@cafe-de-spain
Now, don't get him wrong. Franny loved Paris. He'd lived there almost all his life, he'd loved there, and lost, and a part of him would always belong to Paris. But since meeting Matheiu's mother there, since moving to her native Canada with her when they found she was pregnant, since she'd walked out on a three year old who didn't understand why mama was gone now, he found he couldn't go back.
He'd tried Nice, they'd hopped from Switzerland to Austria to Scotland to Portugal, never finding somewhere to settle much longer than a year. But Matt was starting high school now, and Franny couldn't deny his son the chance for a proper education, proper friends now he'd gotten over a crippling childhood shyness.
So he did what he'd always wanted to do; bought an old flat over a run down little bakery that had been closed for months, painted walls soft yellows and dusty pinks to liven the place up, and enrolled Matt in a school with a specialised photography program.
And he was happy. Happy being covered from head to toe in flour and icing and cinnamon sugar, happy to hang the hand painted sign, 'Petit Age', above the shop door, happy to work long hours with his son joining him after school. And as he carried a tray of freshly baked vanilla slices out to slide into the pastry cabinet, cheeks smudged with flour, hair pulled into a messy bun, he couldn't help but wonder why they hadn't come to Spain earlier. This was perfect.
