“I’d recommend the apple cake. It’s very nice, although it’s got nothing on Angelica’s. Do you know, my friends have this joke that if it weren’t for my housekeeper’s apple cake they wouldn’t bother coming to visit at all.” She winked at him. “At least, I hope it’s a joke.”

Angelica. Warmth spread through Scott’s chest. “I always liked her chocolate mud cake best,” he said, remembering how on Friday evenings he would return home from boarding school to the smell of baking and roast chicken. The washing machine would be lazily clanking away, a gentle heartbeat under the hum of the house, and in the study Billie Holiday would be singing the blues. He would dump his bag at the door and head straight for the kitchen, where Angelica’s mixing bowl would be waiting for him to lick clean.

“The mud cake? What would you know?” Kathryn chided playfully. “You’re always too busy with your projects to eat anything anyway. What is it this week? A spyglass? An underground tunnel? Oh, please tell me it’s not another bird hospital. I couldn’t stand the mess. All those feathers in the house … it was weeks before I found all the carcasses in my shoeboxes.” She shook her head fondly. “Honestly, Scotty, did you really think you could nurse them all back to life?”

Scott smiled. This was the only upside of dementia, this time traveling. He remembered his makeshift operating room. Next door’s cat was always leaving half-dead sparrows and blue tits on the doorstep, so Scott would sneak over and pick them up before anyone saw. He’d wrap their delicate little bodies in tissue paper and place them in boxes, wherein he would perform surgical procedures using whatever kitchen utensils he could lay his hands on. Unsurprisingly, the birds never lived.

Opposite, Kathryn shivered and looked away.

“Are you cold, Mum?” Scott asked.

When she looked back, Kathryn had shifted again. Her eyes were now cold and suspicious. “Scott?” she said.

“Yes. Hi, Mum.”

“What are you doing here?

“Well, I’ve come to—”

“Where have you been?” Her voice quavered. “Where did you go?”

Scott held out his hand. “It’s okay, Mum.”

Kathryn looked around the room, her hands beginning to shake again. “Where are they? Did you bring them?”

“Mum—”

“Did you bring them?” she said again.

Scott flicked his gaze to the door, looking for a care worker. Things could, and usually did, escalate very quickly.

Kathryn sucked in her breath and pushed it out through bared teeth like an animal. “Answer me!” She banged her fist on the table, making the cutlery jump. “Did you bring them with you today?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“They—”

“I said, why not?”

“Alright, let’s just calm down.”

“Where are they?” Kathryn was shouting now. A few residents had appeared in the doorway, drawn to the noise. “What have you done with them? Where is your wife? Where is my granddaughter?”

Scott stood up, sweat pricking his brow. He was suddenly flushed with heat. The walls pressed in on him. He was struggling to breathe. He backed away, his eye on a fire exit in the far corner of the room. Suddenly, there was a flurry of footsteps behind him and another care worker, a man this time, was at his side.

“What did you do to her?” Kathryn screeched, pointing at Scott. “Why can’t I see her?”

“Okay, Kathryn, okay, take it easy.” The male care worker gestured to two nurses who were hanging back a little way, and they stepped closer.

Kathryn reached for them. “I want to see my granddaughter. I want to see Aurelia,” she pleaded. The nurses took hold of Kathryn’s forearms, lifting her to her feet and steering her gently but firmly away, past the cake counter and out through a doorway.

Scott stared after them, jumping as the care worker placed a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.” He steadied himself on a nearby chair.

“It’s hard for them when they lose someone,” the man said sympathetically as they walked back toward reception. “They don’t understand.”

Scott nodded, his mother’s anguished cries echoing in his ears. As always, the noise followed him like a stray dog down the corridor, back into the lobby, out the main doors, and all the way back to the city.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

EMILY

A FEW DAYS after the fire, Emily drove to the market.

The nearest town lay forty-five minutes’ drive south of Querencia. Every Saturday morning, a small central square sprang to life as all the local farmers rolled in with their produce, and going there was by far one of Emily’s favorite tasks: she loved browsing the stalls and rubbing shoulders with the townspeople as they shopped and gossiped.

