled high with two perfect scoops perched atop toasted cones.
“Let’s taste. On three?” Elliott suggested.
“Un, deux, trois,” I assented.
And at the first lick of the creamy, cold confection, my eyes practically rolled back in my head. The soft flavors of lavender and sweet cream, mixed with a citrusy brightness I couldn’t quite place, kicked my taste buds into overdrive.
Though the recipe was a deeply held family secret, Henri and Nadine Chapdelaine, the store’s owners, did let us in on a few of the ingredients, like cold-pressed orange zest and black currants. Really, it was the locally grown lavender that was the star of the show. They didn’t need to worry about thievery, though; there would be no way to re-create that unique flavor profile outside Provence.
“Let’s take this outside and find a bench or something,” I suggested.
We made our way across the street to a tiny park and sat in a garden of fully bloomed hydrangeas in pastel shades of pink and periwinkle. Elliott and I squeezed close, watching people pass by with their little dogs or boisterous children while we enjoyed the last of our treat.
Anyone walking by would’ve thought we were on a romantic date, enjoying ice cream on a beautiful day. If I didn’t know better, I could have easily believed it myself. I stood up to throw away a pile of sticky napkins and glanced over at Elliott, who was shifting uncomfortably on the bench.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
His face contorted, and he ran a hand through his hair. “Listen, can I say something? I just . . . I don’t know when else I’ll have the guts, and I think I just need to say it.”
My breath quickened, unsure what kind of confession Elliott was about to unleash. Hopefully not a romantic one. “Elliott, please don’t, we’ve already talked about this. I just don’t think—”
“No, it’s not that. It’s about Bastien.”
