She Lost Her Name, She Took Back Her Place novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Banker's Eyes

Margaux closed the conservatory doors herself and sat down at the nearest table.

"Sit, Élise. I will not keep you long."

I sat across from her.

She looked at me for a while, with the folded hands and straight back I remembered from every dinner of my first life.

"Henri thinks you are polite to a fault," she said. "Bastien thinks you are cleverer than you let on. Bianca thinks you are dangerous."

"And you, Madame?"

"I think you gave my ring back before anyone asked."

"And today you made thirty women cry at lunch without raising your voice. A girl who can do that has been watching people for a very long time."

I did not look away.

"It's the only thing the home gave us enough of, Madame. Time to watch."

She was silent.

Then she opened her handbag and took out a small flat box, no bigger than her palm.

Inside, on a bed of yellowed cotton, lay a thin hospital bracelet with a name written on it in blue ink.

Baby Girl Rochefort.

"They gave this to me when you were born," she said. "I put it on you myself. Eleven hours later a nurse took you for your bath, and I never saw you again."

Her voice did not shake.

"I have been told many times that I did my best and that it was an accident. I am telling you now that I should have looked harder." She closed the box. "I cannot give you eighteen years. I can give you the next ones, if you want them."

I felt something go loose in my chest that I had not planned for.

In the first life I had been her daughter for eighteen years and never once seen this box.

"I want them," I said. "Thank you, Maman."

It was the first time I had called her that.

She put her hand to my cheek. Her fingers were cold, and she kept them there for a long moment.

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