The Room on Rue Amélie(77)

“We could build a house together.”

“With a porch and rocking chairs.”

“And a fireplace with a big chimney for the nights when it gets cold.” Thomas paused. “Does it actually get cold in California?”

“It does sometimes.” Ruby smiled. “And we’d have big windows in our bedroom that overlook the poppy fields.”

“And plenty of room for our children to play in the yard.”

Ruby reached up and touched his face. “Children?”

“I want to have children with you someday, Ruby. If you want that too.”

“Of course I do.” She wasn’t sure she’d ever felt happier than she did in that moment.

“And if Charlotte’s parents don’t come home,” Thomas said carefully, “we’ll adopt her.”

“You’d do that?”

“In a heartbeat.”

Ruby smiled. “Of course that means we’d probably have to bring Lucien too. We’ll all live happily ever after.”

Thomas pulled her to him and kissed her. “We’ll all live happily after.”

They made love three times that day, staring into each other’s eyes, whispering about the future, making promises that they both knew they might be powerless to keep.

They fell asleep in the early afternoon, and Ruby woke a few minutes before four. Thomas still had his arms around her, and his chest was rising and falling in an easy rhythm. For a long time, she just watched, committing to memory the shape of his jaw, the color of his eyelashes, the constellation of freckles that dotted his collarbone. “I’ll see you again,” she whispered. “I know I will.”

She woke him at four-thirty, knowing that Charlotte and Lucien would be home soon. Already, the light that streamed in through the bedroom window was turning apricot. Evening was on its way, and there wasn’t enough time to say all the things she wanted to, but she knew there never would be. Perhaps that was what it was like to love someone deeply: to feel that no matter how many moments together you were granted, there would never be enough.

Thomas blinked at her a few times upon awakening, as if reminding himself that he wasn’t in a dream, and then he kissed her once more, softly, tenderly. “I was thinking,” he said, “that we should also have a white picket fence. Isn’t that very American?”

She laughed. “And maybe an American flag flying in the breeze.”

“And a British flag.”

“But of course.”

They smiled at each other. “Tell me more about the poppies,” he said.

And as they rose reluctantly from the bed and got dressed, Ruby did just that. She described the way the poppies soaked in the desert sunshine, blooming the color of clementines as far as the eye could see. She told him about the soft purple owl’s clover, the deep purple lupine, the tiny yellow wildflowers, and the buttery white cream cups that grew there too, a rolling field of watercolors stretching into the horizon. She told him about the mountains in the distance, the way everything looked carved out of the brilliant blue sky. “It’s like heaven on earth,” she concluded. “I can’t wait to be there again. With you.”

They heard Charlotte’s key in the lock, and Thomas pulled her to him once more. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for painting me a picture of the future. It will sustain me until the day I see you again.”

And as Charlotte came inside, followed by Lucien, both of them wearing expressions of regret, Ruby thought with a strange surge of hope that perhaps this wasn’t so senseless after all. Maybe this was the reason for the hell they’d all been going through. Maybe this was the life she was supposed to find all along.





CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR


January 1944

Seeing the pain on Ruby’s face that evening as she said good-bye to Thomas was wrenching for Charlotte. After all, she was in love too, and she couldn’t imagine being forced to let Lucien go. Now that she had realized what it was to feel that way, she had the clarity to see just how deeply Ruby’s feelings for Thomas—and his for her—ran. In fact, Charlotte wondered now if Ruby had ever really loved Marcel, or if she’d simply mistaken a desire to escape the mundane and a need to be wanted, for the real thing.

Sometimes, two people are just meant for each other. It was as simple as that. And so Charlotte’s heart broke a little as she watched Thomas whisper something in Ruby’s ear, and Ruby whisper something back. Charlotte couldn’t hear their words, and she supposed she didn’t need to; she knew they were saying “I love you” in their own way.

“It’s time,” Lucien said after the hands on the clock had ticked past five. Charlotte watched as Ruby and Thomas exchanged one last pained glance and finally pulled away from each other.

“Thank you,” Ruby said simply, looking at Lucien, “for finding Thomas a way out. Please promise me that you’ll do your best to keep him safe.”

“I swear it on my life,” Lucien said solemnly, which made Charlotte love him even more.

Thomas turned to Charlotte. “You take care of Ruby for me, all right? I know I asked you that once before, but I need to ask it again now.”

Charlotte reached out and grasped Thomas’s hands in her own. “You don’t have to worry. Just concentrate on getting home safely. We look forward to seeing you again.”