The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted (39 page)

What if he was dead? What if he was already gone?

I couldn’t breathe. I curled on the ground, my head pressed to my knees. I couldn’t break down. There was no time for it. I lifted my head and shouted his name again from deep within me.

And then I heard Julien’s voice. “Heidi!” he called. “Heidi!”

“Here!” I shouted. “I’m right here!” I got up and ran to his voice and he ran to mine. “Julien!”

He was holding a flashlight and the light swept across me.

What if he went for a swim, struck his head, and drowned? “The pool!” I shouted. I sprinted to him and grabbed his arm to steady myself.

“I looked. He isn’t there. My mother is calling the police,” he said. “They will arrive soon, but I have this thought.”

“What is it?” I said breathlessly.

“Saint Ser,” he said. “On the balcony with the bird, he wanted to know where the chapel was. My mother pointed to it. The hermit was the good phantom. The protector of souls. Abbot believes the stories of the house, the miracles and enchantments. He is a boy who believes.”

“But the bird flew!” I said. “It’s alive. He said that the bird’s soul would go to the chapel if it died. But it didn’t die.”

“Maybe that’s not the soul he is looking for,” Julien said.

he climb up Mont Sainte-Victoire was difficult in the daylight, and, at night, harrowing. The shadows shifted on the narrow path, turning every stone into a huddled boy. I was breathless, shaking with adrenaline. The path was steep, mostly graveled but also rocky. Julien and I were calling Abbot’s name. The brush beside the path was dense and dark. What if Abbot had fallen? What if he was unconscious? Our flashlights barely penetrated the undergrowth. Was it possible that we’d missed him? Each second, each empty shout, each time Abbot did not answer our call, was torturous. I couldn’t lose him. I’d lost too much already. I was furious in the way that terror can quickly give way to fury. Henry had abandoned me. How did he expect me to do all of this myself? It made no rational sense, but I blamed myself and felt Henry blaming me, too, so I blamed him
back, and then my mind cast around wildly through my memories of the last few days, trying to piece together what had gone wrong and why. My chest felt like it might heave and contract into sobs at any moment. I tried to keep my breathing calm.
It isn’t Henry’s fault
, I told myself. Finally, all of my anger and blame came back to me, but not me alone. This was Julien’s fault, too.

“Abbot saw us,” I told Julien while heaving myself forward. “He saw us holding hands at the Bastille Day celebration. He may have even seen us kiss. I should be at home. I should be simplifying my life—if anything. I should be at home right now dating Crook Nixon!”

“You want to date Nixon?”

“No!” I shouted. “You’re too complicated! You were trying to be Abbot’s father.”

“His father?” he said, shining the flashlight at me. “I don’t know what you mean.”

I kept climbing, my body trembling. “You can’t be the father to your own kid, so you were trying to play father to mine.” This made perfect sense to me as I said it. I slipped, scraping my knee against a rock. I winced but regained my footing. “He has a father. You’re just a distraction. If you hadn’t been here, I could have stopped him.”

“I wasn’t trying to be Henry, not for him or for you,” Julien said.

“Don’t say his name!” I shouted, my hands gripping a rock. I was filled with fury. My head felt like a hive. My eyes
stung from trying to see into the darkness. I was as angry as I’d allowed myself to be since Henry’s death—fueled by desperation. “Don’t even say his name!”

He stopped and stared at me. The beam of light pointed at my feet. “We’ll find him, Heidi. We’re going to find him.”

I could see the dim features of his face, the watery glint of his eyes. This was what I needed to believe, and his voice was calm, hopeful and tender, but it wasn’t enough. I bowed my head, took a steadying breath.
We’re going to find him. Yes
, I wanted to say.
And then I will go back to my life—my safe life—and I’ll leave all of this behind me
. I thought of my mother hiding a box in the kitchen and returning to her life, pretending her lost summer hadn’t happened. Why not? I was my mother’s daughter after all. That’s all I wanted now: to turn back to how things were before, holed up in the house with Abbot, unaware of the passage of time. Charlotte? How could I help her?

