Archangel's Heart Read Online Free PDF

helped me in the first days after my mother died had saved it, kept it in a secret place, only giving it to me when I was eighteen and no longer a foster child.”
    A sadness to her face that made Elena reach out to her. Her mother was a butterfly, colorful and bright and happy. She smelled like flowers. She didn’t get sad, didn’t cry.
    Smiling, her mother leaned in to kiss Elena’s cheek, the familiar scent of gardenias swirling around her. “Ah,
chérie
, you and your sisters make my life a joy.”
    The tight thing inside Elena’s chest melted away. “Why did the nun keep your photo?”
    â€œShe knew that such treasures get lost when a child is passed from hand to hand.” Marguerite paused. “Sister Constance, she had kind eyes—I think she would’ve raised me as her own if only she was able. But she watched over me from a distance, and found me the day I moved into my own tiny apartment, gave me that photo and another one that she’d taken the day I saw my mother for the last time.”
    A smile. “I was wearing such a pretty dress and coat, and clean, shining shoes. Sister Constance told me I had a bag of snacks and toys with me.” Laughing, she added, “I was maybe a little spoiled, I think, but sweet girls should be spoiled,
non?
”
    â€œThat was the day your mama died?” Elena didn’t like thinking about that, didn’t like to imagine that maybe, one day, her mother would die, too.
    â€œ
Oui
,” Marguerite said, her attention on the pattern for Belle’s skirt. “She asked Sister Constance to watch me while she went out of town for a work interview, but her bus, it crashed off a jagged ravine. Sister Constance did not knowanything about us except that we lived in Paris, were alone in the world but for one another, and came often to her church.”
    Elena’s mother looked up when Elena didn’t respond.
    Touching her hand to Elena’s hair, she shook her head. “My strong baby, with such a heart. Do not be sad—it was so long ago, in another life.” Marguerite gave Elena a piece of the sparkly fabric to touch. “My mother’s eyes were the same color as Ariel’s and her skin was darker than yours—like she had soaked in more of the sun, but other than that, you are a pretty little copy of her.”
    â€œThat’s why my name is Elena.” It wasn’t her real name, but it was the name she liked best other than Ellie. Elieanora was so long and complicated.
    â€œYes, just like my
maman
. Elena was her home name, too.” Lines forming between her eyebrows, Marguerite said, “I know it was not her true name, but I cannot remember people calling her anything but Elena.” A smile, a shake of her shoulders. “No
bébé
knows her mama’s true name.”
    â€œBeth is too small but I know. It’s Marguerite Deveraux,” Elena said proudly from where she sat atop the bench attached to the old-fashioned sewing machine her mother preferred over the new one Elena’s father wanted to buy her; she kicked her legs as she watched her mother while Beth played with her toys on the blanket Marguerite had spread out on the floor.
    Belle and Ariel were at school but Elena had been allowed to stay home because she had a cough. Actually, she could’ve gone to school, but Marguerite had smiled and cuddled her and said, “So, my
chérie
wants her
maman
today. We will be naughty and let you play hooky,
oui?
”
    Elena loved her mother’s accent, loved the lyrical beauty of it, loved how gentle Marguerite always sounded. She tried to speak that way sometimes, but her accent was plain old American, her voice that of a child, not Marguerite’s husky gentleness. Now her mother laughed. “You are smart, my baby.”
    Smiles filled her insides. “Can I see the photo?” Elena asked, excited to know something about her