Read The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender for Free Online Page B

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And on your left, what is this you ask? This grand stretch of carpeted interior space? Why it’s the second-floor hallway!
He introduced Viviane to the kitchen’s cast-iron sink, the built-in cabinets with lead-glass doors that stretched along the dining-room wall and above the stove. He watched Viviane’s face to see if she loved the creak of the wood floors as he did. They took her into their bedroom, where he pointed out the tiny wicker bassinet where she would sleep and the rocking chair in which Emilienne would rock her every night until the floor under it was marked with wear. He showed her the garden, where a solid river rock marked a small burial site, and the parlor, where a harpsichord sat unused yet remarkably in tune. He showed her everything but the third floor, since no one went up there anyway.
    There were times when Emilienne thought it possible to love the crippled baker with his sure hands and unsteady gait. She would feel her heart unclench and stretch its tightly coiled legs, preparing to leap into the path of yet another love. She’d think,
This time could be different. This time it could last.
Maybe it would be a longer, deeper love: a real and solid entity that lived in the house, used the bathroom, ate their food, mussed up the linens in sleep. A love that pulled her close when she cried, that slept with its chest pressed against her back. But then Emilienne would think of Levi Blythe or Satin Lush, or steal a glance at the ghostly shapes of her siblings in the far-off corner of the room, and she’d bury her heart under handfuls of dirt once again.
    Connor, for his part, did the best he could, considering. Considering he had no past experience to help him make sense of the woman he married. Connor Lavender had been a bachelor in every sense of the word until the day he came across Emilienne Roux. The only naked woman he’d ever seen before his wife had been a picture on a tattered set of trading cards he’d once found tucked behind the counter of his father’s bakery. The picture was of a full-figured brunette — her back arched in a way that was surely uncomfortable. It was the woman’s breasts that Connor remembered most, the areolas the size of small dinner plates, the nipples high and pointed. To his adolescent mind, it looked as if she had small teacups and saucers balanced atop each breast.
    Connor was thinking of just this woman as he closed up the bakery for the night. He wiped down the counters, straightened the wrought-iron tables and chairs, and checked the yeast he’d left to rise for the morning. Just like every other evening. The only difference on this particular evening — on December 22, 1925 — was that while he was locking the bakery door, a sharp twinge shot down his left arm.
    It was felt so briefly, Connor hardly took note. In fact, the time Connor spent considering the pain in his arm added up to approximately three seconds — just enough time to clench and unclench the fingers before his mind moved on to more important matters. His infant daughter, for example — Had she eaten yet? Had Emilienne already put her to bed? — ​and his perpetually unhappy wife. So Connor forgot about his arm (and all its connotations) and rushed to return home, where he bathed the baby and struggled through a stagnant conversation with his wife before going to bed. He slept soundly that night, dreamed a baker’s dreams of flour and egg whites, until the next morning, when his heart stopped beating. And then, in shocked disappointment, and stunned horror, I’m sure, Connor Lavender realized he was dead.
    The morning of December 23, Emilienne woke from the kind of hard, heavy sleep known only to soldiers, drunks, and mothers of newly born children. Thinking at first that she’d been awakened by her child’s cry, her fingers immediately moved to untie the loose knots along the front of her nightgown, and she swung her legs over the side of the bed. But when Emilienne’s