Parking was a nightmare, though. Emily wouldn’t have called herself a confident driver at the best of times, but in the enormous SUV she was a straight-up liability. Gripping the steering wheel, she steered the Land Cruiser over the rutted surface of the parking lot, only just making it through the gaps between other vehicles. She found a spot and reverse-parked, concentrating so hard on not clipping the wing mirror of a red hatchback that she didn’t notice the old woman from the cheese stall until she’d stuck her face right through the open window. “Le char est arrivé!” said the cheese lady, cackling. The tank has arrived.

Emily jumped. “Yes,” she said. “I mean, oui. Bonjour, madame.”

With its tinted windows and noisy exhaust, the Land Cruiser did indeed resemble a tank, especially among all the rusty little delivery vans. The first time Emily had done a market run, she had stuck out like a bug on a birthday cake even before she’d tried to order anything. Her halting French and wads of cash had turned her into a sideshow. The local farmers and market vendors had all stopped what they were doing, first to chuckle at the sweet English tourist trying to remember the words for eggs and garlic, and then to marvel at the astonishing amount of money she was spending.

After five visits, she now felt like a local hero. The vendors all greeted her by name. They waved and smiled and sometimes even flocked to say hello before she’d even gotten out of the car. Look, they all seemed to be saying to one another, the rich girl is here to shower us with money! They would fight over her, calling her this way and that, everyone laughing at some joke that Emily only half understood, and she would leave feeling like the Queen on an official visit.

Occasionally someone would politely inquire as to where she was staying or who she worked for, but Emily just smiled and pretended she didn’t understand. Even though the purpose of Scott’s confidentiality agreement still wasn’t wholly clear to her, it loomed large in her mind. Fortunately, Emily’s rusty French (picked up during holidays at Eurocamp, studied at school, and abandoned in London) was polishing up nicely, which meant she was able to avoid sticky topics and comment instead on the weather or a display of new produce.

The sun shone down on her bare shoulders as she wandered around the stalls with a list in her hand, breathing in the heady combination of smells: fresh bread, saucisson, cheese, seafood, caramel. Silver trays held colorful mountains of gingembre lamelle, loukoum rose, and ail confit. She handed over crisp banknote after crisp banknote. At the fishmonger’s she picked out mussels and prawns, and watched as a burly man with a mustache cut the flesh from a gigantic swordfish, then deftly turned it into fillets. At the greengrocer’s, she asked for lemon and chillies, coriander, ginger, onions, mangoes, and peaches. The cheese lady welcomed her back with a kiss on each cheek and handed over neat packets of Brie, Roquefort, and feta.

As Emily reached out to accept a free gift of salted butter, she glimpsed a familiar face through the crowds. Yves, over by the boucherie, studying the cuts of beef like he’d never seen meat before, a reusable bag hooked almost daintily over one arm. Emily felt a little sorry for him. Poor guy; he was so awkward and lumbering, like a giant in a playground.

He looked up and then quickly away, and Emily realized he’d seen her but was pretending he hadn’t. She grinned—oh, no, you’re not getting away with that—and waved. “Yves!” she called. “Hi!”

Yves almost jumped out of his skin, his eyes wide and guilty, as if it was against the rules to be caught fraternizing outside of work. She waved again, determined to elicit even the tiniest of social niceties—they were colleagues, after all—but his face remained stony, and eventually he turned away, pushing his way back through the crowd until he was gone.

She shrugged and tucked the butter into her basket. What a weirdo. Refusing to let him spoil her mood, she breathed a happy sigh. Who would ever have predicted that one day she would feel at home in France? No one; and yet here she was, wafting around the markets and waving to locals as if she was one herself.

Emily climbed back into le char feeling light as a cloud, dizzy with sunshine and not even a little bit guilty that all of this wonderful food was far too much for just three people and would most likely all end up in the bin.

* * *