Seb & Joce

Jocelyn answered the door, her deep-set eyes exuding the doe-eyed innocence of a girl. While she seemed quite motherly at times with Sebastien, there was also a vulnerability about her that I associated with someone much younger. Perhaps it was because she was shy. Seb, on the other hand, was gregarious and talkative, sometimes about uninteresting engineering stuff I knew nothing about and mostly about myriad ways to wine and dine his guests, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

As soon as I settled my luggage, Seb and Joce whisked me away to their favorite place, located in a nearby French village. Knowing my appreciation for Christian history, the restaurant faced an old Gothic cathedral and we watched the sun set behind the intricate carvings of the bell tower. I wanted to see the inside, but Sebastien insisted on drinking a glass of wine first. Three hours later, I still hadn’t moved and the cathedral was long closed.

Indulge me they did. We had langoustine in butter sauce with bits of bread slightly dipped in a tart crème. Then it was the most rare and tender boeuf topped with a generous portion of slightly sautéed froie gras. The consistency was amazing: a crisp outside while inside was firm and moist and savory. Tres bon! (Yes, I speak a very hindered French which I didn’t have to use, since Seb and Joce spoke excellent English).

The next day Seb suggested we go to Napolean’s chateau MalMaison outside of Paris, and I really wanted to see Fontainbleau. Indecision ruled; time was running out and then we compromised and went to a Reinaissance chateau neither of us really cared for. At every opportunity, he suggested we sit down at a picturesque café with a view or a restaurant, or any place scenic that offered wine and cheese. I realized that Sebastien was more interested in savoring life, tasty foods, and wines that lead to exotic forms of inebriation than he was in seeing any tourist site, even if he had never been there. On the way back, we stopped at a medieval monastery. While I was admiring the stonework and buttresses, he lay with his head in Jocelyn’s lap upon a park bench.

I wondered if Seb was exhausted from work, (he often mentioned his job with a grain of contempt) or if he needed the reassurance of being loved. Even though his language was rife with facts, logic, and practicality, Sebastien had soft eyes imbued with sentimentality, not unlike Jocelyn’s. Sometimes I caught a glimmer of deep emotion in them, but it never seemed appropriate to ask.

When we returned, I finally caught a glimpse of Aimeric. He had the face of a French movie star, a bit feminine with impossibly long lashes and sweet eyes. He promptly nodded at me and closed the door to his bedroom.

Later that night, Jocelyn showed me photos from an Indian wedding that she and Seb attended the prior spring. She sighed. She and Sebastien belonged to different age brackets and different life stages, of this she had no illusions. She knew he wanted a family of his own. She was ready to release him. Love meant being able to let go.