“G...Gérard...”
“What about Gérard? What’s he done this time?”
“He’s dead.”
There was a brief, stunned silence, then Mathilde said, “What are you talking about? Where are you?”
Nora whimpered. The only sound she could utter was one of sorrow.
“Nora, talk to me. Where are you?”
“At home.”
“Don’t move, I’m on my way.”
Mathilde set off almost immediately, after telling Philippe she had to go out. “Yes, now. Straightaway. It’s an emergency. Nora. No, I don’t know what it is, and no, I don’t have time to put the little one to bed.”
For several interminable minutes, Nora remained motionless on the stairs, staring into space, eyes averted from the body. Its image was carved into her memory. There was no risk of her forgetting it.
Gérard. Dead. The father of her children. Her husband.
The man with whom, a long time ago, she had fallen in love. This was how it ended—with her sitting on the stairs, him lying at her feet bathed in his own blood, after a deadly fall. In a house she had rented in order to get away from him. After too many fights, shouting matches, recriminations, tears. And happy times, too, back when they had still loved each other, when the pleasure of seeing each other had outweighed the discontents of married life.
After two children.
The sound of a phone ringing tore Nora away from the waltz of fractured images spinning around in her head. Her heart quaked beneath an icy blade of terror; she felt her blood freezing in her veins, coursing through her limbs and turning them to stone. What was that sound? It wasn’t her phone. It was coming from somewhere nearby, right by her. Gérard. It was his phone. Someone was trying to reach him. Petrified, Nora didn’t dare move. She waited, her heart in her mouth, for the sound to stop. After five rings, it did.
The house was once more filled with silence. And Nora with dread.
What would she say to the children? How could she look them in the eye? Support them in their grief? How could she ever again claim any authority over them? How would they survive this?
Her thoughts led her to the edge of a horror-filled void. She still wasn’t ready to face up to what had happened. She had to stop thinking and find a way to prevent the terrible images from unspooling in her mind’s eye: Nassim’s face, then Inès’s, their expressions of suffering and incomprehension. What a ghastly tragedy, befalling them so young. She pictured patrol cars in front of the house, an ambulance, Gérard’s body being carried out on a stretcher. She saw herself emerging from the house in handcuffs.
And after that?
Who would take care of the children?
The doorbell rang, ripping through the funereal silence that filled the house. Nora let out a cry of fright, before realizing it must be Mathilde. She leaped to her feet and rushed to the door.
When she opened it, her heart nearly stopped. There stood Milo, an awkward smile on his face.
Chapter 37
After Gérard left, Milo went thoughtfully upstairs to his room, still holding the attorney’s business card.
Downstairs, Tiphaine and Sylvain avoided each other’s gaze, she out of disgust, he out of shame. Not so much for having cheated on her, but for the way she’d learned of his infidelity, which he now realized had been more of a fantasy than anything else: apart from some kisses and one torrid afternoon, their love affair had barely had time to exist.
Perhaps that was what he most regretted at that moment. So much damage for so little satisfaction.
Without a word, Tiphaine went into the kitchen to prepare dinner. Sylvain, who knew her so well, understood that now was not the time to try to explain himself. It would be better to let her digest the news. He walked through the living room into the dining room and out onto the deck, where he stood ruminating for half an hour. Then, with a heavy heart, he went back inside to face his wife, ready for a mauling. He might as well get it over with. He walked into the kitchen and leaned against the wall.
“Can we talk?”
She didn’t respond immediately. She was concentrating on what she was doing as if her life depended on it. Which, in a way, it probably did. Sylvain sighed; he would have preferred her to scream, insult him, hit him, anything rather than this unbearable stony contempt.
He was just about to leave the room when she turned, her eyes lit up with a fierce gleam. “Don’t think you can get away with it so easily.”
“Of course not,” he said, almost relieved. “I’d like to talk about it.”
