Chloe replaced the picture in the mirror’s brown, wooden frame and pulled out the next one—a photobooth strip taken at the fair that summer before their senior year. She and Sam Hardy made faces at the camera and each other. Sam…with his dark hair and deep brown eyes. Did he still have the stubborn curl that fell on his forehead? He’d done well, really well, as a first-round draft pick from University of Tennessee to the Titans. He’d been their franchise quarterback ever since.
Oooh, I had such a crush on you back in the day, Sammy.
She reached for the framed photo of Daddy on the dresser. How she’d love to feel his arms around her in one of his bear hugs, to bake his favorite pound cake for him one more time, to talk to him about Jean-Marc. She may have only known him for eight years, but Daddy had always made things better. He was her hero.
I miss you so much, Daddy. She ran a finger over the image of his hair, which was a tad too long for a hustling businessman, but he loved his ole ’70s style. She smiled and tsked.
Now you’re forever shaggy, Daddy.
A soft knock sounded at the door and Mom poked her head in. “Can I help with anything?” Her gaze drifted to Daddy’s photo. “You remember when that was taken? At his last company picnic.” She didn’t speak the obvious. A few weeks before he was killed. “Twenty-two years and I still miss him.”
Mom came the rest of the way into the room and picked up a different photo. One of Chloe and Jean-Marc at their wedding, coming down the aisle after the minister pronounced them husband and wife, their arms raised in victory. “I didn’t know I’d left this here,” Mom said softly. “I’ll take it?—”
“Mom, it’s okay.” Chloe set the gilded frame back on the dresser. She liked her expression in the photo. Would she ever smile that proudly, that excitedly again? “It’s been almost a year since he died. I can see our picture without falling apart.” But only recently. “Besides, I look really good here.”
Mom laughed and after a second, Chloe joined her. Also only recently, she’d started to laugh again. Which seemed a sort of consolation prize for leaving Paris: her job, her memories, even her in-laws, whom she loved.
Being in Hearts Bend gave her a little window on life. Some semblance of home. Maybe she’d find the freedom to dream again.
“I have more photos with my things.” Chloe glanced around the room toward her boxes, spied the one she wanted, and pulled out her favorite wedding photo, an image of her and Jean-Marc with their parents. “You looked beautiful, Maman, in your vintage Dior dress. Vivienne and Albert”—she gave the soft French pronunciation, Al-bare—“were so gracious and welcoming to us.”
The five of them stood outside the old stone church near the LaRue family villa in Provence. Lavender fields behind them shimmered in the sun. In this photograph, Chloe smiled up at Jean-Marc while he gazed down at her with a tender expression. She remembered how his eyes had shone with love. They had been happy, so happy that day.
So how did it all end in a sudden death after a massive argument? There were moments when she couldn’t really remember who had started the debate, or why. It had just seemed to snowball like an avalanche…
Chloe winced, a cold heartache pricking her moment of peace, and set the picture back in the box.
“Can we set this one out?” Mom retrieved it. “I think it will help you to grieve and recover if you remember the good times, darling.”
“Y-yeah, sure.” Mom knew some of the story of how Jean-Marc had died. But not all of it. Chloe peered in the box and, seeing Jean-Marc’s watch, reached for it. This wretched thing had caused their first big fight, a few months after the wedding. She’d been furious when he told her what he’d paid for it.
“Why? You don’t need it. A watch meant for scuba diving with what, a chronograph and chronometer? You’re a rock climber, Jean-Marc, a skier, not a scuba diver.”
“Not yet, no. But I will be, chère cœur. Soon.”
What a silly thing to fight about. If he wanted the watch so he could learn to scuba dive safely, he should have it. It was for his safety, after all. She set the watch on her dresser next to the photo. Their photo. Husband and wife. The couple who had stood in the chapel and pledged their love for as long as they lived.
An image flashed across her mind from Jean-Marc’s graveside service—which happened every time she wandered any distance down memory lane. A blonde woman speaking with her in-laws in hushed tones and how they’d quieted and glanced at one another dubiously when Chloe approached. But she’d caught the whispered “affaire de cœur” hanging in the air.
Affair of the heart.
“Chloe? Are you all right?” Mom roped her arm around Chloe’s shoulder. “Are you glad to be home? Truly?”
“Yeah, um, I’m fine.” Mom had been there that day as well, but she’d seen and heard nothing. If she had, she would’ve asked. That was Mom’s way. “I’m truly glad to be home. I couldn’t let you go through cancer treatment on your own. I’m where I need to be.”
Mom’s eyes glistened as she looked away. For her, Chloe knew, talking about the next months and year only made her diagnosis all too real. Too threatening.
“Did you see the rest of the pictures on the mirror?” Mom said, leaning in, hands clasped behind her back. “I’ve only dusted around them for the past decade.” Mom motioned to the strip of Chloe and Sam. “I remember that summer. You and Sam spent hours in the Hardys’ pool while I was learning his father’s business, training to be his admin.” Mom had been working for Frank Hardy, Sam’s dad, ever since.
“Does Sam still call his dad Frank?” Until Chloe had seen the old stage crew picture and the photo strip, she’d not thought of her teenage friends in ages. Except Sam. Jean-Marc was a fan of American football and enjoyed telling his football-loving friends his wife had attended high school with the great Sam Hardy. Jean-Marc kept up with Sam via sports websites as well as the good ole Hearts Bend Tribune, which bragged about their hometown boy every chance they got. Jean-Marc recited details about Sam’s successes, and they’d talked of a trip home last summer to see Mom, explore Chloe’s childhood haunts, and of course, arrange an introduction to Sam.
“As far as I know he still does,” Mom said. “Sam rarely comes home. Frank mentions him once in a while, but I’m sure he misses him, even if he’s too proud to admit it.”
“Sounds like they’re both stubborn.”
“In a word, yes.” Mom laughed as she turned to peek into one of Chloe’s boxes lined up along the wall. “Try working for one of them. Ooo, your teddy bear.” Mom reached in for the trusty old stuffed animal, the one Chloe had moved halfway around the world—twice.
“For your bed,” Mom said, her eyes glistening again.