I nodded, but the nod wasn’t for Julien. I was agreeing to a new promise. If we found Abbot safe and sound, I would give up on this lost summer, this pilgrimage for the brokenhearted, this house of supposed miracles. Abbot and I would go home and return to our safe lives before we were seized and
hent. Home
, I promised myself,
home
.

It was this promise that kept me climbing. I didn’t look at Julien. We both were calling for Abbot. Our throats now sounded rough. My own was raw, and my hands and knees were scraped.

Julien trained the flashlight up the mountain, sweeping it from side to side, and then, finally, he stopped. “I think I see something,” he said.

“What, what is it?” I said, my eyes skittering wildly.

He pointed the flashlight at the ground. “There’s a light.”

And then I could see it, too. A small, bobbling light up ahead, near what looked like a white wall, switching on and off at a slow pace.

Julien started climbing as quickly as he could. He was faster and more agile on the mountain. “Abbot!” he called. “We’re coming. Don’t move.”

“Abbot, keep the light on!” I shouted. “We’re here.”

I wanted to reach him first, but Julien was there, kneeling beside him. He shone the light on his face. I could see a quick glimpse of Abbot’s cheeks, his clenched eyes as he winced away from the brightness. I felt a wave of relief that made my knees buckle.

“He’s okay!” Julien called to me, running the flashlight down Abbot’s skinny legs, bruised and bloody. “He’s fallen. But he’s okay!”

Julien was whispering to Abbot when I scrambled to Abbot’s side. I knelt on the rocks. “I’m here now,” I said to Julien, still angry at him. He stood up, giving us room. “Abbot,” I said. “Where does it hurt?”

“My ankle,” Abbot said, his voice strained.

Julien lit Abbot’s knees again, which were skinned. Blood smeared down his shins, and then his ankle, which was visibly swollen even through his short sports sock.

“It might be broken,” I said.

“Maybe. I don’t know,” Julien said.

Abbot lifted his hands, which were red, scratched up.

“Abbot,” I said, my voice choked with emotion. “Why did you run off?”

“I wanted to see the chapel,” he whispered softly, his chin quivering, and then he shut his eyes—so much like his father’s eyes—and turned his head away from me.

“He came very close,” Julien said. “Look.” He pointed his flashlight just a bit farther up the mountain, and there was the humble entrance to the chapel. Several rounded steps, like a tiered cake, led to a dark door—more a portal, because there was no actual door to the chapel, just a door-shaped entryway. Two stone buttresses held up the right side, and it looked like the mountain itself was the left and back side of the chapel.

“Let’s take him in and lay him down,” Julien said. He flipped open his cell phone, probably checking for bars, then shut it. “I’ll make calls. The police for the mountain are young and strong and know the mountain very well. They have lamps and can light up the path. They can carry him down the mountain gently, safely. Okay?”

“Yes, yes.” I picked up Abbot’s flashlight, and he gripped Julien’s flashlight. Julien lifted him and held him closely to his chest while Abbot trained the bobbing light on the path. “A little higher,” Julien instructed. “Good.”

The mountain was steep, the gravel shifting underfoot. Julien carried Abbot up the last switchback, then up the
steps and into the mouth of the chapel, and I followed. I could see Abbot’s fist gripping the back of Julien’s shirt, and for some reason, this was what broke me. Tears started streaming down my face. I wiped them away.

I set my flashlight on the floor pointing up into the cool, dry air; it barely lit the small space. Julien lay Abbot down on the stone floor. I sat next to Abbot, cross-legged. I put my scraped hand on his forehead. The chapel was small and still, very much like a cave, not some high holy place like the cathedrals we’d visited, but maybe even holier in its simplicity.

Julien picked up his flashlight. “I’m going to find a place where the phone will transmit. I will be fast.”

“Thank you,” I said quietly. I was embarrassed now that I’d turned on him. “Thank you for everything. Be careful.”

