"We"re all orphans now-you, me, Kingsley," she said, and she didn"t know why. "I wonder what that means."

"It means we must love each other even more because all we have is each other."

"I"m sorry I missed our anniversary, sir."

She broke on the sir and cried into the phone.

"You shouldn"t be alone right now," S0ren said. "I hate that you"re alone."

"I"m okay, I promise."

"When"s your flight home?" he asked.

"I don"t have one. I bought a one-way ticket."

S0ren went silent on the other end.

"Eleanor," he finally said, "you are coming back, aren"t you?"

"I"m coming back. I always come back to you. Eventually. And you know how much trouble I get into in Europe anyway. Better get out before I do something I regret."

"I don"t think you"ve ever regretted anything you"ve ever done in your entire life, Little One. And that is why I love you so much."

"Will you love me if I stay here a little while longer?"

"What"s keeping you in Germany?"

"Nothing," she said truthfully. "Nothing at all."

"Is something keeping you in France?"

Although his words were as neutral as his tone, she knew that he knew. He might not know she and Nico had spent the night together, but he knew what they were to each other. She could hide nothing in her heart from S0ren.

"It is beautiful there," she said.

"You"ve been through so much in the past few months. Take all the time you need. But know I will miss you every moment until you come home to me."

"I love you, sir."

"I love you, too, Little One. And you should know, your mother loved you, too. She told me that in the days before I became the enemy. She told me how much she loved you."

"I miss her, S0ren. I didn"t think I would miss her this much."

"You miss her so much because you lost her twenty years ago, and only now are you letting yourself grieve."

"She turned her back on me the night you sent me away."

"I came back for you."

"She didn"t," Nora said.

"That was her loss, and my eternal gain."

Nora didn"t speak. And into the silent void of her pain, S0ren prayed aloud over the phone.

""Therefore once for all this short command is given to you-love and do what you will. If you keep silent, keep silent by love, if you speak, speak by love, if you correct, correct by love, if you pardon, pardon by love-let love be rooted in you, and from the root nothing but good can grow.""

"Amen," Nora said. "That"s beautiful. Whose prayer is that?"

"Saint Augustine"s."

Eleanor smiled. "Monica"s sinner son."

"Monica"s sainted son," S0ren said, ever the pedant, ever the priest.

Nora told S0ren she loved him one more time before hanging up and walking back to the cottage.

She hadn"t slept well for two weeks. Now she surrendered to her exhaustion and slept through the night. When she woke up, she knew exactly what do with her mother"s Saint Monica medal.

In no hurry whatsoever, Nora cleaned up last night"s mess in the cottage. The cottage had treated her well, given her and Nico sanctuary-she would return the kindness. She packed and dressed and put her things in the car.

She drove all day, leaving Bavaria far behind her. Her mother had been born in Germany and Germany was part of Nora"s ancestry, her past. Now she looked to the future.

At dusk she finally pa.s.sed through Ma.r.s.eille. At nightfall she stood in front of a French country house that stood on dusty soil in the midst of rolling acres of grape vines.

She knocked on the door.

"Sanctuary?" she said to Nico when he opened the door.

He narrowed his eyes at her.

"If I let you in, I"ll put you to work."

"I"ll earn my keep."

"Not in the vineyards. I want stories."

"Stories I have. And it"s you I want."

He took a step back and let her in the door. He dragged her into his arms and brought her to his bed. They made love in a frenzy and when the frenzy pa.s.sed, Nora pulled the Saint Monica medal from her bag and clasped it around Nico"s neck. The silver shone against his skin like moonlight on water.

"There are three eternal truths about me you have to know, Nico," she said. "I love S0ren. I belong to S0ren. And I will go back to S0ren."

"Wine and women should always be allowed to breathe. You own me. I would never try to own you."

"I"ve never owned anyone before." She touched the medal where it hung next to his heart. "I"ve done everything else, but never that."

"I"m honored to be your first." Nico kissed her to make it official. If a promise couldn"t be sealed with a kiss, it wasn"t a promise worth making.

She stretched out on top of him, her head on his shoulder and his arm around her, not to keep her but simply to hold her.

"Where"s my story?" Nico asked.

"Which one do you want? I have so many stories ..."

"Tell me the one that you said would make me love Kingsley."

"That"s a fun story. It involves a lesbian bartender in a three-piece suit, your father in a corset and high heels and a televangelist with a dirty secret."

Nico"s chest rumbled with his laugh.

"Tell me," he said. "Tell me all your stories."

"This is the story they told me. And now I"m telling it to you."

She settled in closer to Nico, as close as she could get. She would return home to America and to S0ren eventually, but now this was her home-Nico"s bed, Nico"s body, Nico"s heart. S0ren owned her and Kingsley. Kingsley owned Juliette. And now that she owned Nico it was as if the final tumbler had turned and the one locked door in her life opened. Time to walk through it.

She took a breath and began her tale.

"Once there lived a King without a kingdom ..."

end.