Free Amour Provence by Constance Leisure

happened?”
    â€œShe fell on the rocks and her head’s all bloody,” said Manu. “Eva wrapped her wounds up in Seb’s shirt, but she hasn’t woken up.” Filou started to run, pushing the young man ahead of him to speed him up.
    It was a long hike down for Filou with Berti in his arms. After he’d ascertained that she had no broken bones, he’d lifted her up, but the unconscious girl was a deadweight. A deep twilight had already set in, making it hard to see. Filou’s feet lost all feeling from being constantly immersed in the river’s flow. The kids followed along, Eva holding on to Seb and Manu trailing behind. Filou thought of Pierrette and what she would do if either Gaspard or Françoise had been hurt. Suddenly the idea of no longer living beneath the same roof with the mother of his children made him shiver with pain as he made his way down through the treacherous waters.
    When they reached his camionnette , Filou’s hands shook with exhaustion as he gripped the steering wheel. Manu gave him an odd look when for a moment his frozen feet forgot the sense memory of clutch and gas, so when he started up the engine, the car jerked and stalled. Eva and Seb cradled Berti in their arms in the backseat. When they got to the hospital, various parents were telephoned. Liliane was the first to arrive. She was alone, without her husband, Clément, who, she explained, was still entertaining the group from the préfecture. Filou explained things and waitedwith her until a doctor came to tell them that Berti had a concussion, but that she’d briefly awakened, which was good news. Still, they planned to hold her for observation until the morning. Liliane arranged to have a cot set up next to her daughter so she could spend the night.
    Outside in the calm dark, Filou had a great desire for a smoke, though he hadn’t had a cigarette in years. The illuminated sign of the tabac indicated that it was still open on the square below. He decided on a pack of Gitanes, the brand he’d smoked as a teenager, and as he lit up he thought of going to Gautier Marcassin’s house to beat him to a pulp. The cigarette tasted acrid, but he puffed it anyway, wishing he could just go home. Then he walked back up the hill to the hospital entrance, marked URGENCES , where his truck was parked. The night sky appeared dark as espresso with a thin edge of pale cream at the horizon. On the square below, he saw a car turn up the street toward the hospital. It was an Opel like the one Pierrette drove. He let the cigarette fall and crushed it with the heel of his boot. The car pulled up in front of him. Gaspard and Françoise were kneeling in the backseat, their hands pressed like starfish against the window. Pierrette leaned toward him, and without saying a word, she reached over and opened the front door.

3
The Golden Chain
    F or her birthday Mohammed gave her a necklace made of gold. After fastening it beneath the tumble of her dark hair, he stepped back to look at his young wife, still amazed that he’d had the good luck to marry a gentle beauty like Rachida, with her smooth almond-scented hair and skin light as café crème. Since her arrival in France three years before, Mohammed had made an effort to help Rachida fit in as he had, still aware of their Moroccan roots but eager to make the best of life in a new country.
    â€œYou should have the same things Frenchwomen do,” he told her.
    Rachida hesitated before touching the slender links that moved like the scales of a serpent beneath her fingers.
    â€œBut this is too much, Hamidou,” she exclaimed. Rachida called Mohammed by his pet name, Hamidou, but she was the only one. He was chief of field hands at a largevineyard, and everyone there, his employer and fellow workers alike, called him Mohammed as a sign of respect.
    The gift came as a shock because Rachida and Mohammed were always careful about money. He’d