"Hello Mother," I greeted her. "How has your morning been?"
"Typical," she said. "Your work is going well?"
"I think so," I said. "I have been in contact with our business partner in Sparti, he says that he’s seen an uptick in tourism now that the political situation is settling down. What about you?"
"Monsieur de Garmeaux is as grumpy as always," Syeira said with a chuckle. "He just can’t fathom why the people in this region are different from those in Normandy. I try to explain to him that it’s because of the weather, but he doesn’t listen."
Albert de Garmeaux was one of the constant sources of humor and irritation for our family. He'd been old when I was a child, so I had no idea how ancient he was now, but to call him a grumpy old man was an understatement. In the summer he was too hot, in the winter the mistral winds made his joints ache. And of course, he hated the difference in culture. I wasn't ever quite certain what he was complaining about unless it was basic differences that were not so much regionally based as they were because de Garmeaux came from a seaside industrial town, while Valence was an interior agricultural community. "I still think he just needs to have his children come visit more often. When was the last time his son came by, two, three years ago?"
"No, he visited while you were in America," Syeira said. "He had his wife and a pretty little baby with him. I said hello when I was at the market. They stayed with de Garmeaux for nearly a week. I think it was the happiest I've ever seen the old man."
"Good for them," I said. “Sorry for changing the subject, but how are you getting along with Jordan?”
"She’s not lazy," Syeira said after a moment's consideration. "She seems to be spending quite a bit of time trying to master some of the little things in the barn that your brother has shown her. She’s had a lot of patience with me and my English. Just the other day we had a decent conversation with her speaking mostly French."
I raised my eyebrow. She hadn't answered my question and she knew it. "Mother?"
She chuckled and came over, sitting in the small chair next to the table I was using for my work. "Son, in so many ways in life, you have had me as someone to both get advice from and to help you with decisions. Not that I’ve always agreed or seen eye to eye with what you have decided."
“When your father said that he would train you in the same arts that made him his fortune, I was dead set against it. We may be Romani, and yes there are those that are more than willing to relieve a fool of his money, but I didn’t agree. You were just a child then, perhaps you didn’t understand, but he and I fought bitterly about it. But he was set on it, and in the end, I relented. After all, it was just training, games for a boy to learn, a skill like you have with the violin or your brother does with his cooking. Later, when you said you were going to follow in his footsteps, I, at first, disagreed, but held my tongue."
"Why?" I asked. My mother was many things, but she was not a woman known for holding her tongue if she disagreed with something. It had even caused Grandfather headaches.
"Because sometimes, a man, a real man at least, has to go out and do what’s right for him," she said. "If you love Jordan, then my opinion, or anyone's opinion, shouldn’t matter. The only thing that should matter is what your heart says, and what her heart says."
She patted me on the shoulder and kissed my forehead like she used to do when I was much younger. She went to the door, pausing before she left. "But if you must know, I like her."
We exchanged an embrace, and I left the house and went out to the barn, where I found Francois and Jordan training. Francois had opened the large doors on each side to give Jordan a bit more light to use, something I thought was a good idea. Father's ideas may have had a purpose for training the next generation of great thieves, but for training a young woman who wanted to just exercise while spending time with the men she loved, it was a bit much.
When I came in, she was trying her best to maneuver the monkey bars that stretched in an S-shape along one side of the area, her hair pulled back and braided into a thick red tinged brown cable that stretched halfway down her back.
"Come on, you're getting close," Francois said, positioned close behind her. His hands were ready to give her a support platform for her feet if she needed it but wasn't touching her. I thought back to when he and I had done the same thing Jordan was doing now. Of course, we were much smaller. "Five more rungs."
Jordan gritted her teeth and made it without having to put her feet into Francois's hands, dropping down to the dirt in a puff of dust on her dismount. "I swear those rungs get further apart the longer you go down the ladder," she huffed as she rolled out her arms. "Don't try and tell me they aren't."