Page 43 of Forgiving Paris
“I think I pulled an old Bible from my backpack.” This was something Ashley hadn’t thought about since she’d come home more than two decades ago. She had actually had a Bible with her.
“You did.” Alice sounded like she was lost in that long-ago moment. “That’s exactly right. You said you’d bought it at a secondhand store a few days earlier. And you pulled another book from your backpack. A book for expecting mothers.”
“Yes.” Ashley was there again, sitting at a dingy table in the stuffy back room of the old boulangerie. “I opened the book and showed you what our babies looked like. Because we were both at about the same stage of our pregnancies. Four months, maybe.”
“Exactly.” A cry came from Alice and she covered her mouth. “I… I still can’t believe it. Until that moment, I hadn’t really thought my baby was real. Just a problem, a reason I couldn’t live any longer.”
“I remember feeling like that.” Ashley needed to be honest, too. “There was one day when I thought an abortion would be the best thing for my baby. Because at least then he’d live in heaven with God.” She shivered. “I told you that, right? How I ran out of that clinic that day.”
“Yes.” Alice smiled. “But that day when you gave methe Bible and that book, you put your hand on your belly, and then on mine. And you read me Psalm 139. About how God knits babies together in their mothers’ wombs.”
“That Scripture is on a plaque in my parents’ home.” Gabriel sounded proud of the fact.
Ashley remembered something else. “After we read that psalm… you looked different.”
“Hope took root inside me that day. A divine hope.” Alice sniffed, but she couldn’t stop smiling. “I had a life inside me. I wanted to live. I was going to live. When I left the bakery that day, I was sure.”
A heaven-sent rescue. That’s what it had been. A picture of God’s living grace and mercy and redemption. “I told you that day that I was going home. Right?”
“You did.” A sad laugh came from Alice. “You said you had to make peace with your family. That you believed they would take you home again even with the baby. They would love you no matter what. You had to believe that.”
Ashley was amazed at the details Alice recalled. “I had talked to my parents by then. They didn’t know I was pregnant. But they were thrilled that I wanted to come home.”
“Yes. And your situation made me wonder… maybe I could contactmymother. Maybe it wasn’t too late.” Alice hesitated. “But I didn’t know I wouldn’t see you again, Ashley.”
“My plans to go back to Indiana came together quickly.” Ashley could see herself packing her bags, making sure her paintings were in the large suitcase, and herfilthy clothes in the other. “They booked me on the next flight out.”
“If that had happened any sooner, I’m not sure what I would’ve done.” Alice shook her head. “Without that final conversation with you.” She sat back, more relaxed now. “You know what I did when I left the bakery that day?”
Ashley already felt chills on her arms.
“I went back home.” Alice nodded. “I walked up to the front door of my mère’s flat and knocked. Like a regular person. Like someone who believed in second chances.” Her voice cracked and she took a moment. “And when my mère answered the door, do you know what happened?” Alice took her time. “My m’man took me in her arms and held me. Rocked me like when I was a little girl. No judgment, no angry words, no demand for an explanation. She loved me then and she loved me while I continued to get help and when I brought my baby boy home. My mother loved me.”
There were tears in all their eyes now, picturing the moment, imagining the scene. Ashley struggled to find her voice. “That’s… that’s incredible, Alice. A beautiful story.”
“Now you know.” Alice reached across the table and squeezed Ashley’s hand. “You saved my life. God used you that day. And because of that, here we are. Here we all are.”
It was a story Ashley would hold dear as long as she lived. A good moment from her time in Paris. When the lunch ended, and they had promised to have breakfast onemorning before the week was up, Ashley and Landon walked back to their car.
Landon asked the driver to take them someplace different. “Not the opera house. Not now.” He checked his phone. “Maybe later.” Instead, Landon had the man drive them to the Sacré-Coeur Basilica. A church that sat in the midst of a small, gated park.
From the moment Landon gave the driver their destination, Ashley knew why her husband had picked that place. She sat back, drained from Alice’s story, and she held Landon’s hand.
“You know what they call the eighteenth arrondissement, right?” He leaned closer.
“Hmm.” Ashley wasn’t sure. She hadn’t seen Paris as a tourist destination since she was young. “Tell me.”
“The artists’ eighteenth.” Landon kissed her cheek. “And you, my love, are an artist. You always were.”
When they reached the park, Landon took her to another of the most famous spots in Paris. Someplace Ashley had never been. Tucked in behind the basilica, at the summit of the Butte Montmartre, was a wall that stood nearly three hundred feet high. The tallest point in the city.
And on it, in every single language known to man were three simple words.
I love you.
Landon pulled Ashley close as they stared at the towering wall. “I love you, Ashley Baxter Blake. Do you know how much?”
She smiled and lifted her eyes to the wall. “You love me in every language, is that it?”
