Séverine held out her hand.
It took Aria a second to understand. Damien understood at once. He unlocked his phone, found the photograph, and laid it in her palm.
Séverine looked at it for a long time.
The rain-blurred sign. The black umbrella. Her sister, younger than Aria had ever known her, laughing, with a bouquet of white camellias held against her coat.
Séverine's thumb moved over the screen and stopped just short of her sister's face.
"Elle riait comme ça," she said quietly. "Toujours trop fort."
"She laughed like that," Damien said. "Always too loud."
Aria's throat tightened. She remembered her mother's hand cream, and the garden soil, and the hairbrush every night. She didn't remember the laugh.
Then Séverine's eyes went to the man under the umbrella, and her face closed.
"Who is he?" Aria asked.
Séverine handed the phone back to Damien.
"Séverine. Who is he?"
"Demande à Madame Aubert."
"Ask Madame Aubert," Damien said.
"Who's Madame Aubert?"
