He slid the room key into his back pocket, grabbed his phone and wallet, and then left, hoping the distance would mute the longing.

He reached the lobby, and then walked out the revolving doors onto the Paris sidewalk, the sounds of the French language falling on his ears. He invited it in, hoped it would quell the confusion in his head as he walked and walked and walked. He didn’t have a plan. He didn’t have a destination.

There was only the sidewalk. And the gray sky. And the noises and sights of the city. The clink of espresso cups at cafes, the lush raspberries on a tart in a bakery window, the silvery necklaces on display in a jewelry shop. The beauty for beauty’s sake.

Her.

Everywhere.

In front of him.

Behind him.

In his head.

And here, right here, in the perfume bottles in front of him.

Because maybe, somewhere, deep down he’d had a destination. He hadn’t known it consciously, but somehow he knew. He’d found himself in the passage with the mosaic floor and the latticework ceiling and all the shops that were now open, including this one where he’d been with her. Where he’d begun his unraveling.

La Belle Vie was the name. A beautiful life. He stopped at the window, pressing his fingertips against it, like a kid staring longingly inside a candy shop. There they were—mirrored shelves upon shelves of perfume bottles like he’d seen the other night. He squinted, and swore that in a far corner of the shop he could see a sapphire-blue bottle.

The one she’d wanted. He ran for the door, and stopped short when a hunched over man in a faded blue sweater was locking the door, then swinging around a sign that said FERMÉ.

25

Consumed

Enough tears were shed. Enough emotions were spent. Enough time was devoted to all this space. Space sucked. Feeling sucked. Loving sucked. She left the gardens and walked into the gift shop, desperate for a book to help her get out of her head. Something to numb all these feelings in her chest.

She wandered past calendars and mugs with water lilies on them, and found a tall set of white shelves with books about art history, and coffee table books of Monet’s paintings, and a huge tome about the Impressionist masters. She spotted a small sturdy paperback on the gardens themselves. Opening it, she flipped through the pages, bursting with details about all these flowers. How to grow tulips like Monet, climbing roses like Monet, even lilies like Monet. Information, facts, details. Nothing more. It was precisely what she needed. To blot out everything else.

She walked up to the cash register and bought the book, wishing her trip hadn’t come down to this moment.

But it had. Oh, it had. It came down to comfort in the form of a book about gardening.

She was the butt of her own joke, only nothing felt funny. Nothing felt right. Nothing felt good.