Following in Her Footsteps

It was usually in late spring or in the summer when I visited my sister in France. I had studied French and could speak a little, but she had married into a French family and was deeply immersed in the language and the people and the atmosphere of that country. I saw her in translation, transformed and shimmering in an enchantment I yearned to share.

my sister said. I watched her push her lips forward into a French mouth to say the word for peonies at the flower market near her Paris apartment. She bought a big white bouquet, not quite in full bloom, at the end of our shopping expedition. She had already purchased eggs and salad greens and cheese and sausage and a small amount of meat for dinner, a. Steak? I eyed what looked like a dainty version of the sirloins and T-bones we ate at home. My sister explained that beef was expensive in Paris, and that French people ate much less meat than Americans did because the French had a healthier diet.