“Not really, but I’ve only ever been to normal restaurants that have burgers, fries, and pizza on the menu,” she keeps her voice low.
“Let me order for you again, you enjoyed the good I chose last time?”
“I did,” she nods with relief as she sets the menu down.
I order us French onion soup and Niçoise salad to start, with garlic bread, creamy butter, and balsamic dipping sauce. For mains, I choose the beef Wellington and escargot, with a sample of his famous ratatouille.
By the time I’m done order her eyes are wide with curiously. “It sounds like you ordered way too much,” she muses.
“I might have, but now you get to taste a lot of flavors of Paris, seeing as I couldn’t get you to Paris on such short notice.”
She grins with a cheeky glimmer in her eyes. “I just don’t think you tried hard enough. Paris is only seven hours ahead of us. Surely you could have made a plan,” she teases me.
“I have to say I like that you have that much confidence in my ability to make things happen,” I grin.
Her face is glowing in the soft candlelight. In the window behind her, the sky is grey but light with the threat of snow.
“You really do look lovely tonight, Athena. You look lovely all the time, but I enjoy seeing you smile like that.”
She flushes pink.
“Um, I enjoyed meeting your family,” she says, trying to change the subject and shift the attention off her.
“They enjoyed meeting you, too. My sisters especially had a lot of nice things to say afterward.”
“They are lovely. They all made me feel really welcome. It must be so amazing to grow up with so many people around you,” she remarks.
“It was. Very much so. And also, we drove each other completely and utterly crazy. Especially seeing as my brothers and I were so close in age. We’d always been fighting about who was really in charge and who got to call the shots. Of course, Matvei always won. Age triumphs over anything else we tried to argue,” I laugh. “And the girls, well, I felt sorry for them sometimes. They had six brothers chasing away any potential boyfriends. They could hardly move without us breathing over their shoulders to keep them safe from the world they were trying to explore.”
She giggles. “It actually sounds nice. For so many people to have your back like that.”
“And you? I don’t think you’ve mentioned any brothers or sisters, but maybe there is one living somewhere else?” I ask.
“No. I was an only child,” she shrugs. “I never had anyone to fight with over stealing my clothes or borrowing my things without asking,” she laughs.
“And your mom?”
Instantly, I regret asking the question. Her eyes cloud over with some lost dream. She looks down at her wine and wraps her fingers elegantly around the stem of the tall glass.
“I never knew my mom. She passed away when I was almost two years old. But I was too young to remember her. I have a photo of her, and sometimes I stare at it and pretend I know her. What her favorite color is or what music she would listen to on a Sunday morning while she made pancakes in the kitchen… or whatever it is that moms do. I guess I just liked to dream. But I didn’t have a reference point. I had no idea, still don’t, what it’s like to have a mother.”
My heart sinks for her. How cruel is a world that takes a mother away from her child?
“I’m really sorry to hear that, Athena. I wish things had been different for you,” I say.
“I had my dad,” she shrugs. Then she laughs bitterly. “That didn’t turn out that great, did it?” she sighs. She lifts her eyes to steal a nervous glance at my expression. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be a drag on the conversation,” she says quickly.
I reach across the table and place my hand over hers. “No, I want you to tell me about who you are. You don’t have to worry about talking through the things on your mind. I can onlyimagine that what you’re going through with regards to your father is something very heavy to deal with alone. I’m here for you—if you want to talk.”
She bites her lip.
“I have been thinking about it a lot, especially after seeing how happy your whole family was together. I never had that. But my dad always seemed like a good father to me. I never thought of him as a bad person. And now… well, now my whole perspective has changed, and I’m questioning everything. I keep wondering if all along I could see it, but I didn’t understand it.”
I shake my head. “Kitten, a man can be a good father and a bad person at the same time. He can love his child and still treat others disrespectfully. Maybe you remember him as being good because he was good to you,” I argue, unsure about my own words, but wanting to give her some kind of comfort.
She laughs bitterly again and sips her wine. “Do you think a good father would use his own daughter as a shield?”
Her bluntness catches me off guard.
