Free On Rue Tatin by Susan Herrmann Loomis

furniture that was available. One day she brought over a laundry rack, the next day a small chair for Joe, or a beautiful cotton sheet . . . small things that made life easier for us. She also invited us over for memorable meals, which always included at least one dish guaranteed to please a child as well as adults, like her famed squash purée with apples.
    As the months progressed toward winter, rain and bone-chilling days set in. Michael set off early every morning for the house in Louviers, while I got Joe off to school, then worked in my office. Michael would return at noon to pick up Joe, then he worked on plans for the house while Joe napped and played with him and I worked. We’d been in the little house by the river for two months by then, about the amount of time we thought we would have to stay there. But work on the house in Louviers was going slowly, and it was impossible for us to move in yet. Everything was taking much longer than we expected, since it was all so different from anything Michael had ever done, from the electrical system to the plumbing. I checked in with Florence, who reassured us that her little house was ours as long as we wanted it, so we settled in even more.
    When the baby-sitter’s tenure was over, we saw her off one gray day. Life began to take on a rhythm. I needed to travel for my research, so at least once a month I left on a Monday and would be gone most of the week, making sure to return in time for the weekend. Then, we went to the Messy House, as Joe called the house in Louviers, which was paradise for him. He could build sand castles in the dining room where Michael stored his pile of sand, or bang nails into boards while Michael built and I cleaned and tried to bring about order.
    Our first weekend there was cold, so we were bundled up. We hauled and scrubbed as Joe ran around trying to help. Mid-morning Michael and I both had a longing for coffee, so we all went to the café across the street to take a break and warm up. The owner seemed to know who we were. “Next time if you’d like to take the coffee back to your house you may,” she said in a friendly way. We accepted her offer. On days when we were all in the house, Joe and I would go to the café and I would order two
grand crèmes
and a
chocolat chaud
, which the owner would put on a tray. Holding Joe’s hand and the tray, I would navigate my way across the busy street feeling like a native. We would all sit in whatever room in the house had a ray of sunshine coming into it or, if it was a particularly nice day, we would sit outside in the garden to sip our coffees and chocolate.
    Once Michael got a good electrical line installed I was eager to make coffee in the house. I bought an electric coffee maker and some coffee, brought cups from home, and went to our favorite local bakery, J. Gosselin, to buy
sablés
, Normandy’s traditional butter cookies. At morning break time I made coffee in the room upstairs where the owner had lived and where Michael had installed an outlet. This coffee would be the first thing I would prepare in the house, and its making was a momentous occasion. My hands trembled as I fit the paper filter into the machine and measured the coffee into it. I’ll never forget the eerie feeling I had smelling that first tempting, warm, human aroma in the house. Michael and I looked at each other. I could tell he felt the same way. How many people throughout the ages had made coffee, or the equivalent hot, comforting drink, in this house?
    That was the first of many pots of coffee brewed in the upstairs room, where we often lunched on one-portion quiches, or small tomato pizzas, or
baguette
sandwiches stuffed with ham or cheese or hard-cooked eggs and vegetables from the bakery.
    Progress on the house was steady, but slow. Every time Michael would start on a room, expecting to be able to proceed easily from point A to point B, he’d find something that needed fixing first—a rotten beam that needed