The Chateau by Jaclyn Goldis

Author:Jaclyn Goldis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books
Published: 2023-05-23T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Darcy

Monsieur Deveaux is the avocat, sitting with us as we breakfast on the terrace. He is younger than I expected, in his late forties, with a tall, rakish build and a neat gray-black beard. Not unattractive. The type of man who probably pulls better women as he gets older, with the distinguished looks and career trajectory that women of a certain age favor. I realize with an unfortunate start that I am a woman of that certain age. He isn’t wearing a wedding ring, I happen to notice. Funny, how my eyes never used to linger on other men’s wedding fingers. It’s like my subconscious is prodding me along, with an arrow to my future. Perhaps this is the type of man I could hope to snag, if I am single.

Am I single? My scrambled eggs sit like an anchor in my stomach.

The table is strewn with coffee cups, and I reach for mine as a stapled photocopy slides across the table before me. Le testament de Séraphine Demargelasse.

The coffee that a few sips before was velvety deliciousness turns to sludge in my mouth. I push my chair back from the table and lean over, with a view onto my feet, trying to beat back the nausea that has burst forth. My toes are painted Big Bird–yellow because I spent money I didn’t have on a pedicure before this trip. Oliver gave me a look as I was going that said everything, and I gave him a look back that didn’t say enough. I just hustled out the door with Mila, and as my daughter’s reward for waiting so patiently in the nail salon, I let her pick my color. What a waste of money, I thought morosely, after the technician had finished. I tried to convince myself it would look better in the Provençal sun, but now, in that very sun, my toes still look positively sickly. Is this why Oliver has fallen in love with someone else? Because I have grown wrinkled and tired and paunchy in the stomach, because my beauty has been suctioned out by the years and the children and the struggles? I can’t even see Arabelle in my current vantage point, but just her beautiful, radiant, flat-stomach energy across the table upsets me. Actually, is upset the word, when your best friend has slept with your husband? Is in love with your husband?

Monsieur Deveaux asked for our meeting to include just me, Sylvie, and Vix. God knows why Vix. Maybe Grand-mère left Vix a small piece of art. I haven’t much dwelled upon it, my mind having an endless parade of subjects upon which to dwell. But I said all of my friends could join. Why not? They will all know the contents of the Will soon enough. Arabelle, through Jade or Vix, or Oliver. It’s not like I can keep my finances from my husband, however long he still holds that title.

Jade rubs a hand against my back, and I have

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