Marie was the matriarch of the farm. François, her husband, managed the vineyards, the almond fields, and the animals. The farmhouse was Marie’s dominion. It was a traditional arrangement, one with which she seemed perfectly content.
Her eyes were set deep, as if her creator had pushed a little too hard when placing them. She always wore her pale blond hair pulled into a sensible low ponytail at the nape of her neck. There was a wispy quality to her. Not a fragility — I’d seen her bleed out a freshly beheaded rooster and remove its bowels in five seconds flat — but a sort of slow exhalation of spirit. I couldn’t help attributing it to a physical manifestation of prolonged empty nest syndrome. A devout Catholic, Marie had raised nine children. It was her greatest sorrow that all of them, save one, a son, had abandoned her and the farm for the big city of Paris. (“Abandoned” is how she put it.) The fact that the farm had a regular rotation of live-in volunteer workers suited her just fine; she liked the feeling of a full house.
A THEME FOR CREATIVE PEOPLE