Page 40 of After Paris

Chapter Forty

Ruby

Saturday, July 19, 2025

11:00 a.m.

Jeff and I were in my apartment living room. I sat on my couch. The keys of my laptop clicked. Jeff was beside me, his feet propped up on my coffee table as he worked on his laptop.

My article for Cécile had taken over a week of solid writing, but I was pleased with the final product, save for the ending, which wasn’t an ending. I knew she hadn’t traveled out of Marseille in July 1942. It had been Sylvia Rousseau, a.k.a. Zofia, born in Poland, daughter of a Jewish tailor and a French seamstress, who’d fled Poland in 1935 and spent her time in Paris delivering false identity papers to refugees and later Jews. She left carrying a baby thrust into her arms by a mother who knew the Germans were closing in on her.

What Sylvia’s journal didn’t reveal was Emile’s and Cécile’s fates. Jeff was the one who’d found Emile. He’d dug deep into digital archives and discovered that Emile had been transported to Ravensbrück in July 1942. She’d perished in the prison camp six months later.

Cécile, née Dominique, had vanished from a Marseille train station in July 1942, and there was never another record for her. She and Sylvia didn’t see each other again. I wondered when Cécile discovered that her sister had been transported, where she’d gone, or what she’d done. She’d been stripped of her influence, cut off from contacts, and on the run from the police. Where did a woman like that go?

“I think I found her,” Jeff said.

“Who?”

“Cécile.”

“No way!” I kissed him on the lips.

“You said Daniel’s family came from a farming community near Avignon.”

“The LeClaire family grew olives.”

He shifted closer to me, turning his screen in my direction. Displayed was the website of an olive oil farm. It had existed for 150 years and still grew and pressed olives. It also now catered to tourists who wanted to tour its facilities, buy olive oils from its shop, and eat lunch in its small café.

The farm’s website featured an image of stone pillars with flowering purple jacaranda trees dripping over a graveled driveway leading into a courtyard. In the center was a stucco building with a clay roof and two sizable hunter green garage doors. The backdrop was a vivid blue sky. Off to the right was a small picnic area with red tables, white chairs, and an arched pergola with a roof made of woven branches.

“It’s beautiful.”

“It is. But that’s not the main event.”

He clicked through the website until he found a section dedicated to the farm’s history. There was a black-and-white photo showing ten members of the LeClaire family. In the center was an older couple who appeared to be in their early seventies. Surrounding them were several children who shared the same dark hair and wide grins. On the right was a couple in their forties.

Jeff pointed to the couple on the right. He zoomed in to the woman’s face. She had salt-and-pepper hair twisted into a bun, and she wore a neat dress that fit her slim frame. She grinned, but her head was turned down as if she didn’t want the photographer to catch her entire face.

“Cécile?” I asked.

“Looks like her, doesn’t it?”

I gently punched his arm. “You found Cécile?”

“If it’s not her, it’s a close relative.”

I leaned toward the computer screen. “Dominique went home.”

The caption below read The LeClaire family . But there was no mention of the individual names. “No names!”

“Unless you know where to dig.”

I hugged my arm around him. “Do tell.”

“In the center are the grandparents. To the left is a brother and his wife. The children are theirs. And to the right is the older brother, Daniel, and his wife, Dominique.”

“Dominique.” Relief rushed over me. “She did make it home.”

“She did.”

“How did no one know about what happened in Paris?”

“The war was heating up, the roundups began, and the detectives working Monsieur Archambeau’s case were looking for a glamorous actress, not a farmer’s wife.”

The longer I stared, the more I saw traces of Cécile. Though gray streaked her dark hair, there was no missing the high cheekbones and cutting eyes.

“Dominique and Daniel were married in 1945,” Jeff said. “They never had children. He died in 1980, and she died in 2012.”

“Sylvia never returned to Europe,” I said. “And I doubt Dominique left France again.”

“They crossed paths at a critical time, and neither wished to return to that period.”

“Yes.”

“And the baby?” Jeff asked.

“Michele. Sylvia’s daughter. Madame Bernard. I was supposed to speak with her again before I left Alexandria, but I felt so bad. I need to see her again.”

“Do you think she wants the world to know this?”

“I’ll call her, but I think she’s ready to tell her mother’s story.”

“How did Sylvia meet her husband?”

“Sylvia found work as a seamstress in the city of Norfolk, in southeast England. She met an American pilot, and the two married in 1944.”

“And he adopted the child?”

“I assume so. Madame said they were the most loving parents.”

Jeff rose and crossed to his backpack, which he carried to the sofa. “I don’t know how to do this sort of thing. I should have hired a consultant.”

I laughed. “What are you talking about?”

He fished out a small black box. Slowly, he opened it. In the center was a solitary diamond. “Marry me.”

I stared at the diamond’s angled edges, which caught the morning light. It was the most beautiful ring. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“You know why.”

“You just learned the fate of two women who took incredible chances in the face of terrible danger. Sylvia accepted an infant from a stranger and escaped Marseille and made it to England, and then the United States. The odds don’t get much worse than that.” He plucked the ring from the box and took my hand in his. I watched as he slid the ring on my finger. “It’ll work with any outfit.”

Tears welled in my eyes. “That’s not playing fair.”

He chuckled. “All’s fair.”

I drew in a breath. “For the record, I want to say yes.”

“Then say it. We’ll get married and honeymoon in Provence. We can visit the LeClaires’ olive farm.”

I kissed him on the lips. “You’re sure?”

He traced my cheek with his finger. “Very.”

I didn’t want him to be sorry. I didn’t want him to feel saddled with me. But I loved him. And if illness had taught me anything, it was to grab every moment when it presented itself. “Yes.”