Rosane let out a jubilant shriek and hugged the kitten to her chest.
“What are you going to name her?” Armand lifted his coffee cup and his sister filled it for him.
Rosane’s face scrunched in concentration. “Something French. How do you say smoke?”
“Fumée.”
“Few-may.” As the kitten’s rough tongue scraped her nose, Rosane giggled again. “It’s a good name. She looks like a puff of smoke, don’t you think? Fumée. I like that.”
A pang of envy knocked around Christi’s chest at the ease with which Armand had made Rosane feel at home and at his ability to wrest smiles out of her. Not the devil, she thought, a magician.
“Armand, pas à la table,” Marguerite chided. Her round glasses magnified her black eyes, making them the most prominent feature on her moon face. “The child has to eat.”
“Let her have some fun.”
“She is not yours to spoil,” she said in French.
“It is no worse than all the junk you are stuffing her with.”
Marguerite waved his retort away with a dimpled hand. “Non, it’s not the same.”
Armand leaned back in his chair and gazed at Rosane with adoration. “She’s perfect, n’est ce pas?”
“Diable, Armand! She is just a child,” Marguerite insisted, jamming a strand of gray hair back into its tight bun.
“She looks like Caro, don’t you think? Only she is much stronger. You can tell by the way she carries herself and the depth in those eyes.”
Marguerite harrumphed and slammed shut the refrigerator door. She filled a saucer with milk and set it next to Rosane’s cereal bowl. She wiped her hands on the pristine white apron cinched over her plain, out-of-date black dress. In broken English, she said, “Maybe Fumée have hunger.”
Rosane set the kitten down. It lapped contentedly at the milk. “She does. Look at her go!”
“Do you like the flavor of maple?” A conspiratorial smile animated Marguerite’s starched face.
It was as if they were trying to outdo each other to gain Rosane’s affection. A smile sneaked up on Christi. Family wanting to fit together, wanting to be liked. There’s no evil in that.
“I love it!” Rosane stroked the kitten as if it were made of glass. “Mom always buys the real thing even though it’s more expensive. It’s much better than that fake syrup stuff.”
“Try this.” Marguerite placed two pieces of toast before Rosane. They oozed with a spread the pale sand of maple sugar. “I think you not have Map-O-Spread at Texas.”
Rosane took a healthy bite and nodded her approval. “This is good. Mom never lets me have sugar stuff for breakfast. Except for pancakes on Sunday sometimes.”
Christi pressed her fingers tighter against her lip to silence her laughter. She’d gone from junk food queen to Mother Earth while she carried Rosane. The transformation had done wonders for her until her parents’ death. Then all the old feelings of rootless-ness returned with a punch, and with them, her stomach troubles. Had Rosane felt deprived? Guilt spiked an unwelcome wave of acid in her gut. Sometimes the creature she’d borne seemed so foreign to her.
Christi shook her head, pasted on her famous all’s-right smile and marched into the kitchen.
“Well, you’re cheerful this morning.” Christi kissed the top of Rosane’s head and ran her fingers through the soft strands of her daughter’s hair.
“Look, Mom! Look what Armand gave me!” Rosane lifted the kitten up for inspection. “Can I keep her? Can I?”
How could she refuse Rosane anything when she looked so happy? “She can be yours while we’re here.”
“Oh, goodie!” Rosane rubbed her nose against the kitten’s. “Did you hear that, Fumée? I get to keep you.” She squeezed the kitten to her chest before turning the creature over on her lap to scratch the soft belly. The kitten nipped at the wiggly fingers, and Rosane giggled at their game.
Christi glanced at Marguerite, then at Armand. The kitchen’s temperature seemed to drop a few degrees. Was it her imagination or had the starched lines and stony expression reappeared on Marguerite’s face?
“You slept well last night?” Smiling at her, Armand pushed away his cup of coffee. His slow gracious charm put her at ease as it had since she’d arrived two days ago.
“Yes, thank you.”
“What can I make you for breakfast?” Marguerite asked in her halting English. Her gaze inspected Christi’s attire and her frown disapproved.
“That’s all right, you don’t have to serve me. I’ll help myself.”
“I do not permit anyone to disturb my kitchen.”
Then the coffee mess Daniel left last night must have tickled her pink this morning. “In that case, I’ll have some tea.” The odor of fresh-brewed coffee permeated the kitchen. Christi longed for a cup, but didn’t think her stomach could handle it this morning.
“Orange Pekoe or menthe?”
“Mint is fine.”
After she put the kettle on, Marguerite turned back to Christi. “What you like to eat?”
“Just toast, please.” Christi didn’t think she could manage anything else and the answer of “nothing” seemed unacceptable, judging from the disapproving scowl Marguerite leveled at her.
“That is all?”
Christi nodded. Acid lapped in her stomach. With a hand, she massaged her stormy stomach. “I must have eaten something that didn’t agree with me at the party last night.” She attempted a smile. “Thank you for keeping an eye on Rosane. I appreciate your kindness.”
Marguerite harrumphed and returned to the stove.
Rosane slunk out of her chair to play on the floor with the kitten. She teased Fumée with a lock of her hair and the kitten batted at it with its paws.
Armand pulled a cigarette from his jacket pocket, lit it with a monogrammed gold lighter and puffed deeply. A moment later, a rheumy cough rattled in his chest. The stink of the smoke did nothing to improve Christi’s appetite.
“I have a present for you, too.”
“Oh, that’s really not necessary—”
Armand reached behind him to the sideboard and picked up a thick album sheathed in burgundy leather. “I have found the photo album I told you about yesterday.”
“You did!” Christi had never seen a picture of her mother as a child. And her mother had categorically refused to speak of her past. All of Christi’s questions had remained unanswered, brushed aside like pesky fruit flies. As she scooted her chair closer to the table, anticipation warmed her.
A gold L was embossed on the cover. As he turned to the first page, the leather creaked. She wrinkled her nose at the scent of dust and history that rose into the air like fairy powder. He glided the album across the table until it rested between them. She wrapped her feet around the chair’s legs and leaned in for a closer look.
“This is your grandmother, Catherine, and her husband, Henri.” Armand seemed as eager to share the album’s contents as she was to view them. “Henri died young—only a few years after your mother was born. Marguerite and I came to live with Catherine and Caroline soon after when our own parents were killed in a train accident.”
“How awful!”
Although she could not mistake Catherine for Caroline, Christi noticed the strong resemblance between her grandmother and her mother, between her mother and herself. A