“Why not?” Mia asked, looking stunned.
“Mom says it’ll give me fatter thighs than I already have,” Margot said.
A wave of nausea hit me. I hated Nicole. I truly hated her.
“Youdo nothave big thighs,” Mia said firmly. “You’re exactly the right size.”
“I am?”
“Heavens, yes,” I said. “You’re too young to worry about that anyway.”
“Life’s better with ice cream,” Vance said. “And you’re with me now, and I say one of life’s biggest pleasures is dessert.”
Margot peeked up at him, studying him as if he were trying to trick her. “Did I have ice cream in France?”
“Yeah, all the time. There was an amazing gelato shop just down the street from our apartment,” Vance said. “Do you remember anything from those times? Before your mom brought you here?”
Margot was quiet for a long moment, her brow furrowed like she was solving a hard puzzle. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think I remember things, but Mom says I made them up. That I was too little to remember.”
“What do you think you remember?” Vance asked gently, not pushing.
She bit her lip. “I remember … bread. Really yummy bread that didn’t hurt the roof of my mouth. And there was a place with a red door. Or maybe I dreamed that.” She looked at him uncertainly. “Did we live somewhere with a red door?”
Vance’s eyes filled with tears. “Yeah. We did. Our building had a red door. You used to pat it every time we went in and out.”
Margot’s eyes widened. “Really? Why?”
“Really. You said it brought good luck.”
“Mom said …” She stopped, looking down at her hands. “She said you didn’t want me. That you were glad when we left.”
Vance knelt in front of her, his voice thick. “That’s not true. Not even a little bit. I fought for six years to get you back. I never stopped wanting you. Not for one single day.”
Margot looked at him, searching his face. “Then why did we leave? If you didn’t want us to?”
“Your mom decided she wanted to come back to California. She promised it was temporary. But then she wouldn’t let me see you. Wouldn’t let me talk to you. She kept you from me—not the other way around.”
“Oh.” Margot’s voice was very small.
I could see her processing the conflict between what she’d been told and what she was hearing now. What she maybe, somewhere deep down, already knew.
“Sometimes I dream about a man singing,” Margot said, twisting her hands together. “In another language. And I feel … safe. Was that you?”
Vance’s voice was hoarse. “Yeah. I used to sing you to sleep every night. ‘Fais dodo, Colas mon p’tit frère.’ Your favorite.”
“What does that mean?”
“Go to sleep, my little one.” He smiled through tears. “You’d make me sing it three times before you’d close your eyes.”
“I thought I made it up,” Margot whispered.
Vance’s face crumpled. He stayed kneeling in front of her but didn’t reach for her—letting her control the space between them. “You didn’t make it up, mon cœur. It was real. All of it was real.”
“What is mon cœur?” Margot asked.
“It means ‘my heart’ in French,” Vance said softly. “That’s what I called you.”
“My heart. Mon cœur.” Margot repeated the words, as if trying to memorize them.
