A Table by the Window: A Novel of Family Secrets and Heirloom Recipes (Two Blue Doors) by Hillary Manton Lodge

paper—Kenny recommended him.”
    “Oh good,” I said, though I had secretly hoped that our kitchen might be the only one that could function without a sous. I pushed thoughts of Éric from my head.
    “Do you think it’s a good idea,” my uncle asked from across the table, “to open a restaurant in this economy? The market hasn’t been kind to small businesses for quite some time.”
    I shrugged, holding on to my calm even as Nico looked ready to throw his forkful of frittata across the table.
    Honestly, the last thing we needed at this gathering was an old-fashioned schoolyard food fight.
    “A poor business model won’t survive even in a good economy,” I pointed out. “Our job is to come up with a strong concept, requiring a modest budget, and execute it deliciously.” I turned to Nico. “Wouldn’t you agree?” I asked my brother, though I focused on my uncle before Nico could open his mouth and get us both in trouble. “Everything that is beautiful and noble is the product of reason and calculation,” I said, quoting Baudelaire.
    Henri shrugged, his usual response to Baudelaire. “Just make sure there is enough reason and calculation,” he said.
    “Enough.” Maman’s tone did not invite further argument. “This is a family gathering, not a business meeting.”
    Henri opened his mouth to protest, but my mother merely held up her hand. “Not here.”
    The table chatter started back up moments later as everyone returned to their food and conversations.
    “I can’t believe we’re related to him,” Nico grumbled.
    I gave his arm a blithe pat. “I wouldn’t worry about it overmuch.”
    Once the guests had gone, the rest of us lingered longer over coffee. Maman carried three more boxes of my grandmother’s papers and photos into the living room, boxes that had migrated from Grand-mère’s apartment to my parents’ home.
    “I’m working on a story about Grand-mère for the paper,” I told her. “How she was trained in pastry during the late thirties, giving up her career to raise a family but teaching her daughter pastry technique—it’s a good human-interest story.”
    “She did not speak much of those days in France,” my mother told me. “The days before the war, you know. And her life with my father …” A shrug.
    I leaned forward. “Were they happy?”
    “Happiness is transient,” my mother replied.
    “How so?” I asked, hugging my arms to myself.
    “My father … well, Henri is not so different from him. He was a good man, but stubborn. They disagreed about things, the way married couples do. Maybe more so. My mother loved pastry and wanted to open a patisserie in the village. My father felt it would be shameful. Your grand-mère, she contented herself with baking for us and throwing parties with the very best food.” She smiled. “That made him happy, and it made her the toast of the village.”
    “So that’s why she opened the patisserie here after he died. I never put that together.” I smiled. “Thanks for pulling these out for me.”
    Back home, I took a closer look at the boxes’ contents. There were very fewphotos of my grandmother as a young woman, but cameras weren’t household items at the time, especially in the South of France.
    One photo showed her on her wedding day to my grandfather Gilles. Marked 1943, the portrait showed a very serious bride and groom. Grand-mère’s dress was lovely, of course, but I searched her expression for any signs of joy and found none.
    The more I looked at the photos, the less I thought of my grandmother as Grand-mère. When I looked at her, I saw Mireille Bessette, a woman near my age who happened to be living her life seventy years ago.
    I knew wedded bliss to be a very modern concept, but Mireille looked awfully grim for a woman who just married of her own free will, with no goats used as inducement.
    The photos I had were usually labeled with dates on the back, but the wedding photo had no such notation. At my desk,