Judy Greer

She knows only that she woke one night and looked at him, at his face, lovely as his mother's, but grave even in sleep, and thought, I am finished.

I am empty.

I have nothing left for you.

She reaches the quay and draws her coat more tightly around her.

At this time of day, she cannot tell which looks deeper, the Seine or the sky.

Monica's own mother was not beautiful.

The most Monica can say, honestly, about her looking through old photo albums and clumsily framed snapshots is that at one time she was pretty enough.

She lives alone in a ranch house with a finished basement that she paid for outright with her settlement from the divorce.

Monica sees her once a year or every other.

She has been in Elizabeth's presence only a handful of times, and each time Monica is tense, alert, watching for the signs that her mother has had one beer too many.

The incessant brushing of imaginary crumbs from her lap, the damp sounding exhale of breath, somewhere between a sob and a sigh.

On these occasions, Elizabeth has smiled and sipped at her wine and smoked many more cigarettes than is usual, while Monica's mother has eaten peanuts from a glazed ceramic bowl, a wedding gift from one of Elizabeth's friends.

"'These are really good peanuts,' Monica's mother has said.

"'Aren't peanuts just so good with cold beer?'

She pauses at the window of a narrow shop along the quay.

Crowded in the doorway are spinning wire racks of postcards and flimsy chiffon scarves, magnets on easels and tote bags stamped on their sides with disproportionately squat images of the Eiffel Tower.

All of these items are helpfully priced in both euros and dollars.

She can hear nothing but American accents coming from the shop and is moving away from the door, embarrassed, when she sees that some of the magnets are in the shape of pretty little baguettes, webbed sauces on and surprisingly realistic cheeses, and she smiles in spite of herself.

She loves her mother, and her mother would love one of these magnets, probably more than she would love to actually be here eating food that Monica is certain she will never have the opportunity to eat.

She waits until the group of Americans has left before slipping inside the shop.