HER

Chapter One

Boston, New York - 1930

I shuffle through my grandma's letters to my great uncle Jhonny Pierce and wipe my eyes. After grams died we found a bunch of old boxes in the attic in which were full of old trinkets and returned letters from France and England. "Why are you crying?" My mother, Marie Phillips asks me. My mother didn't look her age of fifty-three years with no wrinkling lines and bright red hair from my grandpa. I sniffed. "I just found some old letters of hers. Did you know a... 'Margot Bridges'?" I ask her, hiding the letters behind my back. She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. "We moved to New York soon a few years after I was born around... 1883. I haven't heard of such a person." She informs me.

So not even mom knew of Margot Bridges. I leave the attic and head towards my father's study. I knock on the crystal glass door and wait for his invitation to enter. I slide the door shut behind me and hug him from behind. My father was a military man who retired from his position as a general in the army just last year. He fought in world war one and lost his leg in the battle of 1918. "Papa, may I inquire as to what you are doing?" I asked him, wrapping my arms around his neck and leaning on him. He grunted and patted my head. "Shouldn't a newly married woman such as yourself be at home with her husband?" He quips.

I scowl. "We both know Johnson Diggery is at work, making money so that soon I will bless him with children." Papa grins and looks at me from the corner of his eye. "And will you?"

"Not until at least three years from now. I'm only twenty-two! I am not one for faire des bébés! Grandma always said, 'trouvez quelqu'un avec qui vous voulez passer le reste de votre vie, puis trouvez quelqu'un qui sera toujours à vos côtés et qui vous chérira et vous aimera jusqu'à la fin. tomber amoureux du second.'. Well, I fell in love with the second one. Now I want to see if he loves me." His grin turns gentle and his eyes soften. "Don't look at me like that! I am not some sappy Vieille bachelorette! I know my worth and I want a man who will always be there until death do us part."

Papa grins and laughs. "If you learned that from your la mémé, I wonder if that's why Jacoby died ten years before she did. To get away from her?" I smacked his shoulder and scowled. "You know why he died early! Grandma got mad and slipped him some of his sleeping pills and he went in the night!" He laughs and then sobers. With his eyes still twinkling he says, "Don't joke, ma précieuse fille. Or your grandmother could come back from the dead and slip you some sleeping pill to keep you from slandering her!" I grin at him. "Ah, but you would be in the same boat, no?" he grins back at me. "Then we will ride the river of death together!" I smile at him and hug him again before sobering and getting to why I'm really visiting his office on a Tuesday.

"Did la mémé ever talk about a girl named 'Margot' from her youthful days?" I asked him. He looked thoughtful for a second and then his eyes lit up. "No, but your grandfather did. He said that Margot was a village girl your grandmother was friends with. Said they were attaché à la hanche. I think I might even have a picture of them somewhere!" He exclaims and uses his cane to help him stand up and look around. He shuffles this way and that way, going through boxes here and there before exclaiming "A-ha!" and hands me a photo.

The girls in the picture are vastly different. And because camera companies hadn't yet advanced to chemically enhanced color photos, this picture was faded black and white. The girls stand in stark contrast with their arms linked. They're both wearing long Victorian dresses, as was the fashion then. la mémé stood out next to the girl with the golden hair-- Margot Bridges, I presume. la mémé's dark hair was flowing in the wind like smoke above a fire. Her eyes were shining and alight with mischief. Her smile was huge and seemed to light up the whole room. I guess this is why grandpa fell in love with her. She looked wild and free, like a bird recently freed from a cage. Or a phoenix being reborn. Margot was equally beautiful, with rose-colored round cheeks and a sharp jawline. She was angelic but la mémé was like a bottle of rich wine, I could see why Margot went after her. From her letters to my great uncle, la mémé was a shy and lanky teenager. She wasn't assertive enough to even attempt pursuing a garçon, much less one of the same sex.

I want to meet her. The thought was out of nowhere but reigned true. I wanted to meet the woman who stole the heart of my shy and loving grandmother. The woman who brought her out of her shell and made her feel as she did. But I didn't know where to find her. I would start with the boxes upstairs, see if there anything else, a diary perhaps. Then I would research and find out if there is still a Bridges in Rouen, France. I wanted to hear about my la mémé from someone who wasn't breastfed by her.

I was the youngest of four kids. I have two older brothers and a sister. My sister was the oldest. She got married a few years back and moved down to Ohio of all places. She had a son who is nearly seven. My brothers are twenty-seven and twenty-four. The eldest brother is a surgeon. I'm not entirely sure what my second brother does. Only that he works with the newspaper. Maybe he's an editor or something like that? I know he got this "big promotion" last spring but honestly, he is not a very interesting person. One could dare call him ennuyeuse. I walked into my apartment that I share with my new husband, Johnson Diggery. I was immediately enveloped in muscles and pine musk. I breathed him in, My heart expanding and my mind peaceful.

"Hello, darling." I gave him a kiss on the cheek and picked up the dropped box off the floor. "And what is this?" He asked. "Darling, would you be a dear and help bring the rest in." I motioned to the hall where there were four more boxes like the one I was struggling to carry to the living room. "And to answer your question, this is stuff my la mémé left behind. I'm researching an old flame of hers!" I call over my shoulder to the muscles walking in and out of our apartment. I sighed wistfully. I could watch him carry stuff all day long. All night too.

"Now, what all this about an old flame of your grandmothers?" He asked, sitting in the lounge chair across from me, his legs lazily strawn about in front of him. "If you keep looking at me like that I'm going to break your three year rule and get the baby making started." I look up guiltily from where I was ogling his leg muscles. I look him dead in the eyes and seriously reply, "And you're not helping my leg muscle fetish with your shorts and all that working out to strengthen your core and all those yummy muscles." He laughs at me before helping me unpack the boxes. "I need a diary or something. Like a thick bundle of paper wrapped in leather." Shuffling and ripping sounds are all I hear for the next few minutes before his hollars "found it!" and hands me a bundle of thick paper and worn leather. "Parfaite!" I kiss his cheek before untying the leather strap bundled around the journal.