Free Chateau of Secrets: A Novel by Melanie Dobson Page B

education for the kids in my community. Then each summer, I traveled someplace new, steeping myself in history and culture and local food.
    But it seemed my destiny wasn’t going to involve much simplicity. As long as I could continue to carve out chunks of time like this to savor, I would enjoy the more public ride with Austin.
    A branch draped low over the cove, and I ducked under it before sinking my paddle into the water again. The edge trailed inthe water, the ripples blending with the light. Mesmerized, I watched as the light danced along the top of the brackish pool.
    I hadn’t planned to be on the water today, but when I arrived at my parents’ summer home, neither of them was here yet. Instead of waiting inside, I hauled my kayak out of the boathouse and paddled across the small lake to an overgrown cove that seemed a million miles away.
    And as I paddled, I mulled over my family’s stories.
    Mémé was usually confused these days, but this afternoon she’d seemed lucid when she begged me to find Adeline. Who was this girl who seemed to haunt her? And what happened to my great-grandfather during the war?
    My grandmother had seemed afraid until the sadness overtook her. Something terrible must have happened to her father. If only she had told me years before, when she told me my grandfather had fought the Germans.
    Unlike my father’s side of the family, the history on my mother’s side flowed like a rapid river current. My mother’s parents—Lionel and Grace Bishop—had seemingly endless tales from their year of courting. Every payday in the winter of 1954, Lionel had shown up at the bakery to buy a dozen of Grace’s coconut macaroons. It took him a solid six months to muster enough courage to ask her for a date, but after another six months, he proposed and they married in an old church in Bethesda. To celebrate every anniversary, Grace still made him macaroons.
    My grandparents on my father’s side loved each other deeply, but all I knew about their courtship was that they’d met in a café. They’d told me no stories about their wedding day.
    I remembered a little about my grandpa—the cinnamon candies he’d kept in his pockets and his fascination for anything that flew. He had a remote-control plane and during thesummer, I spent hours at the park with him, flying it above the trees. His knowledge of history inspired me to love education, but somehow the history he discussed never encompassed his own story and I was too young at the time to think about asking for more. It was my grandmother who told me about his service in the military and resistance.
    One specific memory from the years before Grandpa passed on rose to the top. It was my grandparents, holding hands as I joined them for a walk along the Atlantic coast. Mémé swatted Grandpa away playfully when he tried to steal a kiss. Then they’d escaped around a dune, ahead of me. When Mémé thought no one was looking, she kissed him back.
    I smiled at my treasure of a memory—a simple, stolen kiss that sealed their enduring love, a love that lasted almost sixty years.
    Near the shore, I saw the flat head of a snake and then the black sheen of its body trailing behind it. With swift strokes, I paddled away. While I loved the water, I wasn’t thrilled about sharing it with a moccasin. Few things above the water scared me, but I was scared of what swam underneath it. Especially snakes looking for trouble.
    Perhaps that was why I had a deep appreciation for the kayak. I could play on the water without diving in.
    As I neared the dock, my mom waved from the patio of the house.
    “Ahoy!” she shouted as she descended the path down to the water, a cooler in her hand. Her ash-blond hair was twisted back into a knot, and she wore a sleeveless blouse that showed off the bronze color on her plump arms. My mom was sixty-four, but she believed that age was relative. A state of mind. Oddly enough, her mind insisted that she hadn’t yet hit the big