Soupe de Lentilles

Memory. Grief. A bowl of soup that stayed warm through it all.

It was 4:17 p.m. when the call came in—an off-hour for most Monaco requests. Too late for a business lunch, too early for an evening gala. I was parked at the top of Boulevard des Moulins, engine idling, watching the sunlight turn the city gold through a slight layer of haze.

The late afternoon crowd was beginning its usual drift. Tourists with overpriced gelato. Locals pacing with cigarettes. Somewhere in the distance, the low hum of a yacht’s engine echoed off the harbor walls. A breeze carried the scent of warm pavement, jasmine, and salt.

And then she appeared.

She didn’t wait for me to step out. Just opened the door herself and slid into the back seat like she belonged there—like she’d done it a thousand times before and only wanted to be seen for the thousand-and-first.

Dark coat. Hair pinned with surgical precision. Lipstick flawless—except for one corner, smudged, like she’d changed her mind halfway through applying it.

She adjusted the hem of her coat, crossed one leg over the other, and said, calmly:

“Can you drive me to the last place I felt like myself?”

She didn’t say it dramatically. She said it like someone asking for directions in a foreign country, hoping the stranger she picked might just understand the language.