In this house we could host banquets and
balls, we could have been happy here if only we had tried. Instead we
watch the unfulfilled dreams we had of echoing music and high heeled
dancing throughout these summer nights slowly wither away like mother's
neglected orchids.
One of his friends, Elisa, wants to take us
to Saint-Tropez. "It's beautiful" she says but what she means is the
people there are beautiful. Henry disagrees, "Saint-Tropez is a sewer"
he says. I was there a decade ago with mother, she said it would help us
breathe again after the fall. One morning I woke early and took a walk
alone, up the hills through the old city, away from the harbor and the
money and the ships. It was spring, the fresh green grass sprinkled with
little flowers, red, white and yellow. Along the coastline were houses
worth millions but all I heard was the silence and the sea.
I
remember watching the sun come up quietly like I had done so many times
with him, my father. For the first time in months I felt something other
than cold underneath my celadon skin, a brand new emotion that
relentlessly began pushing forward the devastating fear of forgetting.