My Grape Escape by Laura Bradbury

unthinkable.
    “Are you absolutely certain you don’t want to take a few days to think this over?” His voice had now taken on the hushed, soothing quality I’d heard being used with mental patients.
    This was my last chance to go back to my old life. From day one though, I had hated studying law and I knew now with every cell in my body that I would always hate studying law. There were so many other things I had discovered I loved however - smooth wooden banisters running under my palm and old stone wells. Maybe we had lost our paradise in Marey, but that dream had allowed me to realiz e what I loved and, more importantly, what I did not.
    “I’m sure,” I said.

 
    Chapter 9
     
     
    I was still sitting with the phone cord twisted around my wrist when Franck crept back into the room.
    “Bad news?”
    I wasn’t quite sure how to answer. Was it bad news? I wasn’t sorry so much as stunned.
    “I got a 2:1,” I said.
    “That’s what you wanted, right?” Franck asked, unsure. “Isn’t that a good mark?”
    How asinine to have spent two years sacrificing everything just to be awarded a number that meant nothing in the real world.
    “It’s what I wanted. We won’t be going back to Oxford though.” I peered up into Franck’s face, expecting shock and disapproval, but I only saw a huge smile. “I told Mr. Partridge I didn’t want to do the Master’s program after all. I have no idea what we’re going to do next,” I admitted.
    Franck pulled me up from the bed and gathered me in his arms. I nestled my head under his chin and inhaled his familiar smell of apples and freshly cut wood. “That is the best news I have heard in a long time.” He kissed my forehead and then that tender spot behind my earlobe. “I happen to be good friends with the unknown. Allons , I have a chilled bottle waiting for us downstairs.”
     
     

     
     
    In the days that followed I often felt that sickening feeling of teetering on the edge of a cliff with imminent disaster directly below. I had absolutely no idea how Franck and I were going to earn enough money to eat and have a roof over our heads, let alone figure out what we really enjoyed doing in life. This, however, was alleviated by moments of untrammelled glee that I associated with being in elementary school and hearing on the radio that it was a snow day.
    Franck didn’t know any better than I did what the future held; this didn’t bother him in the slightest. He was confident that, thanks to his capacity for hard work and the protection of his guardian angels, we would thrive. Still, despite my worries, that “ non ” during my phone call with Mr. Partridge had come from somewhere deep inside me - a place that I hadn’t listened to in a very long time.
    Franck and I slowly came to the decision to move back to Vancouver to figure things out, closer to my family and a better job market than Burgundy. We couldn’t stay chez Germain indefinitely if we were going to build our own life.
    “If only we’d got that house,” Franck often said, with more wistfulness now than bitterness.
    “If we hadgot the house , we’d have a huge mortgage to pay, tons of repairs to do, and no money to do it with,” I reminded him. Of course, part of me lusted for that lost project just as much as Franck. Still, it had taught me to dream again and nobody – not even a scheming notary or rich buyers from Switzerland - could take that away from me.
     
     

     
     
    I finally bought our airline tickets back to Canada. I also did my best to placate my family by telling them I was going to try to qualify as a lawyer in Vancouver. It wasn’t dishonest, really. Most of the time I believed that I would have no choice but to go that route. How long could I play hooky for, after all?
    Then just five days before we were scheduled to leave for Vancouver, a short scribbled note arrived from Franck’s family notary. The handwriting was appalling. Franck and I sat on the warm stone steps to the