The Reinvention of Love

the atlas. When my secretary arrives, I send him to the library for additional information. After her initial interest in seeing where the Channel Islands are located on a map, Adèle tires of the research and returns to her kitchen. But I won’t let her be. I hurry down at noon, with my stack of books, thunking them on the kitchen table and making her jump at the stove. I’m out of breath from the stairs and it’s the first time that I realize I get winded from going downstairs as well as up.
    “I could definitely be dead within the week,” I say. But Adèle doesn’t hear me, or chooses not to.
    “They’re full of rocks,” I say.
    “What are?”
    “The Channel Islands.”
    Adèle turns and regards me critically. She holds a wooden spoon in each hand. I don’t dare ask her why.
    “They’re islands,” she says. “They have coasts. Coasts are full of rocks.” She speaks slowly, as though she’s talking to her imbecile cousin.
    The Channel Islands are a mix of French and English. I feel a brief twinge of envy. Victor is already famous in France. Now he will become famous to the English as well.
    “There is no stopping him,” I say.
    Adèle puts down her spoons. “It is because you do not know,” she says.
    “Know what?”
    “How it is for Madame Hugo. You do not know anything, so you imagine everything.”
    She is right. In some ways it would be easier if Adèle were dead. It would be finite. I would not be tormented by the endless possibilities of her existence.
    I slam the atlas shut and drop myself down into a chair. If I am honest, it is not Adèle’s safety that really concerns me. It is not imagining her being blown off a rocky headland into an unforgiving sea that causes me sleepless nights. It is imagining her happiness – her happiness without me.

GUERNSEY, 1850s

ADELE

    I WALK OUT ONTO THE TERRACE. My children are still at breakfast there. They like to eat outdoors when the weather is fair. They like the bright morning light and the shuffle of sea against the rocks below.
    “Maman!” calls Dédé, and when I go to her, she pulls me down beside her on the chaise. “What will we do today, Maman?”
    If we were still in Paris, my children would be married by now. They would have lives of their own. But the exile has forced us to remain together as a family, and even though Charles, the eldest, is over thirty, and Adèle is a grown woman of twenty-seven, the isolation has turned them into children again and they look to me to lead them through each day.
    I close my eyes against the sun, then open them and see the rag tied around the railing at the top of the house, the signal that Victor is up and working.
    “Maman!” Dédé squeezes my hand.
    “We could pick wildflowers on the cliff top,” I say. “Charlot, you might photograph us up there, and you could bring your books, Toto. We could have a picnic.”
    Dédé drops my hand. “We did that yesterday,” she says.
    “But we had fun,” I persist. “Did we not? And why not do something again if it was pleasurable the first time?”
    There’s a short silence.
    “Yesterday wasn’t the first time,” says François-Victor.
    “I might photograph in the garden today,” says Charles. Hestretches his legs out, crossing his feet at the ankles. “Or I might have a nap.”
    He has grown plump, my eldest son. More often he declines a walk than accepts one. He is not like his father. Every afternoon, after he has finished his twenty pages, Victor will stride out across the cliffs to the sea to sit on the boulder he calls his
armchair
and gaze out over the waves, waiting to be inspired.
    But the exile has been so good for Charles! He has time to indulge his desires, time to explore his interests, and the naps serve as
his
inspirational pause between artistic pursuits.
    “Toto?” I say, turning to François-Victor. “Will you walk out with me today?”
    “Perhaps.” Toto does not like to disappoint, so he rarely commits to anything. I find this habit of his both touching and infuriating, so I refrain from commenting on it.
    “Dédé?”
    “No, Maman.” Adèle has lowered her head in a sulk. I put my arm around her shoulders.
    “Dédé, why don’t you go and fetch your embroidery and I will help you with it. We could sit here in the sun. You could ask Sylvie to bring me coffee.”
    “Sylvie left,” says Toto.
    “For the day?”
    “Forever.”
    “So soon?” The maid was barely here two weeks, and it was so nice to have