“He’s an architect. Designing projects, putting in planning applications and tenders, making maquettes. He’s very busy.” She said it in a tone that managed to be simultaneously proud and sardonic, but Nora thought she detected a hint of barely concealed resentment. She—long neglected by a husband whose professional activities left him no time for a mistress—couldn’t help feeling sorry for Tiphaine. No one can fight a partner’s passion for their vocation. She didn’t think Gérard had ever cheated on her, but the upshot was much the same.
Nora was tempted to try to broach the subject with a conspiratorial remark or a knowing quip. But she refrained; she’d already had quite enough experience with her own marital problems to get involved with someone else’s.
Tiphaine used a match to finish tamping down the mixture of tobacco and cannabis and lit the joint. She took a deep puff and then passed it to Mathilde, who grabbed it enthusiastically.
“To your new job, babe,” she said to Nora as she inhaled the fragrant smoke.
“You’ve found a job?” asked Tiphaine.
“I’m starting as a kindergarten assistant next week at Colibris.”
“Oh! That’s where my son went. He liked it there, except for the beds at naptime. They were just metal posts with heavy canvas slung between them. He hated those,” Tiphaine chuckled.
“Maybe I should ask him to tell me about everything that needs to be improved. I need to make myself indispensable.”
Tiphaine froze, then threw Nora a horrified glance. As a newcomer to the neighborhood, Nora was unaware of the tragedy that had shattered their lives eight years earlier. This was the first time in a long while that Tiphaine was just a woman chatting away like any other, no longer a mother indelibly branded with the mark of calamity. For that was what she had become: when she walked down the street conversation died away, eyes were lowered, smiles tightened. She was the person whose life had fallen to pieces and could never be fixed. She was the person people snuck sidelong glances at and pitied behind her back. Tiphaine had grown accustomed to it, and in truth, she didn’t care. After the horror she’d been through she had no time for petty grievances. But what broke her heart was that people didn’t think of her as the entirely innocent victim of a fate as cruel as it was unjust. She was somehow responsible for her misfortune. Guilty of negligence. Involuntarily accountable.
It was a life sentence.
Disoriented, Tiphaine stared at Nora for a moment, then seemed to waken from a daze, as if she were shaking off a malevolent curse.
“Maybe,” she said, sounding quite jaunty. “I am sure he’d have plenty of ideas for you.”
And then suddenly, as if her defensive levee, under strain for so long, was cracking, because it was so lovely to be a mother like any other, to be allowed to enjoy the normality of a perfectly ordinary moment—and probably also because she was stoned—Tiphaine began to talk about her son.
Her boy.
Her little boy whom the awkward teen years were transforming into a man. A beanpole now, no more than a vague memory of the chubby baby, the cuddly toddler, the sunny child he’d once been.
Chapter 8
When Gérard brought Inès and Nassim home the following Sunday, he seemed in better spirits than usual. He actually bothered to get out of the car and show up with the children on the doorstep, which demonstrated, if not a conciliatory intent, at least a willingness to communicate.
Nora was taken aback at first, but she quickly recovered and gave him a welcoming smile. She hugged her children to her, showered them with kisses, her face radiating joy at seeing them again. Then she turned to Gérard and suggested he come in for a few minutes. He hesitated briefly, before declining the invitation with long-suffering courtesy.
“Come on, don’t make me beg,” insisted Nora. “If you’ve gotten out of the car, it wasn’t to stand here on the doorstep.” Gérard gave a half smile, then eventually nodded. Nora took a step back to let him into the house.
Once inside, they had to contend with the awkwardness of being in each other’s presence. It was the first time they had seen each other since Nora’s move. Until now she had only glimpsed him through the windows of his car, and he had never given her so much as a nod or a smile.
“Would you like coffee?”
“A quick one.”
“Are you in a hurry?”
“I don’t want to disturb you.”
“You’re not disturbing me.”
She led him to the kitchen, invited him to sit down, and began preparing the coffee.
“It’s rather nice here,” Gérard remarked, looking around.
“Thank you.”
Silence. The kind that’s broken only by some trite observation uttered in a deceptively upbeat tone of voice.
“What’s the landlord like?” Gérard asked.