“It was nothing,” he said. “Anyone would help.” This wasn’t true. Not just anyone. He walked out of the chapel, his cell phone open and glowing. The crunch of his footfalls quickly disappeared and the hollow quiet of the chapel surrounded Abbot and me.

“Abbot,” I said. He looked up at me, his eyes teary. “Why did you run away? I was so scared. You can’t do that! I thought you were gone. Do you understand me?”

He wrapped his arms over his face.

This wasn’t the time to teach him a lesson. I tried to calm myself down. I took a deep breath. “Were you upset about the bird?” He didn’t respond. “But you saved him. He can fly.”

Abbot shook his head. No, it wasn’t about the bird. I
wasn’t sure I could handle the deeper sadness right now—the picture of his father as a bird. Was that what all of this was really about? Or was it also about Julien and me? I wasn’t sure I could bear this blame, either. It wasn’t just Julien’s to shoulder, and I knew it.

“Why did you do it? Please, tell me.”

He rolled away from me and shook his head more violently.

I looked at the altar rail farther back in the chapel and the walls cluttered with graffiti. I had to know. I couldn’t allow him to keep this bottled up. It was too dangerous. “Okay,” I said. “How about a multiple choice test, like Charlotte’s SATs? You pick
A, B, C
, or
D
.”

He peeked at me with one eye. His face was streaked with dirt.

“Okay?”

He nodded.

“Roll over and I’ll wipe your face.”

He rolled over. I brushed some dirt and pushed back his hair. “
A
. Does it have to do with the swallow?
B
. Does it have to do with Daddy somehow because you miss him?
C
. Does it have to do with Julien and me? Or
D
. All of the above.” My voice warbled with emotion.

He stared at the ceiling. “D. All of the above.”

I didn’t say anything for a moment. I stared around at the small chapel, this holy place. I placed my hand on his head and whispered, “I saw your picture of Daddy as a swallow. It was beautiful.”

“The swallow flew away,” Abbot said. “It didn’t die, but I took care of it and it flew away. It left anyway and didn’t come back.”

“Why were you climbing to the chapel? Why here?” I asked quietly. “Were you looking for Daddy’s soul?”

“Daddy’s soul can’t be here. He didn’t die on the mountain. He died in America.”

“Yes, so why were you climbing here?”

“Maybe I would see the phantom,” he said. “If he’s a protector of souls, maybe he might know something.”

“About where Daddy’s soul might be?”

He was embarrassed. He nodded quickly and looked away.

“Daddy’s soul is everywhere,” I said. “He’s with us all the time.”

Abbot clenched his fists and pounded on the stone floor. “I hate that bird. I got it all better so that it could fly, and it just left. You can’t trust birds!”

“But you can trust me. I’m never going to fly away.”

“You could die.”

“But the chance of that is so remote, Abbot. Daddy was in an accident, a bizarre accident. It didn’t make sense.” I remembered Henry saying,
I think we should be honest when the world doesn’t make sense
. I was trying to be honest. “I’m probably going to live a very long time. You’ll have to wheel me around in an old-lady wheelchair.”

Abbot was quiet. I looked at the altar, where I’d once stood as a kid, Julien holding my hand, asking me if I heard
the phantom. The altar looked gray in the dim light, more like a fence than an altar.

“You know Daddy used to tell me stories about you. I guess they were Heidi stories.”

“What stories did he tell you?” I asked.

“He told me that when you were little your mom came here and left you guys there, and your dad said that you might have to choose between your parents. It was a sad story.”

“How did that come up?”

“One day, you were mad at me at dinner. I thought you weren’t being fair. And he was telling me that you’d been a kid once, like me. But that everyone has different kinds of being a kid and yours wasn’t always good.”

“Well,” I said, “it’s true. That’s what I thought for a while one summer, that I’d have to choose between my mom and my dad, which one I’d want to live with.”

Abbot pressed his eyes shut with his fingers. Tears slid along the sides of his face. His cheeks grew flushed.

“What is it?” I said softly. “Abbot, tell me.”

He took a sharp breath and then said, “I would have picked Daddy.”