The Paris Agent(67)
Not fun anymore? Of course I wasn’t fun. I missed my mother so much it hurt to breathe.
I told Billy I needed some time and he called me a miserable bitch. I handed back my engagement ring then and there, and that was the end of it.
I crawled inside of myself after all that. I stopped talking about Mum altogether, even to my friends. You’re not supposed to be depressed and grieving for a parent in your early twenties—you’re supposed to be out enjoying life and building a career and making good things happen. I tried to pretend that’s exactly what I was doing, even if I felt miserable the whole time. I couldn’t talk to Dad because he was grieving too. I couldn’t talk to Aunt Kathleen because every time I saw her, my throat seemed to close over. Almost every moment I spent with her for most of my life, Mum was there too. Aunt Kathleen never wants to spend time with me and Dad, but it hurts to be alone with her.
It’s been hard to carry my grief all alone but I told myself it was easier to do that than it was to try to share it with someone else only to have them push me away.
I turn back to Theo, expecting to find him staring awkwardly at the ground. But no—Wrigley is at his side, tail wagging vigorously as he leans against Theo’s leg, but even as he pets the dog Theo is looking right at me, his eyes brimming with compassion.
What a relief it is to find myself in the company of a man who is not terrified of difficult emotions.
“No one should have to lose a loved one like that,” he says softly. “Life is so unfair sometimes.”
“It really is,” I say, then look down at the cups in my hand and offer him one with a feeble laugh. “After all of that, do you actually want a cup of tea or did I just make you one to give myself something to do while I was spilling my darkest trauma at you?”
He laughs gently too as he accepts the cup, but quickly sobers.
“I couldn’t find anything in the microfiche about ‘Fleur.’ I’m sorry, Charlotte.”
“Ah,” I say. “That would be too easy, wouldn’t it? Thanks for trying anyway.” A sudden thought strikes me. “Oh no! I’ve also gotten nowhere with Mrs. White so you drove all the way up here for nothing.”
For a minute, Theo looks dumbstruck, but then he says unconvincingly, “Oh, I had a friend to check in on up here anyway.”
I don’t believe him, but I am starting to suspect Theo might be enjoying my company as much as I’m enjoying his, and that sends a warm flush through me.
“Want to come and sit out in my dad’s beautiful garden?” I suggest. His glasses are askew. There’s a faded stain on the white T-shirt he wears. But he smiles all the way up to those big, kind eyes and I never want him to leave.
“I’d be delighted.”
The afternoon has flown by, and Theo and I are still in the garden chatting when I remember I’ve been meaning to try Harry’s office again. He refreshes our cups of tea while I’m inside sitting at the hall table, listening to the number ring out. I sigh impatiently as I hang up, then we automatically wander back out to the garden and take our seats again.
“No luck?” he surmises as he passes me my tea. I shake my head. “She’ll answer eventually. Keep trying.”
“I will,” I say. He hesitates, then he clears his throat.
“I suppose that must have seemed strange last week with me and Harry.”
“It did.”
“You might have noticed a rather imposing locked door behind his desk.”
“I wondered about that.”
“Harry has access to all manner of classified files. With supervision, his students can assist with recording or transcribing oral histories, but from there, every little record is kept under lock and key—usually at the national archives, although from time to time he brings specific objects to the university for concentrated work. He treats every single object as sacred. I’m certain that’s why he has Mrs. White sat way down the other end of that hallway—it makes no sense given how closely they work together, but she smokes like a chimney and he won’t allow cigarette smoke near historic documents. Every object that he signs out from the archive is taken under lock and key into that secure room.”
“What does that have to do with you?” I ask. Theo stretches out his legs and crosses them at the ankles, then looks up to the blue sky above us.
“Do you remember I asked your father if they took the car that day at Salon-La-Tour because Fleur had injured her ankle?”
“Yes. How did you know to ask that?”
He turns toward me. Our eyes meet and lock, and we’re fully clothed and sitting outside, but there’s something almost intimate about this moment.
“Remember yesterday when I told you that history is personal?” When I nod, he goes on. “It is true that I am most likely an orphan, but I know virtually nothing about my birth parents. I lived in an orphanage until I was seven, and then went to live with the Sinclairs. I adore them, truly. They’re a brilliant couple and they did everything they could to build a family around me. As I grew older, my curiosity about my birth parents started to really burn within me, and that always felt like a betrayal of the Sinclairs. It didn’t help that when I tried to ask them about my other family, they would only tell me that my biological parents both died in the war. That I should be proud of them for fighting for their country, but that I had to leave it at that.”