She was at the top of the stairs, out of breath from the climb and from fear. As Gérard got to the top of the stairs and put out an arm to her, Nora turned to him and saw she had lost. With an instinctive, desperate, defensive gesture, she pushed her husband with all her strength.
Gérard was standing at the top of the stairs. Nora’s push destabilized him, he felt himself tipping backward, reacted too late, futilely waved his arms up and down...and lost his balance. He fell back, hard, and broke his neck. Shattered his spleen. Smashed several ribs, one of which perforated a lung. Rolling to one side, he hit his head against the banister, then cracked his skull on the tiled floor of the entryway.
From the top of the stairs Nora, trembling from head to foot, stared down at Gérard’s lifeless body.
Chapter 36
Time stopped. And so did Nora’s heart.
The sound of someone’s panting breath. Hers. She was hyperventilating. A ghastly silence. An impossible reality, like a vacuum, sucking her in, a fact she refused to process.
She had gone from being the victim to being the executioner.
And soon she would go from being free to being a prisoner—of guilt, grief, human justice.
“G...Gérard?”
More silence. Paralysis. Cold. Death.
Seconds ticked by, drawn out by fear, an almost unendurable horror that can only be understood with time, a great deal of time, maybe an entire life, when one knows that the life one is about to leave behind will echo forever across the arid plains of guilt.
Nora stared wide-eyed at Gérard’s body. Just a few moments before, she had been terrified of his presence and his physicality; now she would have given anything for him to move, get to his feet. For him to be alive.
She forced herself to remain motionless; it was the only way to stop time. If she didn’t move, there was still a tiny chance it hadn’t happened. Maybe she could fix it somehow. Go back. Rewind. By wanting it badly enough, praying, believing.
“Gérard...”
Nora realized she wasn’t even asking the question anymore. It was as if she already knew. As if she had capitulated to this reality that had descended upon her with such sudden, unimaginable, excruciating brutality. She felt her reason close to giving in to madness—the widest path, the least precipitous, the brightest.
But on the path of reason, horror-filled, dark and rocky, she saw two figures moving, two familiar, beloved shadows for whom she would do anything. Their voices echoed in the frigid silence, and the word they uttered pierced her heart with its cold, metallic teeth.
“Maman!”
Almost reluctantly, Nora turned away from the bright, tempting light of madness toward the harsh gloom of consciousness. Only then did she stagger down the stairs, clinging to the banister so as not to fall.
When she reached Gérard’s unmoving body, she knelt. He had fallen onto his front so all she could see was his back, and the bald patch on his head. Covered in blood.
For a few moments, she didn’t dare touch him, she didn’t know how. By the arms? His left arm was bent at an unnatural angle. By the side he was bleeding from? By his head, which seemed to be cracked in several places?
She began to cry, little heaving sobs, feeling the panic return, the path of madness calling her again, flashing its psychedelic lights. Then she screamed. A shriek that came from deep within her, as if she were exorcizing the fear that had filled her moments—or centuries—ago. When at last she had shrieked herself out, when her lungs were empty, she began to breathe again, as if clinging to a tiny ledge on the edge of a precipice, trying to regain a foothold in reality.
She stood up and tried to gather her wits. The children! Where were the children? What time was it? 7:15! They would be at their father’s house, of course.
She stared down at Gérard’s lifeless body.
The children, on their own. This was an emergency. Trembling, she stumbled into the kitchen to find her phone. She grabbed it and began trying to tap out Inès’s number, which she knew by heart, had called so many times, as confused, anarchic words raced through her mind.
What on earth was she going to say to her daughter?
She canceled the call with a moan. She needed help. She was too distraught to make the slightest decision. She looked for Mathilde’s number in her contacts. Only she would be able to help her.
At the sound of her friend’s voice, Nora burst into tears.
“Nora?” exclaimed Mathilde when she heard the jagged sobs. “Is that you?”
Unable to utter a word, Nora simply wept.
“Nora, what’s the matter? Speak to me!”
