This Place of Wonder (7)

It was a man. Not even looking my way. Imposingly tall, built with a kind of loose-limbed leanness, broad shoulders, and graceful movements as he picked through a pile of fresh spring onions. His hair was dark and glossy, too long, a tousle of curls, and he wore a neatly trimmed beard that was as black as his hair. I couldn’t see much of his face. His ass was a work of art.

But really, it was that aura that captured me.

As if he felt my gaze, he looked my way and saw me staring. He was older than I thought, and I flushed, but couldn’t seem to stop staring. His skin was a light reddish brown, his eyes deep brown or maybe even black. He could have been Greek or Egyptian, Indian or Brazilian, Cuban or Creole or some mix of all of the above. His amorphous heritage, I would discover, was part of the way he spun his story. His nose was large, his face long, and he wasn’t the most beautiful creature ever, but it was a face it was hard to stop looking at, like an actor you suddenly see on the street who is both more and less than he seems on-screen, not as handsome, but more compelling.

He raised a single eyebrow, one side of his mouth lifting in a half smile.

Older than me by a decade, I thought, and it turned out to be more. But a fully grown man, one who knew what he wanted. He carried the onions over to me. “Will you wrap these?” he asked in a voice softened with a vaguely French accent.

I smiled.

It was the first beginning.



As I walk through the rooms at Belle l’été, rooms so familiar and yet slightly off-kilter from the way I arranged them, I feel all the years between then and now. The years of being madly in love, of raising our children, one biologically mine, one biologically his, both of them our daughters, only eight months apart, raised as sisters. The years of intense passion early on that settled into years of solid joy and laughter. The last year, when it all fell apart so suddenly, so ridiculously, so completely.

I head upstairs, carrying a pair of boxes. In the primary bedroom I briskly approach the bureau against the wall, intending to empty the drawers so that Maya can have the room if she wishes. I don’t know if she will, but it seems only fair to give her the choice. I’m a little worried about her sleeping in the bedroom of her childhood. Will she regress to that age?

It feels overwhelming, trying to figure out the right thing to do for her. I am terrified of setting a foot wrong, saying the wrong thing, driving her back to the bottle. Losing her completely. One of my employees, Tanesha, who runs the main sales area at the farm, a woman with kind eyes and the history of her life written in the crags of her skin, says it isn’t my job to keep Maya sober, that she has to do the work on her own. She keeps telling me to go to Al-Anon, but I haven’t yet. Those rooms seem sad, a place for the pitiful. I am anything but that.

What I can do is the task at hand. Clear Augustus’s things so Maya won’t have to deal with them. It’s a daunting task. He’s lived in this room for decades and has never been one to throw a lot away. I stand for a long moment with the boxes at my feet and look around at the clutter on his nightstand, the detritus across the top of the bureau. Nothing is left of Norah, thank goodness.

My eyes catch on the painting we chose together. I remember the art fair in Montecito where we picked up the lush nude with red hair flowing down her back. How much he loved it, saying that it made him think of me. Her white breasts, her ruddy nipples, that ample hip and thigh. He never took it down. I love that every single woman he brought here had to see it.

When I open the first drawer, a waft of his scent rises from within, that very particular smell of his skin steeped into his T-shirts even though they’ve been washed. I slam the drawer closed, walk away, fighting the wild emotion in my chest that threatens to give me the same widow-maker they think killed him. I stagger out to the balcony and take in gulps of salt air. Sun shines on my face and hands. Below, in the courtyard, the turquoise pool shimmers.

The world feels intensely empty without him.





Chapter Six


Norah


I spend the night in the cheapest hotel room I can find, filled with party boys daring each other to shotgun beers and dive off the balcony into the pool. I stay safely tucked behind the door, eating the sandwiches I bought on the way here, drinking the extra coffee and tea I bummed off the cleaner earlier.

The next morning, very early, I sling my backpack over my shoulder and walk back up the hill to Belle l’été. It’s a half-hour walk, a little less along the beach, which seems too risky on such a bright day. I don’t want anyone to notice me. I’m the only person on the road, and all the houses are tucked down behind fences and shrubbery, so it’s almost certain no one saw me except on the security cameras trained on the street, and I don’t care about those.

At the house I let myself in through the gate and check for any cars—cleaners or gardeners or Meadow—but the drive is empty. I have a ready excuse if I surprise Meadow—a necklace I left behind, which is very important to me. It’s tucked into my pocket just in case, but nobody is here. I let myself in using the key tucked under a loose brick and turn off the alarm. For a moment I stand alone in the sunny breakfast area near the back door, feeling the loss of him, the loss of this, and look toward the pool. I swam nude every morning, the greatest luxury I’ve ever known, and I can almost feel the water on my body.

But there are more pressing things than a swim. I spent a lot of time alone in this house and know every nook and cranny. Attached to the garage, set into the slope of the hill and reached by a neglected half stairway down, is a little bedroom that must have once belonged to a servant. Judging by the dust, it has been empty for a long time.