“It was tough sometimes. And that stay in Paris was temporary, one year, and just for fun.” It had also, like all my other sojourns abroad, been financed by a grant that had both given me an income and permitted a student visa. In a sense, the other times I had lived abroad had therefore been like dipping into a swimming pool with little floaters on my arms to help me swim. Moving to a country where I had no source of income and no legal right to develop one was like jumping into a violent, stormy ocean without a life preserver. I wasn’t sure I was that strong a swimmer. “Permanent commitments to places are different. Can we just see how it goes first?”

He took a deep breath, although he was still hurt, I could tell. “All right,” he said. “All right.”

I nodded, and we were quiet for a moment. “By the way,” I said to change the subject and because certain cultural differences had been worrying me, “you seem to be handling my brothers’ more barbaric habits all right.”

“That’s what you call barbaric?” Sébastien looked worried. “I don’t know how you’re going to take my father’s side of the family, then.”

Eighteen

Ihadn’t actually known that it was possible to be more barbaric than my brothers, so that was disturbing. Maybe I should get to know his family a little better before making a decision on the marriage proposal. Hey, when it came to stalling commitment, any excuse worked for me.

“That will take a while,” Sébastien said as we put off separation in the Atlanta airport. That wrenching pain of missing someone was setting in, but we were trying to ignore it.

“Why? How many family members do you have?”

“Close, you mean? I guess a couple hundred.”

“Really. When you start talking about your extended family, who does that include? Half of France?”

“Well, and some of Sicily. A great-grandfather. But you only need to meet about a hundred or so of the family to start off.”

“Do I. And how many of those hundred are on your father’s side?”

“Good God, Laura, I’m not going to introduce you to anyone on my father’s side before the wedding! They play rugby.”

Playing rugby did seem ominous, now that he mentioned it, but an announcer started calling passengers to board before I could ask any more questions. We focused on all the mushiness we needed to get out of our systems. We were not getting any better at this. Red rimmed Sébastien’s eyes by the time they began calling his name specifically and not just his row. “Damn it.” He shoved a hand across his eyes. “I swore this time I wasn’t going to do this.”

I just cried. And I already had a ticket to follow him only two weeks later.