Cognac & Couture (The Passport Series Book 2) (31 page)

As we stood in line for the upward-bound
elevator,
Sébastien
was so excited, I could
easily envision him as a little boy. When the elevator operator called, “Next,”
we filed into the wood-paneled elevator. As we whooshed upwards, the operator
recited interesting facts about the Space Needle, Seattle, and the Puget Sound.

When he mentioned Seattle hosting the World’s Fair in 1962,
Sébastien
informed the elderly woman next to him
about his purchase at the store in Freemont. I couldn’t tell if it was his
accent, excitement, or good looks that charmed her most. She held on to his arm
the rest of the way up.

The doors opened into a romantically lit space, where
panoramic windows framed the full beauty of the city and its extraordinary
surroundings, including Queen Anne Hill, the distant shimmering lights on boats
and barges that floated on Elliott Bay, and the dark outline of the Olympic
Mountains.

John and I sat side by side while my mother sat next to
Sébastien.
The restaurant slowly revolved, and we
were sipping wine as Elliott Bay and Bainbridge Island took center stage. As we
pointed out landmarks, I noticed
Sébastien studying
me. I began to wonder if I had something stuck between my teeth or worse. I ran
my tongue over my teeth and dabbed at my lips, self-consciously. I took a big
sip of my wine hoping to wash anything away. When he kept doing it, I leaned
over to John and asked, “Do I have something on my face or between my teeth?” I
smiled wide so he could see.

He chuckled as he scrutinized me.
“No. Why?”

“
Sébastien keeps staring at me,
and I wondered if something was wrong.”

His eyes twinkled. “Maybe he’s
just appreciating the view.”

“Maybe!” I narrowed my eyes and
playfully inspected Sébastien. “Maybe you’re in cahoots.”

Overhearing me, Sébastien asked,
“Cahoots? This is a new word.”

His accent caused him to butcher
the word, but he took our laughter in stride and started throwing out
challenging French words for us to pronounce.

Soon, the subject changed to their
visit to Paris. They had a long list of things they wanted to see and do.

“What am I going to do while you
paint?” my mother asked when he mentioned painting again.

Sébastien answered, “Don’t worry,
we will fill the time.”

As more wine and dinner were
consumed and the restaurant had slowly rotated so that we faced West Seattle,
Alki Beach, and Vashon Island, we planned virtually every day of their
vacation.

“Tiziana and Ted are planning to
invite everyone out on their boat for a few days, so we might need to work that
in,” I added.

“How big is this boat?” John asked
with a hint of worry. “Are we sleeping in hammocks on the deck or something?”

My mother, having seen pictures of
the yacht, smirked. “No. Their motto is go big or get bigger.”

I chuckled. What she said was
true.

I CHECKED MY
watch and saw
that we were halfway home. I felt the need to wriggle, stretch my legs, do
something, anything. Sitting still for this long was hard, even in first class.

“Do you need the restroom, chérie?”
Sébastien
asked in a tone of voice that implied I was about seven years old.

“No! I’m just getting restless.
Why aren’t you?”

He shrugged his shoulders.
“Perhaps I am just content to sit beside you and have you all to myself.”

I stopped wriggling instantly.
“You say the nicest things.” I gave him a kiss, and, as I moved away, I caught
him giving me the same funny look he had the previous night at the restaurant.
“What? You keep looking at me that way, and it makes me feel uncomfortable.”

He squeezed my hand and
apologized. “I didn’t know I was looking at you a certain way.”

I ran my thumb over the end of his
and frowned. “Well, you have been. I thought I had suddenly sprouted a
monstrous pimple.”

He chuckled at whatever image he’d
conjured in his head. “I cannot imagine you looking imperfect.”

“That brings me to something. If I
move in with you, you’ll be seeing me in all kinds of imperfect states. Are you
absolutely sure you want to do this? Move in together? It’s early days.”

“It’s not ‘early days.’ If we were
twenty, it might be. But we are not. I’m looking forward to finding out if you
ever look imperfect. Perhaps it is me whom you don’t want to see as ‘all kinds
of imperfect.’”

He was obviously teasing me, but,
nonetheless, I sighed from happiness and not humor. “Nope. I’m looking forward
to seeing you first and last, every day.”

“I am, as well, chérie.” He waved
to the passing flight attendant and asked for water for the both of us then
glanced out the window and remarked, “We’re over water.”

I took in the view, the last of the
land far to our west. When I looked back at him, he held up a small black box.
“What is that?” I was instantly nervous. A million thoughts ran through my
head, but, more than any other,
It’s just a little black box
. After all,
if he was thinking marriage, he would have talked to me.
So, it’s
Valentine’s Day and a little black box. No big deal.
I blew out the breath
I didn’t realize I was holding.

