‘What’s she saying?’ Mia asked, not understanding why the woman was so upset.
Joe cleared his throat. ‘She wants to know why you have her great-grandmother’s bottle.’
23
FRANCE, 1938
She should never have come with him. Hope knew the moment she saw his father’s thunderous face, and the pinched mouth belonging to his mother, that things might have gone a lot better for Gus if she’d stayed away. She’d seen her own parents angry, her father with a temper that she’d not believed anyone could outdo, but Gus’s parents, especially his mother, were almost hysterical.
‘This, thiswenchis trying to ruin you, Gus! Don’t you see?’ his mother said.
‘You don’t speak about the woman I love like that!’ he yelled back, his face so red Hope thought he looked like he might explode.
‘As I see it,’ his father said, much more calmly from the other side of the room, ‘you have one option.’
Hope reached for Gus, wanting him to stay calm, to listen to what his father had to say. They could walk out through that door and say what they liked to each other, but if they were in his father’s house, she knew the only way he’d respect them was if they listened.
Gus looked to her, and she gave him a faint smile, hoping he knew how much she appreciated his defence of her. If he wanted to show her how much he loved her, then he’d certainly done it.
‘You destroy all evidence of your absinthe production, and you cease supply immediately,’ his father said. ‘The authorities will find nothing if one of your clients ever gives your name in connection with the substance, and we can pretend this never happened. Chalk it up to a youthful mistake.’
‘You call my business endeavour a youthful mistake?’ Gus asked. ‘We all know the prohibition of absinthe is an overreaction by our government, when it’s a drink that is no more dangerous than the gin produced by our family! I’m filling a need, and that need is proving to be extremely profitable. I thought you, of all people, might applaud my business acumen.’
Hope held her tongue, even though there was so much she’d like to say. But Gus was right. Everything he’d said was true, and she needed to sit quietly and support him.
‘Our family will not be involved in any illegal activity, and that is final!’ his father boomed, the entire room seeming to reverberate with his voice. ‘Business acumen would have been keeping your head down and doing the job I’ve employed you to do!’
But his mother’s words, although quietly spoken, were far more hurtful than anything his father could have yelled.
‘Son, this isn’t who you are,’ she said. ‘If you weren’t keeping such unsavoury company, if you’d only met a nice girl from within our?—’
‘Anicegirl?’ Gus exploded, making his father’s outburst seem tame. ‘Are you even looking at the beautiful woman standing beside me? And she has a name, Maman. Her name is Hope, and whether you like it or not, she is the woman I have chosen. Hope is the woman who will be your daughter-in-law,whether you like it or not, and I will not hear another word said against her!’
‘Gus,’ his mother placated. ‘Please, she clearly has you in her grip and?—’
‘Hope carries my child. So say what you will, but nothing is going to part us.Nothing.’
Gus’s breath was ragged, his chest rapidly rising and falling, and Hope’s heart was racing as she looked around the room: at the despair on his mother’s face, at the rage on Gus’s and the coldness of his father’s. This was not how she’d wanted them to find out she was expecting.
‘You have a week,’ his father said. ‘A week to decide whether you will stay in our family business or face the consequences of your illegal enterprise.’
Hope took Gus’s hand and led him away before he could say something he regretted, and if there was one silver lining to her going with him to see his parents, it was that she had been there to see how truly awful they were.
She’d thought her own father a monster, but it turned out that Gus’s was, too. He might not hit them, but he was a monster, nonetheless.
Two days later, Hope saw first hand just what a monster Gus’s father truly was.
The barn had been destroyed. It was as if wild animals had been let loose, knocking glass bottles from benches, smashing holes through pieces of equipment that Gus had taken such pride in. Even the painting of the fairy that she’d worked on for countless nights while Gus had laboured well into the dark hadbeen ripped from the wall, the precious canvas sliced clean down the middle. Everything they’d worked so hard for was gone.
‘Who?’ she cried. ‘Who would do this?’
‘There’s only one person who would do this, Hope,’ he said, as she saw him cry for
the very first time, tears coursing down his cheeks. ‘My father.’
‘But why? Why would he destroy everything? How could he do this to you?’To us?
‘Because he can,’ Gus said. ‘He wants me to see what he’s capable of.’ He shook his head, still looking around, his face showing his anguish.
