Part 8
Not cruel enough to remember clearly, perhaps, but cruel enough that she did.
The next morning, he had gone to the airport.
He had told himself she would call when she was ready.
Maybe she had.
Maybe someone had made sure the calls never reached him.
Or maybe he had seen them and chosen not to answer.
The possibility was worse than certainty.
Amelie watched his face.
“You loved her,” she said.
It was not a question.
Gabriel’s mouth went dry.
“Yes,” he said.
Poppy looked up.
“Do you love Mommy now?”
The question moved through all three of them.
Gabriel could not give the child a lie. He could not say no only because the answer would protect Amelie. He could not say yes only because guilt had made the past feel close again.
“I don’t know your mom anymore,” he said gently. “But I cared about her very much.”
Poppy considered that.
“Like you care about Amelie?”
Gabriel looked at Amelie.
Her face had become carefully blank.
“Yes,” he said. “Like that.”
Amelie closed her eyes briefly.
Poppy settled against his chest again.
The child did not understand the damage the answer had done. She was too young to understand adult love as a thing that could continue changing after people had stopped touching each other, speaking to each other, sharing a life.
But Amelie understood.
Gabriel understood.
The music from inside the villa started again, but not the wedding music. It was a pianist playing something quiet and shapeless, perhaps trying to give the guests something else to hear besides their own whispers.
Amelie stood.
“I need a minute,” she said.
Gabriel looked at her.
“Alone?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
She walked toward the row of chairs closest to the arch and stopped beside the front one. It had been reserved for her mother. A small ivory program still rested on the seat.
She picked it up.
Her fingers moved over the gold lettering.
Then she put it back.
“My mother is in there,” she said without turning around.
“I know.”
“She is probably terrified that the wedding is becoming a public disaster.”
Gabriel did not answer.
“She will ask me what happened,” Amelie continued. “She will ask whether the child is yours. She will ask whether I knew. She will ask whether I want to send everyone home before people start inventing things.”
Gabriel looked down at Poppy.
“What do you want to tell her?”
Amelie laughed once, quietly.
“I don’t know.”
She turned around.
Her eyes were wet now, though she had not cried.
“I wanted to marry you,” she said.
Gabriel felt the sentence land.
“I know.”
“No.” Her voice tightened. “I don’t think you do.”
He said nothing.
She looked at the flowers, the chairs, the villa.
“I wanted this because I thought it was a beginning. Not a performance. I know weddings are performances. I know people look at dresses and flowers and decide whether you look happy enough. But I thought underneath all of it, this would mean we had chosen each other without keeping one foot outside the door.”
Gabriel held Poppy closer.
Amelie’s gaze went to the child.
“And now there is a little girl who looks at you like you are the safest thing in the world.”
He swallowed.
“I don’t know if I am.”
“You have to become it anyway.”
The words were not cruel.
They were the truth.
Gabriel looked down at Poppy’s hair.
He felt something move inside him, not like a decision arriving cleanly, but like a part of his life becoming impossible to postpone.
“I will,” he said.
Amelie nodded.
“Good.”
Poppy stirred.
“Are you leaving?” she asked Amelie.
Amelie turned toward her.
“No.”
“Are you still sad?”
“Yes.”
Poppy’s face folded.
“I’m sorry.”
Amelie walked back toward them slowly.
She crouched beside the bench, her satin skirt spreading carefully over the stone.
“You don’t have to fix my feelings,” she said.
The words seemed too adult for the child.
Poppy blinked.
“What does that mean?”
“It means adults have feelings that belong to them. You don’t have to carry them.”
Poppy looked at Gabriel.
“Does he have feelings?”
Amelie almost smiled.
“Yes.”
“Are they big?”
“Very.”
Gabriel let out a quiet breath.
Poppy looked at him seriously.
“You should tell people then.”
He looked at the child.
“I should.”
Amelie sat beside them on the bench, leaving enough space that Poppy would not feel cornered.
For a while, none of them spoke.
The quiet did not feel peaceful.
May you like
But it was real.
A few minutes later, a woman in a dark evening suit came cautiously through the glass doors of the villa. She was the estate manager, someone Amelie had known since childhood. Her silver hair was pulled into a low knot. Her expression changed when she saw Poppy.