“I know Valentine’s Day is
supposed to be romantic, and an airplane is decidedly not romantic. However, I’ve
had this for a few weeks and have been waiting to give it to you, and this is
the moment.” He made an impish shrug, which suggested everything from, “What do
you think?” to “Seize the moment.” The flight attendant arrived with Champagne
and two glasses. She saw the box and smiled before hastily disappearing. When I
didn’t immediately react, he jiggled the box. “For you.”

“Sorry, I suddenly feel…” My
fingers shook as I reached out and took the box.
Champagne. He arranged Champagne.
A little black box. Oh fuck.
I gently opened the lid and saw the most
amazing diamond ring.

“It’s absolutely gorgeous,” I said at the end of a very long
and measured exhalation. “And very… blingy!”

He laughed enthusiastically at my
comment. “Paris is blingy.” He carefully took the ring out of the box. “Have
you heard of the designer
Jean Dousset?”

Speechless, I nodded as I stared at the platinum band and
slightly rectangular diamond surrounded by smaller diamonds.

“Let me show you something.” He took the
ring and flipped it over, so we were looking at the
underside of the stone’s setting. A sapphire was nestled at the base of the
diamond. “A sapphire is the precious stone for September. To honor the month we
met.”

He handed it back and sat
patiently, waiting for me to say something or put it on my finger. I looked at
the elegant ring, cradled in the palm of my trembling hand. “I love you.” I
did. I absolutely loved him. I slid it on my finger, but it was too big. I
inhaled my disappointment.
Or was I putting it on the wrong finger?
He
hadn’t actually asked me to marry him.

“This isn't a fairy tale, chère à
mon coeur. We’ll have it sized, that is all,” he said, comforting me. He
finally asked, “Would you like your Champagne?”

“Not to be dimwitted, but are you
asking me to marry you?”

He threw his head back while
chuckling. “Yes, of course, Kathy!” He pulled me in for a hug and said, “I was
so nervous that I forgot to ask. I’m sorry. Yes. Would you marry me?”

My poised and composed Frenchman
was nervous. The thought made me smile. “Yes! And I would love some Champagne.”
I stretched my hand out before me and enjoyed the light bouncing off the
diamonds.

“May I offer my congratulations?”
The flight attendant had discreetly returned.

“Yes, you may,” I answered but kept
my eyes on him.

***

 “Hey! Is
that why you were looking at me funny?”

“What?” He looked at me with
sleepy eyes.

“Oops, sorry. I didn’t realize
you’d managed to fall asleep.”

He
shook his head. “Just dozing.”

“I thought maybe you were looking
at me funny last night because you knew you were going to propose today.

He opened his eyes as a smile
stretched across his face. “I was wondering if I should mention it to your
mother but decided you ought to be the first person to know. Well, you and
Jean.”

“Do you know Jean Dousset?”

“Not really. I was joking.”

“Not that I would have wanted you
to ask permission, but it’s times like these I think about my father,” I said.
“He’s out in the world, living his life, and he doesn’t even know I exist.
Moments like this feel… incomplete.”

“I would imagine.”

SURROUNDED BY MY
friends, on
this lovely spring day, I stood at the center of the cemetery a quaking mass,
from shaking hands to wobbly knees; all of me was responding to my fear of
facing this reality, feeling so much sorrow. When we had talked about my coming
here, I’d realized that, though years had passed, part of me felt like I did
about someone I’d broken-up with: like he was gone, but I might run into him
some day. Being here was forcing me to face the ultimate reality of his death. Trying
to maintain some control, I focused on the large stone church in the distance,
at the end of a long swath of tidily mowed grass, flanked by a twiggy hedge of
hydrangeas.

“Seven springs have come and gone since Mikkel was buried
here,” I said to myself. It was excruciating to be here. Hillary had taken on
the task of contacting Mikkel’s parents and locating his gravesite amidst the
hedges, grass, beech trees, and paths.

She squeezed my hand. “When you’re ready, it’s this way,
Kathleen.”

I bit my lip, gulping down a breath and nodding, because, if
we didn’t move, I would run and run until I was back in Paris, fleeing this
overwhelming sadness. She led me some distance along a ribbon of asphalt and
then guided me to a small path made of brick. Amid the grass and daffodils, at
the end of the walkway, lay five irregular-shaped stones inscribed with names.
Midway, I stopped, closed my eyes, and listened to the gentle riffle of the
leaves blowing in the soft wind. The breeze tried to dry the tears that burned
a trail down my cheeks. I focused on the sun warming my back, the sound of a
lawnmower droning in the distance, and cars swooshing past, somewhere nearby.

