CHARLOTTE
It’s still warm here in Santa Cruz, but I know it will be cold in Paris at this time of year. I’ve been wondering what to wear all week. Sam loves my yellow summer dress with poppies around the edges, but that will be no good in the French winter. Instead I put on a straight beige skirt and a cream blouse, carrying my woolen cardigan and jacket over my arm.
I stand in the kitchen, restless and ready to go, waiting for the taxi. Looking around at the white walls, I wonder if I’ll ever come back to this apartment. I hope not; it’s a lonely place. On the dot of seven, the doorbell rings. I pick up my suitcase and grab a light cashmere scarf from the hat stand.
“Airport?” The taxi driver looks at me in his rearview mirror.
“Yes, please.”
“Where you flying to?”
“New York, then on to Paris.”
“You got family there?”
“Yes.”
“I thought I heard an accent. You French?”
“Yes.”
He stares at me in the mirror as if trying to work out who I am. “Didn’t get too badly bombed, did it? Paris?”
“No.” I hesitate, not wanting to be rude, but not wanting this conversation either. “It didn’t.”
“Not like London. They really hit London, didn’t they?”
“Yes,” I say, deciding to tell him what he wants to hear. “Paris was occupied instead.”
“Exactly. They didn’t need to bomb it into submission.”
I turn my head away and look out the window, hoping to make it clear that I’m not interested in this conversation. He taps the wheel as if in time to some song in his head. I watch the streets go by: houses with long front lawns, mailboxes standing on one wooden leg, waiting to receive their mail for the day. So different from Paris, but so familiar. It has begun to feel like home, and it makes me wonder if Paris will feel a little foreign to me now.
“They just marched right on into Paris, didn’t they?”
I wish he’d shut up. I sigh loudly and hope he’ll get the hint.
He goes back to tapping the wheel, and we drive the rest of the way in silence. I give him a whole dollar tip when I get out, to thank him for shutting up.
I’m relieved to get to the plane, to finally be going back to France. It’s the first time I’ve flown, and I feel a little nervous when we accelerate so quickly for take-off. I grip the edges of my seat, wondering how Sam felt during his flight. Was he scared? Did someone hold his hand as he boarded the plane? The thought of him doing these things alone, without Jean-Luc or me, fills me with sadness.
“Would you like a drink?” The stewardess stops in front of me with a trolley laden with miniature bottles.
“No, thank you.”
The man sitting next to me looks up from his paper. “A beer, please.”
He pours his drink into a plastic cup. “Where are you going?” he asks.
“New York,” I reply. “Then Paris.” I don’t want to talk, it’s too complicated, so I close my eyes, feigning sleep. But I’m too excited to sleep, and too nervous. Sam. Sam. Will he be angry with me? Will he think I abandoned him? Will he have changed in four months? Four months. Is that all it’s been? It feels like four years.
After the change at New York, we finally land in Paris and I go through customs. I realize I haven’t brought any presents with me. I hesitate, wondering if I should get something, but gifts would feel superfluous and superficial, as if I were on some kind of social visit. I hurry through to the line of waiting taxis.
“Rue des Rosiers, s’il vous plaît, dans Le Marais.” The French words slide effortlessly off my tongue It’s a relief to speak my own language again. It feels like coming home.
Staring out the window as we drive into the city, I wonder what the word “home” really means. Is it a place? Is it a language? Or is it wherever your family is? I suppose it’s a mixture of all these things. But this is not a place Sam can call home. I wish we’d spoken French to him when he was small; we had no right to deny him that part of his identity. I wonder if he’ll resent us when he grows up, when he realizes what we kept from him. But right now, all I want to do is hold his little body tight and tell him everything’s going to be okay. I’ll worry about the rest later.
The taxi drops me off right outside their apartment building. Two men with long beards and black hats walk past me, reminding me that I’m in the Jewish quarter. I’m shaking, and I suddenly realize how cold it is. Setting my case down, I put my cardigan and jacket on, but still I can’t stop shivering. I wrap my arms around myself, my stomach tying itself in knots. I’m only a few meters away from him now. I look up at the windows, imagining him inside, knowing he must be waiting for me.
Taking a deep breath, excitement and trepidation pumping through my veins, I push open the heavy wooden doors, finding myself in a small courtyard. Their apartment is on the fourth floor, so I pick my bag up and heave it up the narrow winding staircase, my heart thumping hard against my ribs. Before I knock on the door, I take a moment to smooth my hair down and straighten my scarf, trying to calm my trembling.
Then I raise my hand. But before I have a chance to make contact with the door, it flies open and Sam jumps on me, almost knocking me over, his arms around my neck, his legs wrapped around my waist, gripping me tightly. I put my arms around him. I hold him. I breathe him in—the sweet, musky smell of him. We have no need for words. I feel the force of his love and I know he can feel mine.
