It has been several months since I updated this blog. During that first trip, they had talked about the difficulty of maintaining the place. They were both close to 80 and the housekeeping alone was killing them. They had long ago drained the indoor pool and covered it with a floor to minimize the upkeep. And watching tiny, frail Meredith doing laundry and tromping up and down stairs with a vac pack on her back was heart-breaking.
This house and its property had been the center of activity years ago. The fountain at front had even been the source of water for all the lavoirs where the women of the village would come and wash their clothes. I had ideas in my head about renovating the A-frame cabin on the hill overlooking the house into a proper place for me to live and write.
I could finish remodeling the gite and bake bread that we could sell to the local markets. I could reopen the indoor pool. They had more or less given up looking for a manager when I showed up six months later with a girlfriend in tow — still buzzed after a champagne festival held at the Tour Bouillon in Chateau Thierry.
Even after consulting with the gardeners about weed whackers, he never got around to buying a new one. When we arrived, she got out of the car and made a beeline for the white crosses, passing row after row until she stood right in front of a particular grave that turned out to be the site where a black soldier from Tennessee was buried. My friend grew up in Tennessee. My friend felt some strong connection to this person and took it upon herself to research his name and the company he was with.
Three years later that comment took on an ominous, chilling resonance. He replied that Meredith, his wife, was recovering from colon cancer surgery — thank God, he said, for French national health insurance — but that they both looked forward to seeing me, nonetheless. But all they had left were individual babas , and a much larger and more expensive baba chantilly. So I bought the chantilly and also grabbed a couple of Pere Noel cookies. I figured I could pick up a goose or some poulets and vegetables once I got to their place, where I could shop at the market in Dormans.
