The Last Dress from Paris(111)

I convinced myself on the journey that you would understand, that Veronique returning to me, even after all this time, was the natural course of events—the rightful ending to a story we started to write together all those years ago. The human mind is a wonderful thing. If you want something desperately, it will allow you to believe that others want it for you too. Fantasy is the great seducer, so much stronger than logic or reason. Thankfully my love for you proved a much tougher opponent, easily defeating my selfishness.

So, as I stood at a safe distance in the park and watched you and Veronique play, it was one of the happiest hours of my life. I saw for myself the deep trust she has in you, how she threw her small arms around your waist, fully committing herself, never doubting you would catch her. I watched as her shoes launched skyward and you swung her through the air. How she buried her face in your skirt. I saw the strength of her grip on you, wanting to protect you as much as you were protecting her.

And my heart broke, Anne. Because it was the moment I realized she will never be mine again.

I scanned your face for the slightest inclination of a retreat from the very great promise you made to me. Was there anything that said you understood? That you might choose to take my pain away once more? How foolish that sounds now. Of course, all I saw was the ferocity of your love for her, exactly as I had hoped I would when I left your apartment for the last time.

She is beautiful, and only someone with no heart at all would seek to cast any doubt on her happiness. I know it will be many years before my heart stops hurting, but I won’t ask to see her again. If there is any doubt in your mind, please know that she is yours and that is good and right, and nothing will change that now. Once again you have inspired me, Anne. This time to value the treasures my new life has given me—to be a better wife and mother myself. Dear Edward and Genevieve deserve to be loved just as well.

I will learn to cherish the time Veronique spends in my thoughts. You have given me such a positive image to always remember her by. I hope now I can learn to let go of the innocent baby who has haunted my darkest hours and rejoice in the happy little girl you have raised, who knows nothing of the sadness that circles her story. I won’t lie to you and say it will be easy—there will be many tough days ahead, but my greatest hope is that I will find a way to live with the sadness that will forever be a part of me. I will try, Anne, to no longer let it rule me.

I wish we could have spoken, my dear friend. I would have loved to sit on that bench with you both and share a few bites of whatever it was you were enjoying together. I would have loved to feel her head drop onto my shoulder, as it did on yours, or to have hugged you tightly. Isn’t that one of the great afflictions of being human, always wanting more? What I have now will have to be enough, and sometimes I can feel my spirits lifting with that sense of acceptance.

I hope you are proud, Anne. Of Veronique, of the incredible gift of peace you have given me, and of the magnificent woman that you are. I’m sure I will not have a better friend as long as I live, or Veronique a better maman.

All my love, forever,

Sylvie x





EPILOGUE





ONE YEAR LATER

The day dawns pink and bright, and I know Granny would have thought it fitting. No black, she said, not even gray, and remarkably the sky has obliged her, despite how the year is drawing to its end.

I was wondering how Veronique might cope with the dress code, given that she lives in black, but she looks immaculate in a slate-blue suit. The collar sits high on her neck, then it drapes across her body, cutting in sharply at the waist, where there are two angled pockets. There isn’t a millimeter of slack in the skirt, it has been tailored so tightly to her curves. She’s added a pair of chocolate-brown leather gloves, edged with fur, and a small pillbox hat in a matching color with a tiny birdcage veil that grazes her eyebrows.

Granny would have loved this look.

At Veronique’s collarbone there is one solitary pearl—granny’s earring reimagined as a necklace, and perhaps Veronique’s last remaining connection to her biological father. I notice her touching it sometimes, rubbing it between her fingers absentmindedly, just like he did every day while he was forced to think about everything he’d lost.

“The suit is from Bettina,” she tells me as we walk together through the church grounds. “It seemed like a fitting choice.”

“Tell me you’ll take me,” Mum adds. “I’ve heard so much about this place, I desperately want to see it for myself.”

“We will!” Veronique and I answer in unison.

“It’s one of the highlights of the tour, Mum. You’re going to see everything, I promise. Just as I did.”

I refuse to feel sad today. It’s not what Granny wanted, and how can I, when there is so much to be thankful and grateful for? So much to look forward to, thanks to her. And all because she refused to give up. Because she always had hope and believed that things could be made better.

I picture the different versions of her as I gaze down at the freshly laid headstone, marveling even now at her many reinventions before she finally found her peace. I know how much easier it would have been to quit. But she was so fixed in her ambition to set right what she couldn’t control for all those years. She waited and was patient—she knew it would come if she didn’t force it.

And in the end, it did.

The cost to her was all the lost years, but she has gifted those back to us, the most incredible goodbye present imaginable. Her family is now united, and it is all because of her. Veronique and Mum would say it’s because of me, and I’ll admit I played my part, but it was only possible because she showed me how.