The Witch of Painted Sorrows Read Online Free Page A

waited until she poured for herself, and then I took the first heady sip. Of all the things that meant Parisand my grandmother to me, it was our afternoon ritual of sharing this melted chocolate drink, so unlike that thin American cocoa, and talking over what I’d done that day.
    Thinking of how different this conversation was going to be brought tears to my eyes. I blinked them back, but she saw and, reaching up her sleeve, withdrew a black lace handkerchief with her initials embroidered in fire orange, handing it to me.
    Like the fire opals she wore, these black handkerchiefs, scented with her perfume, were part of her signature. Dabbing at my eyes, I smelled that amazing fragrance that no one wore but my grandmother: roses and lily of the valley with a hint of vanilla and spicy pepper and some magical ingredient that smoothed it out and ignited it. The scent had been created for her by the great perfumer Monsieur L’Etoile, whom Grand-mère called a “dear friend.” She called each man who visited her salona “dear friend”—or, as she said, “ mon cher ami .”L’Etoile had named the scent after her, calling it L’Incendie, and promised he’d never sell it to anyone else during her lifetime.
    “When did you last eat?” my grandmother asked.
    I had to think. “I had breakfast on the boat. A soft-boiled egg and toast.”
    “That was practically yesterday. You are too thin, besides. I know how upset you must be, but you still have to rail against the fates, Sandrine. Never give in to sorrow. It doesn’t do your heart or your complexion any good.”
    I smiled.
    “So you know about Papa?”
    I had come to Paris assuming I would have to be the one to tell her, but it appeared I’d be spared that horror.
    “I received a telegram,” she said. “But there is still so much I don’t understand that I am going to need you to explain. Why didn’t you contact me? Why did you leave so soon after the funeral? Where is your husband?”
    “I wanted to send you a telegram. I wrote it a dozen times. But inthe end I couldn’t tell you the news that way. Once I knew I would be coming, I thought I’d tell you when I got here. Who sent you the news?”
    My father had no family but me in America, and I couldn’t imagine who would have known to contact Grand-mère.
    “Your father’s lawyer, Monsieur Lissauer. He is the only person outside of you and your mother whom your father ever told about me and the only one who would know to get in touch.”
    I had not understood that Grand-mère was different from my friends’ grandmothers until the summer I turned thirteen and she spent the season with us in Newport.
    One night she came down to dinner wearing a pearl necklace that wrapped around her throat twice and yet still reached her waist.
    Even though my mother had beautiful jewels, I’d never seen anything like Grand-mère’s pearls. Lustrous against her navy silk gown, they looked like tiny moons stolen out of a midnight sky.
    She saw me staring and asked if I liked them. When I said I did, she took them off and hung the rope around my neck, telling me they were mine to wear while she was visiting.
    “Oh, thank you,” I said as I touched the pearls, exploring their smooth surface with my fingertips. “When I grow up, I will have a necklace just like this and never take it off,” I whispered.
    “Hopefully you’ll be given it as a gift and not have to work for it,” my mother said a bit haughtily.
    My grandmother smiled sadly at her daughter-in-law. “My dear, there’s no such thing as not having to work for it, even if you are a respectably married woman of leisure.”
    Later I asked my father what my mother had meant and why Grand-mère had seemed insulted.
    “Your grandmother,” my father explained, “is an independent businesswoman with a razor-sharp mind who has made a career for herself in the art of giving pleasure. Not everyone in America finds it a respectable profession, but in France, in Paris,