I let myself in and stand in the entryway, breathing it in. Dust motes dancing in the fading light. The faint smell of lavender and old wood and something else, something that might be grief or might just be the particular scent of a house that's been empty too long.
"Hello," I say softly, to no one. To Grand-mère's ghost. To the twelve-year-old version of myself who used to come running through this door, shouting for biscuits and kisses. "I'm home."
The house doesn't answer, but I didn't expect it to.
I wander through the rooms, relearning the geography of my childhood. In the sitting room I run my fingers along the bookshelves and pull out a paperback I remember reading during a thunderstorm one August.
And the kitchen. God. The kitchen.
I stand in the doorway and let it wash over me. The ancient range cooker, cold now but still dominating the room. The copper pots hanging from the rack above the island. The big farmhouse table where Grand-mère taught me to roll pasta dough and chop herbs and taste as I cooked, always taste, because how else would I know if it was right?
There are paintings on the walls I don't remember. Beautiful things—landscapes, mostly, the Provençal countryside rendered in bold strokes and vivid colors. They're all signed with the same initials in the corner: H.V.
I file that away for later and open the refrigerator, which is predictably empty except for a jar of Dijon mustard that's probably been there since the Chirac administration. The pantry is better: olive oil, dried pasta, tinned tomatoes, a braid of garlichanging from a hook. Someone—the lawyer, maybe, or a kind neighbor—has left the basics.
I need to cook. I always need to cook when I'm feeling like this—scraped raw, too many emotions fighting for space in my chest. Cooking is the only language I've ever been fluent in, the only way I know to make sense of the world.
I find an apron—Grand-mère's apron, faded and soft from a thousand washings—and tie it around my waist. I chop garlic and slice tomatoes and cook pasta in the biggest pot I can find, talking to myself the whole time because the silence is too loud otherwise.
"Okay, so the olive oil goes in first, obviously, heat it up but not too hot, you want it shimmering not smoking—"
I'm making aglio e olio, the simplest thing in the world, pasta and garlic and olive oil and maybe some chili flakes if I can find them. It's what Grand-mère used to make me when I was sad, or sick, or just needed something warm and good.
"And the garlic goes in now, low and slow, don't let it burn, Mum always burned the garlic and then wondered why everything tasted bitter—"
I stop. Breathe. Keep stirring.
"Right. Okay. You're fine. This is fine. You're in Grand-mère's kitchen making Grand-mère's pasta in Grand-mère's apron, and she's dead, and she's been dead for six months, and you didn't even know, you didn't even—"
My voice cracks. I keep stirring anyway.
The pasta is perfect. I eat it standing at the kitchen island, because sitting at that big table alone feels like too much, and Idrink two glasses of wine from a bottle I found in the pantry, and I don't cry because crying has never been my strong suit.
By the time I finish washing up, it's fully dark outside. The farmhouse settles around me, creaking and sighing the way old houses do. I should go and pick a bedroom, figure out where I'm sleeping for the next—what, three months? However long this takes?
Instead, I pour another glass of wine and wander out onto the terrace. The night is warm and soft and full of stars, more stars than I've seen in years of London living. The lavender fields are shadows in the darkness, but I can smell them. I'll always be able to smell them.
"I'm sorry," I say to the night. To Grand-mère. To myself. "I'm sorry I didn't come back. I'm sorry I didn't try harder. I'm sorry I let Mum win."
The night doesn't answer. The cicadas sing. The stars wheel overhead, indifferent and eternal.
I'm about to go inside when I see it.
Headlights. Coming up the drive.
Someone else is here.
I set down my wine glass and watch the lights grow closer, my heart suddenly pounding. It's probably nothing—a neighbor, maybe, checking on the property. Or the lawyer with some emergency paperwork. Or—
The car pulls up to the house and stops. The engine cuts off. A door opens, and a figure steps out into the darkness.
The figure is tall. The figure is moving toward the house with the particular stride of someone who expects to be obeyed. The figure is, unless I'm very much mistaken, the other beneficiary.
The real granddaughter.
The woman who's going to make me share.
I stay on the terrace and wait for her to see me, my chin lifted, Grand-mère's apron still tied around my waist.
