Page 37 of Falling for Provence

Because there’d always been an element of something like doubt that Ellie had never even tried to resolve. She didn’t want to remember the man whose violent temper had become increasingly unpredictable or that many people had regarded the disappearance of Gordon Gilchrist as a blessing in disguise. She’d rather remember being held by a gentle man who had loved her as dearly as she’d loved him, but was that just wishful thinking? A fantasy of what it could have been like to have a father?

It seemed like another kind of fantasy as Ellie felt the cushions of the sofa moving and found that a small boy was climbing up to sit beside her. To lean against her arm, even, as he reached to touch the front of the book she had discarded on her lap as she was mesmerised by the photograph. She looked down at the tumble of dark curls on Theo’s head and watched as he used a finger to trace the embossed outline of the yacht on the cover. Exactly the way Ellie loved to touch things, like she had with the carving in the wood of the cupboard doors in the kitchen and the stone flowers in the streets of St Paul de Vence.

Without thinking, she dipped her head to press a kiss onto those dark curls, moving her arm to make a circle around that small body. This was what she needed to think about right now, not any ghosts of her own childhood. She slipped the photograph back into the envelope and slid it inside the back cover of the book as Theo was opening the front cover. He looked at the words on the first page. And then he looked up at Ellie,and no words were needed for this communication. He wanted to be read to, and that made another memory fight its way to the surface of Ellie’s brain. Or maybe it was coming from her heart.

Her father used to read to her. From the newspaper he was reading himself, and it didn’t matter at all that she didn’t understand what it was about, because it was just the sound of his voice that she wanted to hear. Both in her ears and in her body, through the rumble of his chest that she could feel because she was tucked in under his arm. Ellie could almost feel what it had provided enfolding her now – the security of being loved.

Safety.

Comfort.

Still without thinking, simply following instinct, Ellie started reading the book to Theo. And Pascal, who’d jumped onto the sofa to snuggle in as close as he could get to the small boy. It clearly didn’t matter that Theo couldn’t understand, because the sound of the words was weaving a spell that was comforting. She could feel his head getting heavier and heavier as it rested on her arm, and she could feel when he gave in completely to the pull of sleep. Very gently, she took her arm away and laid him flat on the sofa and made a cocoon with the blanket she’d used that first night when she’d slept here, folding part of it to be a pillow and using the rest as a cover. Pascal only moved to let her tuck Theo in and then curled up again to guard the small boy.

Ellie stayed where she was for a long, long moment.

Looking at Theo’s still face and the fans of black lashes against pale cheeks.

So pale.

She stared at the blanket covering him, watching for any tiny movement that would reassure her he was still breathing. He was. Of course he was, but it wasn’t enough to stop that bubble of fear returning now that she had nothing to distract herself with.

Fear that was threatening to spiral into something worse as unwanted thoughts crowded in on her.

What would she do if Theo stopped breathing?

What could she do to make sure itdidn’thappen?

What should she have done that might have stopped it happening to wee Jack?

Surely there had been something, however tiny. Any one of the millions of things that had occurred to her in those agonising days and weeks after losing her baby.

The pain could still be as fierce as ever, but something had changed, because Ellie didn’t want to hide right now. She wanted… comfort.

Like the comfort Julien had offered by holding her after she’d witnessed the fight for the life of that little French girl?

Julien wasn’t here, but Ellie realised she needed the comfort that had always been there for her entire life, even if there’d been times she hadn’t wanted to cling to that rock. Moving quietly away from the couch into the kitchen and then just outside the doors on the terrace, where she could still see Theo just as clearly, she called her mother.

‘I’m looking after the wee boy from next door,’ she said. ‘And… I’m a bit scared, Mam… What if… what if something happens?’

‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ Jeannie Gilchrist said. ‘Oh,m’eudail… it’s alright. Everything’s going to be alright…’

The catch in her mother’s voice and the way she used the Gaelic of her own childhood to call Ellie ‘sweetheart’ cut through the loneliness that the alchemy of her fear and remnants of her grief was creating.

Her mother understood exactly what that fear was about, and she kept talking softly. ‘It wasn’t your fault, Ellie. It was never your fault. You do know that, don’t you?’

‘Yes…’ The word was only a whisper – as if Ellie was still tiptoeing around the idea of believing it.

‘You were such a lovely mother,’ Jeannie said. ‘Nobody could have cared for wee Jack any better than you did. He knew he was so safe and so loved for every minute of his life. I was so proud of you… I am still so proud of you…’

The words were a balm. The bond between Ellie and her mother was even more of a comfort. Ellie had been the first of the Gilchrist girls to have a baby. The first to truly know what it was like to be a mother. To discover how limitless love could be. And she knew, deep down, that having an utterly pure, unconditional love like that in her life was – and had been – a blessing like no other, even if, at times, it now felt like a pain like no other.

Ellie breathed in the cool evening air as she watched Theo stir and then slip back into his sleep.

The threat of panic had evaporated. The fear had vanished to leave her feeling a little drained but… surprisingly good. With a feeling of peace that was as much of a balm as the love in her mother’s voice had been when she’d said how proud she was of Ellie.

She was proud of herself, she decided. She’d been ambushed by a barrage of memories and emotions in the last few hours, and they hadn’t defeated her. Was part of how good she was feeling now because she’d allowed herself to soak in that almost indescribable softness and joy that a child cuddled against you could bestow?

Ellie could still feel that touch, wrapped around her heart, as she stood there on the terrace looking in to where Theo lay sleeping with Pascal still glued to his side. Her wee dog was awake. She could see his black, button eyes looking back at her and the twitch of his upright ear that told her there was nothingto worry about. He had her back and was taking his guard dog duties seriously.

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