Page 9 of Severed Heart

“Good Lord, son, what now?”

“How muchisan apple?”

Chapter Three

DELPHINE

US PRESIDENT: RONALD REAGAN | 1981–1989

“SALOPE” RINGS OUTin taunt before I slam Celine’s car door, glaring back at the girl through my window before she trots off triumphantly. It’s the third time today, and I know she planned it. They always plan it.

“Ignore them,” Celine says with a sigh, tenderly running her manicured nails through my hair before pulling away from the curb. “They’re only mad because you are prettier than they are, and you have boobs.”

“I’ve had boobs since I wasnine.”

“How could I forget? You showed them to me along with the rest of the family at the dinner table,” she laughs, and I roll my eyes.

“They’re mad because they think I kissed their boyfriends... andI did. I kissed her boyfriend”—I nod back toward the school—“Lyam, during lunch. He uses too much tongue.”

Celine gasps as I face her, wearing my own triumphant smile while clicking my seatbelt.

“You aren’t going to make any friends that way,” she warns.

“I don’t want to be friends with them,” I tell her. And I don’t. I don’t want to talk about boys all the time—or dresses, makeup, shopping, or going to concerts. I want to fish the river, and shoot, and make campfires. I want to be back in Levallois-Perret and living asMatis’sdaughter. Not pretending to be Celine’s little sister—though no one believes it inside the family but Celine.

“You shouldn’t be kissing so many boys. Nine was not that long ago,” Celine scorns, taking a turn toward home. A home where the drapes have ruffles, the floors don’t creak, and the windows don’t have a thick layer of the filth that Maman told us to rot in. Every day, I wish for my life back in our house just outside Levallois-Perret, and every day, I live like a princess instead of a soldier. A home where we have house staff to do our washing and who keep eyes on my every move and then report them to Papa’s nephew, Francis, and his wife, Marine.

“Where is Ezekiel?” I ask, glancing toward the empty back seat as she turns up the radio to “Lucky Star.” Madonna,again.Always Madonna. I like Prince.

“He’s with Maman for the night, so you’ll see him when I drop you home.”

“Why is he with her?”

“Why?” She bulges her eyes, and I laugh, knowing very well what a tyrant my three-year-old ‘nephew’ is. “So I can get some needed rest,” she sighs and glances at me. “And I kissoneman,” she reprimands, refusing to let my confession go. “One manI’m hoping to be able to kiss tonight without a demanding audience.”

“This is why you’re boring. Already tied to one manforever,imbecile.” I poke like I always do, and she smiles—like she always does—never taking my insults seriously, even when I mean them.

Celine had embraced me the minute I was dropped at her front door. Handling my temperament easily because she never seems to get angry. I did all I could to get her to the point of hitting me back during my first few months in her house. Though there are many bedrooms, we shared a room before she moved out and eloped with Abijah. My suspicion is that we only shared a room because Celine decided before I got there that I was the sibling she had always longed for. During that time, I did my best to make her think otherwise. I stole her clothes and even claimed her favorite necklace as my own. When I did, she shrugged and said she would have given it to me if I had asked. Possessions mean nothing to Celine—probably because she grew up with so many of them.

At first, I hated that she never got mad, but instead of fighting back, she hugged me. She said I needed hugs. Though I don’t like her hugs, I let her hug me because I thinksheis the one who needs them.

Though Celine and I have become close, it remains different with her parents. Francis, a much older cousin I had never met before the night I came to live with him, now plays as a parent to me. Though I make Francis laugh, his wife, Marine, only tolerates me. I overheard Marine speak her opinion of me not long after I was dropped like garbage at their door.

“She came to us from the slums, and she acts like it. He did not raise a girl—he raised a future criminal who is rude with no manners.”

Marine’s view of me has not changed much in our years together. She still looks at me the way she did and declares all her efforts have been wasted because I am ‘still rude with no manners.’

Francis had come to my defense that night, as he often does now, by reminding her they were the only family I had left. Which I knew to be true because my uncle Aloïs—Matis’s only brother and Francis’s father—had also been a soldier but died in Vietnam. From what Celine told me through late-night whispers in our bedroom, Francis and Marine had been activists up until Celine became a teenager. I can only assume by her behavior that Marine was the one who put a stop to it, though I have my suspicions that Francis remains involved without her knowledge.

At the dinner table, Celine’s mother always silences Francis from telling stories about their time as activists. She also quiets Francis when he mentions Papa or hisown dead father,Aloïs. But I refuse to forget my father or my promise to him to remember what he taught me. Most nights, to keep my memories safe, I stare up at my ceiling and relive the time with him after Maman left us—my happiest days. Most of the time, I pretend he didn’t die that night in the snow. That the British man lied and that my father didn’t sell me for a spoon of drugs. I pretend a lot because I still want to be with him—there. Always. Forever dancing in the wildflowers.

For me, this life is no life at all. There are no outdoor adventures, no fields of flowers to dance in or nearby rivers to fish from, and no animals to target and shoot. All of this city is concrete, and there are way too many eyes. Too many people. I don’t blame Celine in the least for leaving the house, though she foolishly didn’t move out of the city.

“The man I kiss is changing the world,” Celine chimes happily as I change the station, Reagan’s words, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” being played, again, as they have for themillionth timesince the US President spoke them months ago.

“Yeah, yeah, and you’re going to help him,” I mumble.

Though they have now been together for years, Celine isalwaystalking about Abijah. When we still shared a room, I would eavesdrop on their conversations when she would sneak him in at night. Sometimes, they would passionately kiss when they thought I was asleep.