“All right?” Marian asked worriedly.

I turned my back to the inscribed stones. My voice broke as
I spoke. “I need to be alone now.” Pointing at benches underneath a tree not
too far away, I assured them I would call if I needed them.

I carefully turned back, clutching a bouquet of flowers I’d
brought. My palm throbbed around the woody stems of white dogwood and delicate
stems of small purple blooms. I stopped before the stones and slowly scanned
the engravings. My eyes finally landed on Mikkel’s name. The fifth stone. The
rightmost, in a gently arcing row. My feet moved sluggishly toward “him.”

I dropped to my knees, banging them on the brick, and embraced
the pain, because it reminded me I was alive with so much to live for. With
shaking hands, I placed the flowers in front of the stone while my tears
continued to flow. Running my fingers gently over the letters of his name and
dates of birth and death, I rocked back and forth, whispering, “I’m sorry, I’m
sorry.” I apologized for questioning his love for me when he hadn’t called. I
released my guilt for going on with my life without him, because, for so long,
it had felt wrong. And for losing the baby—I had felt guilty about that; I had
lost that chance to keep a part of him here for me and his parents to treasure.

How can it be that the tall, rugged, handsome young man
with the easy smile who captured my heart and soul has been reduced to a place
marker? How can a stone represent his existence to the world?

I felt like I could blow apart in the breeze.

Eventually, exhausted and depleted, I began to speak to him.
I told him about my life and wondered aloud what might have been, had he lived.
I spoke of the baby neither of us would ever know. Sitting on the ground, with
my knees pulled up to my chest, I rubbed my lips against my soft denim jacket
and let memories run freely through my mind, all the many experiences I’d
locked away. When my body began to ache, I chuckled and said to him, “I’m not
as young as I once was!” I wiped my face and blew my nose.

Rising to my feet, I noticed, through the shadows on the
ground, that the sun had moved quite a bit. Four new shadows came into view and
merged with mine. My friends stood in silence beside me, staring at the stones,
lost in thought, their sorrow for my loss deeply etched on their faces.

A distinctly masculine voice cleared his throat. A handsome
older couple was standing nearby.

“Mr. Sørensen, Mrs. Sørensen.” I would have known
him
anywhere. He was the older version of Mikkel, the man he was meant to grow
into. I couldn’t name the emotion that ran through me as I captured this
glimpse.

“Kathleen?” the woman asked, kindness ringing in her voice.

Mikkel’s parents gathered me in their arms, speaking
soothing words that I did not understand but that comforted me as I cried anew.

I heard Marian ask, “Hillary, did she know they were
coming?”

As I looked into Hillary’s steely-blue eyes, her spine
stiffened in resolve.

“No. They needed to meet her as much as she needed to come
here. I called them to let them know when she’d be here.”

Eventually, I stepped out of their embrace and wiped my face
on a tissue.

“He was right—you
are
stunning!” Mrs. Sørensen said,
smiling happily at me. I returned her smile and saw where his cheerfulness came
from. He and his mother shared the same spirit. “The first thing he told me
about were your eyes. Extraordinary.”

I smiled at her words while I searched for my own. The ones
I needed to say most poured out. “I really loved him. A forever kind of love.
Maybe a young girl’s love to start, but it would have grown, flourished.”

Mikkel’s parents nodded, acknowledging my pain and loss. “He
loved you the same way. You were his future. We could tell in every word he
spoke about you,” Mrs. Sørensen gently offered.

A lengthy pause followed where I imagined what the future
might have been. Family parties at the holidays, tables surrounded by children,
grandchildren, and summers with grandparents. Love.

The moment I returned to the present, I introduced the girls
to Mikkel’s parents. We wandered up and down the paths of the cemetery as we
talked about life and how it had unfolded, including my recent engagement.
Eventually, we stood in front the enormous church. Mikkel’s mother, holding my
arm, said, “He told us you had very big plans for your future. He would be
overjoyed you followed your dreams.” She paused for a long moment, looking
uncertain, then asked, “May I ask? Why did you pick the flowers you put on his
grave?”

For the first time that day, I felt my eyes crinkle from
happiness at a silly but treasured memory. “I called him Thor. He was so… blond
and huge. He always laughed when I did. Sweet William is the flower Norse
mythology associates with Thor. The dogwoods are native to Washington State,
Seattle. They seemed appropriate—a part of me will always belong to him, be
here with him.”