I

“My father was not a good father.” I looked out at the group of people gathered here for the funeral, and I knew that was not what they were expecting. But I plunged on anyway. “All my life, he ignored me. He worked, he partied, he got rich, he lived. There was no room for me. Letting a young daughter tag along was not his style.” I could see my mother’s drawn face, the exhaustion in her eyes. “But that changed before he died.”

I went on to recount how, in the days after the surgery and before his death, something in him seemed to open up. He was no longer a stranger, an untouchable being from a mysterious realm called “high society.” My father, the wonderful, witty, beloved Tony Russell, was a mere human being after all. Capable of feeling pain. Of showing tenderness. And—at the very end of his glamorous, selfish life—of loving me.

When I could no longer hold the flood of tears back, I returned to my seat between my mother and my sister while the priest concluded the service. After it was all over, I found myself walking down the steps of the church, and the weather outside was lovely. The realization that the day of my father’s funeral was just another beautiful spring day on the Riviera chased me back into the brooding, private thoughts that had been mine for the past week. Every day I cursed myself for a thousand tiny things I could have done differently.

Why couldn’t I have stayed just a little while longer?

Why on earth didn’t I call him when I got back to Paris?

Why did I wait so long to get to know him?

And on the really bad days when I was tired of cursing myself, I cursed him.

Why couldn’t he have held on just a little longer?

***

II

“Caroline, vous venez? ” my sister Marie called up from the driveway, asking me if I was coming.

“Oui, be right down!” I threw on a light jacket and sprinted down the stairs. It had been two days since the funeral, and I would be taking the train back to Paris in the morning. I had a screenplay to finish up before they started shooting the miniseries. If I wanted to keep my job and be able to pay my rent, that is. Marie wanted to go to lunch with me before I left, and it would be the first time we’d be alone since before the funeral.

She berated me for slamming the car door, and just a couple minutes later we pulled up to the café. I was surprised and not entirely pleased by her choice of locale. But of course, she couldn’t have known.

“This was the last place we went together,” I said as we sat down at an outdoor table overlooking the marina. Seagulls swooped overheard.

Marie looked suddenly upset. “You mean Daddy?”

“Yes. I came here one afternoon and he walked down from the villa to join me. The doctor said it was good for him to take those little walks, even though he had to stop and rest frequently. Anyway, he met me here and we had a couple of drinks and—and sort of had an argument, I suppose.

“An argument?”

I remembered vividly. I could still feel his touch as he brushed his hand on my cheek and murmured, “You get cross very easily, don’t you?”

“It was mostly my fault,” I admitted to Marie. “Nothing important. Stupid, really. Everything was alright after that. We walked up there,” I nodded to the large, ornate steps leading up to a little park, “and he sang that silly old song and I had to remind him of all the words.”

“Cher moi, the one he and Mum would always play on the gramophone during those parties?”

“Yes—that’s the one.” I tapped my fingers lightly on the tabletop and hummed the first few bars.

“These foolish things remind me of you,”...