Beautiful(62)

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She was playing with the children one night outside at sunset, and she looked up as a car drove into the compound. When it stopped, Patrick Weston got out. She was surprised to see him. He saw her right away and walked over to her, with a confident look and a warm smile.

“What are you doing here?” she asked him.

“Well, hello to you too. I told you I’d send the article. I didn’t have your address, so I brought it to you.” She smiled at his answer, as he took a clipping of the article out of his pocket and handed it to her. The child she’d been playing with went to find her mother, and Véronique sat down to read it. It was good and strong, and very tight, and the message clear about the good work they were doing, and the importance of ridding Angola and other countries of land mines once and for all. He mentioned seeing her there, working as a volunteer, and there were no pictures of her, just as he had promised. She was still wondering why he had come back.

“How’ve you been?” he asked her.

“I’ve been good, really good. Busy here.” She smiled at him. She looked peaceful and healthy, better than when he’d last seen her. So did he. “I’ve been rethinking my life and what matters to me now. I still haven’t figured out a job,” she said, as they watched the sunset together. “Even if my life magically went back to the way it was before, I don’t think I could lead that life anymore. It was heady stuff and fun, exciting and flattering. But a whole existence spent on your looks isn’t very fulfilling. My mother pointed that out to me, and I ignored her. At eighteen and nineteen it was fun, and I never questioned it.”

“Why would you? You were making a fortune as a top model. What girl wouldn’t want that? It’s every young girl’s dream.”

“It’s a pretty empty dream, though. I’m going back to Paris in a few weeks. I think I’ll come back here for a month or two every year and volunteer. But I have to find a real job now, or I’m going to bore myself to death, and everyone I know.” She felt ready to see her old friends now. She felt whole again, more than ever before. Saint Matthew’s and the people she met there, and the children had done that for her.

“You didn’t bore me, when I met you,” he said, watching her. “What kind of job?”

“I don’t know, something in philanthropy, like finding other projects like this, and giving them money or raising funds for them. My father left me some that I’d like to do something useful with, to honor him and my mother. I think they’d like that.” She had said as much to Chip, and he thought it was a good idea. He had told her she could start a foundation in both their names. “What about you? What have you been up to?” She was trying to seem casual about it. She was glad to see him.

“Same as you. Trying to figure things out.” He looked better than when she’d last seen him and his eyes didn’t look so sad. “I have this crazy idea that if I survived, there was a reason for it. I don’t know what that is yet, but I know it’s there somewhere. Maybe I should write a book about the November attacks in Paris, or terrorism in general, and how pervasive that is. I lost a wife and unborn child. I don’t want that forgotten, about them or any of the victims. I want people to remember her and how wonderful she was. She was a writer, so I think she’d like that. I feel like we have an obligation to pay back as survivors. It’s not just good enough to live through it, whether the scars are inside or out, but it’s important to do something, like what you’re doing here. And if you survive, you have to crawl your way back. I’ve been doing that for twenty months, and you for almost as long.”

“All I’ve figured out is that life is about more than having a beautiful face. That isn’t enough. It’s not a reason for living, just so others can look at you. I want to be more than that,” she said.

“You already are,” he said quietly. “I learned something from you when I was here two months ago. Your life gets all blown to bits, the way ours did, or in some smaller way, and you have to put it all back together and find a reason for living when things change. I couldn’t find that reason. You did, you found it here, and you had the guts to go looking for it.

“When I got back to London, I realized that maybe I had found it here too, and I didn’t even see it. I came back to find out if the answer for me was here, and I missed it. Just like when you looked in the mirror after Brussels, all you saw were the scars. The scars aren’t what it’s about, or even the perfect face. It’s about what’s inside you and who you are. You’re beautiful, Véronique, in all the ways that matter. Scars, no scars, it’s irrelevant. Beauty is in the sunsets here, in the children, in the smiling faces, in the work they’re doing here at Saint Matthew’s. It’s in your eyes, and all the people who survived the hell we lived through. We survived. Maybe that’s the whole point, and the real question is what we’re going to do about it. I came back here to see you,” he said honestly. He didn’t want to play games with her, or hide. “I’ve never known anyone like you, not because of your face, but because of your heart. Your heart and the love in you balances out the hatred and the horror of what happened to us. I looked at you and I knew I was alive again, so here I am,” he said softly, and reached for her hand. They held hands as they watched the sun go down and sink behind the African horizon. They had found peace in Angola, and a reason for living, and they had to find a way to take it home with them, keep the flame alive and protect it against the forces of evil.