Where You Belong Read Online Free Page B

about his vivid imagination and its tendency to work overtime. “You’ll make a great novelist,” I used to tell him, and he had merely grinned at me and retorted, “You’d better be right about that.”
    On numerous occasions I had taken Tony and Jake there, and they had enjoyed it as much as me, their taste buds tantalized by the couscous and the piquant Moroccan sauce called Harissa, not to mention the erotic belly dancers in their flimsy costumes and tinkling ankle bracelets.
    On these evenings, when we were back in Paris for a bit of relaxation and rest from covering wars, Jake would usually invite us to one of the jazz joints after dinner at the El Djazier. There were several spots on the Rue de la Huchette, where many of the greats of American jazz came to play or listen to others play.
    Jake was a jazz aficionado and could happily spend long hours in these smoke-filled places, sipping a cognac and tapping his foot, lost in the music, lost to the world for a short while.
    I ambled up the street and glanced around as I walked. I never tired of wandering around this particular part of Paris, which I knew so well. It was full of picturesque cobblestone streets, ancient buildings, Greek and North African restaurants, art galleries, and small shops selling colorful wares from some of the most exotic places in the world. Aside from anything else, it brought back memories of the time I had attended the Sorbonne, such a happy time for me, perhaps the happiest of my life.
    III
    My grandfather Andrew Denning had been alive when I decided I wanted to study in Paris. Later, he had often come here to visit me, defying my mother, who had forbidden any contact between us once I had made the decision. My mother was angry with me because I had chosen to study in France, although I never understood her attitude, since she had been indifferent to me from the day I was born. So why did it matter where I studied?
    Grandfather Denning didn’t have much time for his daughter-in-law; in fact, he privately thought she was a cold, unfeeling woman, and he had never paid any attention to what she said. He had reminded her that I was the only daughter of his only son, and his only female grandchild, and he was damned if he would let anyone stand in the way of his visiting me and whenever he wished to do so. As an afterthought, he had added in no uncertain terms that no one told him what to do or how to spend his money, least of all his son’s wife. And that had been that, apparently. Grandfather had told me all about it later; we kept no secrets from each other. I thought of him as being more like a pal than a grandfather, perhaps because he was so young in appearance and had the most youthful of spirits.
    To my mother’s great consternation and frustration, she had not been able to influence him one iota, let alone control him, and she had apparently ranted and raved about her father-in-law for months after their original confrontation. This I had heard from my brother, the family gossip, who only reinforced my opinion of him when he became the sidekick to a gossip columnist. According to Donald, my mother had screamed blue murder, but my father had, as was customary, remained totally mute. For years I suspected that this state of being had afflicted Father since the day he entered into so-called wedded bliss with Margot Scott. Until the day he died he hardly ever said a word, perhaps because he couldn’t get one in edgewise.
    It was my grandfather who supported me financially and morally once I had decided to study in Paris, and in those days he had been my best friend.
    My mother had never forgiven him, or me, for that matter. But then, I believe my mother has never forgiven me for being born, although I don’t know why this should be so. However, from that day to this she has never shown me any love or given me much thought. It is not that Margot Scott Denning doesn’t like children; everyone knows