Then I hear a cough. I stumble into the apartment, Sam still clinging to me. Slowly he loosens his grip and puts his feet back on the ground. I hold his face in my palms, staring into his brown eyes. He hugs me around the waist, burying his head in my chest. I stroke his hair. “It’s okay, Sam. It’s going to be all right.”
I hear another cough and look up over his head. Mr. and Mrs. Laffitte are standing there, pale as ghosts, watching us with tears in their eyes. I see Mr. Laffitte reach out to his wife; she buries her face in his shoulder. With the other arm he gestures to a door at the end of the corridor. With Sam still hanging on to me, I follow them into the living room.
Mr. Laffitte helps his wife into an armchair, then stands behind her with his hand on her shoulder. “S’il vous plaît.” He indicates the couch for us to sit.
Sam squirms onto my lap, though he is too big. “Mommy,” he says. “Can we go home now?”
I kiss his head.
“Please. Please. I promise I’ll be good. I just wanna go home.”
“I know. I know.” I kiss him again.
Mr. Laffitte coughs again. “C’est très difficile pour nous.”
I look over at him. “Je suis désolée. Pardonnez nous.”
“Mommy!” Sam shouts, taking my cheeks in his hands. “Don’t speak French!” Then the tears come, rolling down his cheeks. “Mommy! Please!”
“Sam, it’s okay. It’s still me. I’m not leaving you again.” He hasn’t behaved like this since he was five years old.
Mr. Laffitte takes his wife’s hand and they stand together. “Nous allons vous laisser.” They’re going to leave us alone. I nod in agreement. Before we can talk together properly, I need to spend some time with Sam.
They leave the room, and I hear the front door click open and then shut again. “They’ve gone out!” Sam throws his arms around my neck. “Can we go now? Can we? Can we go home?”
“Wait, Sam, please wait.”
His eyes widen, the black pupils expanding. “When? When?”
“I need to talk to… to…” What should I call them? “To Monsieur and Madame Laffitte first.”
He removes his arms from my neck. “But we will go home, won’t we? Promise?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“No! You have to promise!” Fresh tears well up.
I run my hands over his wet cheeks. “I promise.” Now I will have to make it happen.
By the time Mr. and Mrs. Laffitte return, a couple of hours later, Sam has fallen asleep, his head in my lap, exhausted from all the emotion. Gently Mr. Laffitte lifts him up, and I follow him as he carries Sam into his bedroom. He lays him on the bed, putting the cover over him so tenderly it makes my heart lurch. For a minute he stands there looking down at him. I wish I could put my arm around him, offer him some comfort. He bends down, kissing Sam on the head.
“Mommy,” Sam murmurs.
Mr. Laffitte backs away, and I kneel down by the bed, stroking Sam’s head. “It’s okay. I’m here.” I watch as he drifts off again.
When I stand up, I see Mr. Laffitte has left the room. Guilt fills my heart as I walk back to the living room. I sit in the armchair, looking at my feet. I can’t bear to see the sorrow in their eyes. Mrs. Laffitte passes me a cup of coffee, and I glance at her as I thank her. She has the most remarkable green eyes, like Sam’s but brighter. Sam’s are only green in certain lights and depending on his mood. “Cat’s eyes,” a friend once called them.
Mr. Laffitte speaks up. “We want you to take Samuel back to America.”
It’s not what I was expecting. So direct. So clear-cut. “But…”
“It’s too hard for all of us. Especially for him.”
“It’s too late.” Mrs. Laffitte’s voice is so soft I can hardly hear her. “He doesn’t belong to us anymore.”
I put my coffee down and stand up. Without thinking, I walk toward her. She moves along the couch, making room for me. I sit next to her, putting my hand on her knee. “Please forgive us.”
She covers my hand with hers. “We forgive you. You saved our son.” Her silent tears fall onto our joined hands. I lean toward her, holding her as she cries, wishing I could absorb her pain.
“I’ll teach him French. He’ll write to you. We’ll talk about you. It’s not over. Please don’t think it’s over.”
Mr. Laffitte puts his hand on my shoulder. “We know you will. You’ve been a good mother to him.” He pauses. “And Jean-Luc has been a good father. Sam was lucky that such a man saved him.”
I can’t stop the tears now from streaming down my face. Sarah and David love Sam more than themselves; they are putting his happiness before their own. It hits me like a dagger in my heart. They are his true parents. They always have been. The thought fills me with shame, and I promise myself to make sure he grows up knowing what they did for him.
The paperwork is completed in a week and, as the plane flies over the Atlantic, taking us home to California, I watch Sam sleep. His long eyelashes flutter on his pale cheeks and he clutches my arm as if afraid he’ll wake up and I won’t be there again.
I look out at the clouds and think about the Laffittes again and the sacrifice they made. About my husband—the bravest man I know—who will return to us. And about Samuel.
I offer up a silent prayer, grateful for this second chance.