“Yes?”
“Which one is Nassim’s bedroom?”
“I’m sorry?”
Tiphaine bit her lip. It was a strange question and she immediately regretted asking.
“I’m sorry to ask but the thing is our houses are adjoining and as we share a wall—”
“Oh!” Nora nodded in the direction of the window directly above the deck.
“That one.”
Tiphaine shut her eyes. It was the thing she’d been dreading since the moment she’d discovered Nassim’s existence: he was moving into Maxime’s old bedroom. Another little boy was going to play, sleep, laugh, cry, live in that room.
An icy grip tightened inside her chest, and for a few seconds, she found it hard to breathe. When she opened her eyes again, Nora had retraced her steps to the hedge and was looking at her curiously. She’d obviously mistaken the significance of the question as referring to the shared wall that separated the two houses.
“Is there a problem with the soundproofing?” she asked, not trying to hide her discomfiture.
“No!” exclaimed Tiphaine, surprised by Nora’s interpretation. “That’s not what I meant at all.”
What an idiot! She hadn’t been able to stop herself from asking one too many questions. Now she was going to have to extricate herself somehow from this awkward situation. If she nodded along with Nora and agreed that she was already thinking ahead to her son potentially disturbing them with his noise, the question bordered on rudeness. On the other hand, she couldn’t see herself replying lightheartedly, “I just asked because eight years ago my husband and I were living in your house, and that room was our little boy’s. He died falling from that very window. That’s right, your son’s bedroom. Welcome to your new home!”
“Don’t worry,” Nora said. “Nassim is very well behaved, and I’ll make sure he doesn’t disturb you.”
“I’m so sorry, you misunderstood. I...”
“I” what? What reason could she possibly give for her question that wouldn’t be either rude or awkward? She fumbled for the right words, but after a few seconds she sighed as though she were throwing in the towel.
“I’m sorry. My question was silly and completely uncalled for. Forget I said anything,” she said, with her warmest smile.
“It’s fine, I absolutely understand your concern.”
“You don’t understand at all! I love children. It never even crossed my mind that Nassim might disturb us.”
“Don’t worry, I get it.”
“It’s my fault.”
“No, no, I understand completely.”
Simultaneously, the two women cut short their litany of excuses and understanding. They both burst out laughing, one warmly, the other dolefully.
That’s how Tiphaine and Nora first met, over a misunderstanding, on either side of a hedge.
Chapter 5
Back in her own house, Tiphaine rushed to the bathroom, a helpless hostage to waves of nausea. She stuck two fingers down her throat but couldn’t get rid of the feeling of disgust. She coughed and retched and expectorated, trying to vomit up her repulsion. It didn’t work. A little boy had moved in next door, into the house where Maxime had lived and died, trapped inside the walls of a life extinguished forever. This child, filled with life, had just annexed her son’s bedroom, his memory...his home.
“Tiphaine?”
Alerted by the sounds coming from the bathroom, Sylvain grew worried.
“Tiphaine! Are you okay?”
Instead of replying, Tiphaine came out, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. White as a sheet, she looked at Sylvain with an expression of sadness and despair.
“What the hell is going on?” he said in a voice filled with both concern and exasperation.
