Page 40 of The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth

Chapter Thirty-Three

After she settled Mariah, Veronica went to her room, opened a bottle of water, and took a small sip.

Her stomach was so full from the piles of food she’d consumed today that she looked about six months pregnant, but for once she decided to forget about it and do something more interesting than obsess that she was not the right size or the right person or the right whatever. Today she could forget it.

Her mind buzzed with the information they’d picked up at Café Farroukh.

She opened the file on her tablet with the notes about the cafés, and reread the handful of letters Jill had managed to get to her.

The actual facts were fairly thin. Rachel talked about Zoish, her university friend in Bombay, and Café Guli, which she loved.

The family owned and operated it, obviously, if Zoish had gone shopping for vegetables.

Three girls and a boy, Navaz said, and something happened to the boy.

What Veronica could piece together was that Rachel made friends with the family in Mumbai.

That café closed sometime later. The family scattered—the father to Delhi, two girls to London.

The third sister had opened the Paris café, Café Farroukh.

Which sister was the one Rachel befriended? She looked through the letters. Zoish. The sister who opened the London café was named Hufriya. The sister in Paris was Chamani. That left Zoish, who had opened the bookstore.

Two sisters had returned to India—one when her father fell ill, the other because she’d become a widow. Did they perhaps live together now? If she found one, would she find the other?

One question she should have asked Navaz was the brother’s name. With that name, she might have been able to track down more information.

She didn’t have a great connection to the internet, but she ran a quick search for Café Guli in Mumbai. Nothing. She frowned, tried again. The London café came up, listing the proprietor as Hufriya Mistry.

What was their maiden name? She searched back through her notes and found the father’s name again as proprietor of the Bombay Café Guli, Farroukh Irani.

Not only proprietor, but patriarch, and all three daughters had shown their devotion.

Zoish had returned to nurse him when he became ill.

Hufriya had honored the family by naming her café after the one they’d left behind.

And ... she checked her notes, the third sister Chamani had given her café her father’s name.

Why had they left India entirely instead of leaving with their father to Delhi? Where was their mother? And what happened to the brother?

The cursor blinked as she tried to peer through time to find answers. Her brain offered possibilities, ideas—

She was so focused that she jumped a foot when a knock sounded at her door.

It was Henry, wearing his leather jacket, as if auditioning for a movie role as a dashing war photographer. His hair, like hers, responded to the damp air by curling more wildly, and for a single second, she considered simply flinging the door open and inviting him into her bed.

There might be women brave enough to do that, but she wasn’t one of them. Instead, she raised a hand, like a middle-school girl. “Hi. What’s up?”

“Want to go walk some of those meals off?”

“Man! Do I ever. Let me grab my coat.”

“Layer a sweater under if you have it. It’s cold.”

She found her threadbare cashmere and yanked it on, then her blue hat, her ultra-warm fleece, gloves, and the flowered scarf. “Ready!”

He smiled. “Good.”

Outside, he said, “I know you haven’t read it yet, but I thought I would give you a little Hemingway tour, if you’re open. You seem to like history.”

“A little,” she said with understatement. “It’ll give me context when I do read it.”

“That’s what I thought.” He pulled a woolen cap down over his head, wrapped a thick scarf around his neck, and pulled gloves from his pockets. “It’s a pretty substantial walk, maybe a couple of miles to get to the first group of landmarks. Do you want to take the metro?”

“I’m happy to walk as far as we can. Besides, walking is a good way to see a place, don’t you think?”

“Always.”

Night provided a proper backdrop for twinkling Christmas lights.

Shop windows gave glimpses of the goods within.

They walked a while without speaking, and for once, Veronica didn’t feel the need to fill every silence.

She liked his company, and he made her feel safe, both physically and, she realized with some surprise, emotionally.

“You seem to know Paris quite well,” she said after he directed their turns, this way, then that. “Have you lived here?”

“I did, just a year when I was young. I had a job as an international stringer, and it was a good place to jump off into various hot spots.”

“Like where?”

“A lot. Bosnia, a lot of the Yugoslav conflicts. Afghanistan, always. Algeria.”

“Algeria!” she echoed. “That’s like the setting of a black-and-white movie, the dashing French Foreign Legion soldier in love with the daughter of a noble family.”

