“How’s your mother?”
“How do you know she came if you stayed out here?”
“I saw her go in,” Raymond stammered.
“Okay ... Let’s head home. I’m tired.”
Thomas walked to the Metro station.
“We’re not taking a taxi?” Raymond asked.
“Do you think I’m made of money?”
“I’d happily foot the bill, but unfortunately my account has been closed,” his father joked. “I hate the Metro, but since we’ve no choice ...”
Despite the late hour, their subway car was packed. Thomas changed lines at the Villiers station and managed to find a seat before the train filled up at Saint-Lazare. His father stood next to him without any need to hold on.
“Get up,” whispered Raymond, glancing toward an older woman swaying on her frail legs.
Thomas jumped out of his seat and offered it to her. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I wasn’t paying attention.”
The woman smiled at him and sat down, visibly relieved.
“Thanks for saying something,” Thomas whispered to his father. “I honestly hadn’t noticed her.”
“Who cares about an old lady with blocked arteries—she’s already got one foot in the grave, and I would know. But did you see the stunning young woman sitting across from you? Thanks to me, she noticed you, or at least your chivalrous gesture. With a smile like yours and a single word, you could have her wrapped around your finger.”
Thomas didn’t respond, wanting to avoid looking like a nut job in a crowded subway train. His father looked disappointed when the young woman got off at the Opéra station, brushing against Thomas as she reached the doors.
“Youreallyneed my help. And at Opéra, no less—she may have been a ballerina!”
“And if she’d gotten off at Saint-Lazare, would you have assumed she was a train station manager?” asked Thomas.
“Excuse me?” said the older woman.
“Nothing, I’m just talking to myself,” he apologized.
“Don’t worry, I do that all the time.”
Raymond shook his head in exasperation.
When he got home, Thomas dropped his things on the floor and collapsed onto the couch with a long sigh.
“You could at least pretend. Are you really not happy to see me again?” Raymond asked.
“Of course I am.”
“But to admit that is to also admit that I’m really here.”
“The weeks and months after you died were hard. I was just starting to get used to not having you around.”
“I understand that.”
“No, you don’t. When I lost you, I fell into a dark depression. Could you hear me all those times when I poured my heart out to that photo of you?”
Raymond smiled tenderly at Thomas but didn’t answer.
“Where were you during all that time?”
