"Grand-mère taught me when I was eight."
"Good. Then you can teach the other one." He nods toward the road, where Iris is jogging up the drive, her ponytail swinging behind her. "She'll need to learn if she's going to be any use."
I watch Iris approach—her stride even, her breathing controlled, her face fixed in that expression of determined competence she seems to wear like armor. The morning sun catches the sheen of sweat on her skin, and something uncomfortable stirs in my chest that I firmly ignore.
"She's not exactly the farming type," I say.
"I can see that." Jacques shrugs. "People learn. That's how we survive."
Iris takes the news that she'll be spending the day pruning lavender with the grim resignation of someone who's been told they're scheduled for a root canal.
"I don't know anything about gardening," she says, as if this weren't obvious.
"That's why I'm going to teach you." I hand her a pair of gloves and pruning shears from the barn. "It's not complicated. Just time-consuming."
"I should probably be making phone calls. There are things at work—"
"Work can wait." I say it more sharply than I intend, and I see her shoulders stiffen. I soften my voice. "Look, the whole point of these ninety days is for us to be here. With the property. With each other. You can't do that if you're on conference calls all day."
Her jaw tightens. For a moment, I think she's going to argue.
Then she pulls on the gloves.
"Fine," she says. "Show me what to do."
The lavender fields stretch behind the house in neat rows, though "neat" is a generous description at the moment. Jacques was right—the plants have gotten wild, woody stems sprawling in all directions, the silvery-green foliage tangled and overgrown.
"The goal is to keep the plant compact," I explain, demonstrating on a particularly unruly specimen. "You cut back the flowering stems from last year—see these woody parts?—but you don't cut into the old wood. That'll kill it."
Iris watches with an intensity that's almost unnerving. I can practically see her filing the information away, organizing it into categories, making mental notes.
"How far back?" she asks.
"A couple inches below where the leaves start. Like this." I make the cut, quick and clean. "You want to shape it—a little mound, not too tall. Think of a hedgehog."
"A hedgehog."
"Round and spiky. That's the aesthetic we're going for."
Something flickers across her face—not quite a smile, but close. "I'll add 'hedgehog aesthetics' to my list of new skills."
We work in silence for a while, the only sounds the snip of shears and the buzz of bees already exploring the early blooms. The sun climbs higher, warming the back of my neck. The scent of lavender fills my nose, my lungs, my entire being.
This is what I missed. All those years in London, working in restaurant kitchens that smelled like grease and sweat, I missed this. The quiet. The rhythm. The sense of being part of something that's been growing here for generations.
"You're a natural," I say after a while, watching Iris work. Her cuts are precise, her movements efficient. Already her row looks better than when she started.
"I'm a fast learner," she says without looking up. "When I want to be."
"Yeah, I've noticed." I move to the next plant, positioning myself a few feet away from her. Close enough to talk, far enough to think. "Can I ask you something?"
She pauses, shears in hand. "That depends on what it is."
"What did your mother tell you? About Grand-mère. About why you couldn't come here."
The silence stretches. I hear a bird calling from somewhere in the olive grove, a car on the distant road, my own heartbeat.
"She didn't tell me anything," Iris says finally. "That was the point. Grand-mère was just... off-limits. A forbidden topic. I asked, when I was little, but she'd get this look on her face—like she'd tasted something rotten—and change the subject."