He smiled. “Maybe you should write a screenplay.”

“Maybe,” she said without commitment. “Are you still doing that work?”

“No.” His voice was gruff. “Not for a while now.”

She waited.

“Caught in the flood of departures from Afghanistan when the US pulled out. A bomb.”

“Oh, wow. I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “It was kind of amazing it hadn’t happened before, frankly.” He pointed to their slight left, where a bridge came into view, the black river glinting below. They walked toward the bridge, and she left the question alone, allowing him to embroider or not.

Eventually he said, “It was mostly a mangled shoulder and a concussion, and some burns, but when I healed, I never recovered the stamina I needed for fieldwork.” He gave her a sad smile. “It’s a young man’s game, honestly.”

“What do you do now? I mean, I know you’re doing this project with Mariah, but what do you generally do?”

“Some commercial work, but most of it is fairly straightforward travel stuff. I have a handful of clients who pay quite well.” He paused, hands tucked in his pockets. “I don’t strictly need to work—I never spent any money for thirty years. I was always on assignment.”

A twinge of envy ran through her. She wanted that for herself, the comfort of savings to create a bulwark against the world. “Nice to have that freedom.”

“I didn’t really set out to do it,” he said. “But I’m glad for the privilege.” He glanced at her. “I gather the divorce has been difficult on that level?”

“Yes.” She sighed. “My own fault, though. I should have prepared. Virginia Woolf warned women that they need some money and a room of their own.”

“Well, she had a lot of privilege, right? I’m guessing you saw marriage as a way of helping nail down some security.”

The observation lessened her creeping sense of shame. “That’s true. I still knew better, and now I’m trying to figure out how to create a life I love and will support me when I’m a bit too long in the tooth.”

“Pish,” he said, more sound than word. “You’re not that old.”

“Well, thanks.”

In the middle of the bridge, they stopped to look toward the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, still cloaked in scaffolding.

The water shimmered and danced, catching orbs of orange from the streetlights, and, magnificently, the lights shining from the enormously imposing cathedral.

Veronica caught her breath. “Imagine you’re a peasant bringing your produce or your goats or whatever to market, and this rises up in front of you. ”

“I have never once thought of that,” he said, his arms propped on the balustrade.

“I’m so fascinated with history.” She looked into the river, following the line of the church in the water.

“You have a unique view of the world.”

“Do I?” She shifted her view, following the scaffolding up and up until it almost made her feel dizzy. “I always feel like I’m so boring.” It surprised her, that it just popped out like that.

“From where I sit, you’re always thinking about what you see, how it connects to other things.”

“Thanks.”

“You’ll do a great job with the book, I think. Rachel would be pleased.”

A gust of wind slammed into them, forcing her to close her eyes until it passed.

“Time to go,” Henry said.

She nodded, looking back to the cathedral, wanting a selfie with him in this magical moment. But was that too weird?

He’d taken three steps away when she said, “Wait!”

He turned.

“Would you hate it if we took a selfie?”

“Not at all.” He loped back, hands in his pocket, and leaned down to position his face near hers.

She smelled something sun washed and clean, and shampoo, and felt his shoulder pressed into hers.

Veronica smiled without showing her teeth, but he grinned and leaned close.

Before he could move away, she said, “A couple more.” She dared herself to smile broadly, all teeth, and felt his hair curling into the side of her face.

“Thanks.” She tucked the phone back in her pocket and slid her glove back on.

“Send me a copy, will you?”

“Of course,” she said on a swell of delight.

A couple of blocks on, he pointed out a few landmarks. A bar, a house, a little café, all once frequented by the famous writer. “Can we stop in that bar?” Veronica asked.

“There’s a better one.”

“Okay. I trust you.”

He grinned. “Glad to hear it.”

She knew when they came upon it, a building on the corner, light both above and below.

Crowds of people smoked at the tables along the sidewalk, their voices making a musical weaving of their enjoyment.

Someone laughed, a boisterous sound, and Veronica felt herself smiling in response. “This is it, right?”

“Yes.”

“It makes me think of a van Gogh painting.”

“I know which one you mean.” He took off his glove and offered his bare hand. “Shall we?”