Chapter 55 Jean-Paul
Chapter 55
Jean-Paul
He’s seated in the waiting area, watching women arguing on a TV screen when Renée finds him.
“ Housewives , Jean-Paul?”
He throws his hands up. “I don’t understand, mon amour .”
She laughs. “Me neither. How is she?”
“Not so good.”
“And Rosalie?”
“She’s okay. I think she’s conflicted.”
She reaches over and takes his hand into hers. “How are you holding up?”
He leans back in the chair, resting his head against the wall. “This hasn’t been the extraordinary week I had imagined.”
She recaps her conversation with Henry, and he thinks of the lingering effect of decisions, how every choice has an impact, guides you on an individual course. Henry wasn’t wrong. We’re stars, circling the sky, trying to find our way. We’re light and dark, and sometimes our shine hurts. Some of us fly high, others fall to Earth.
“What’s that?” he asks, pointing at a bright green notebook sticking out of her denim messenger bag. It’s hard to miss.
“Rosalie left it in the kitchen. I thought she might want it.”
“She’s an interesting young girl,” he says.
“She is, isn’t she?”
“I see a difference in her since she arrived.”
“You’ve taken a liking to her,” she says. “I think it’s mutual. I’m not sure she has many adult figures in her life.”
The conversation touches on their deepest pain, nears the fringes.
“See this?” She points to the faded photo of the inn sticking out from the notebook. “She did her research. Her mother said she’s always been a curious girl. It’s sweet.”
She stuffs the notebook back in her bag, and he’s not sure if he’s supposed to repeat what Rosalie revealed to him, but Renée’s his wife. “She told me on the way over here that she went looking for her father.”
“Are you serious?”
“She went on one of those ancestry sites and found a match.”
“The one-night stand?”
He laughs, though there’s nothing funny about it.
“She’s certain she found him. A 50.2 percent DNA match, to be exact.”
“Does Cassidy know?”
He shakes his head.
“Shit.” And then: “What if she doesn’t wake up, Jean-Paul? The girl has no other family.”
“According to some report, she does.”
“Has she reached out to him? Does he know? Does he have a family?”
“I know nothing other than she found him. I think she may have made contact. Emailed him through the site. I’m not sure how these things work.”
“Goodness. This is something.”
“She said she needed to find him ... to understand where she came from. I’m not sure what else she wanted, but Cassidy’s condition changes things.”
“That poor girl.”
He leans back in the chair and watches the women on TV shouting at each other across a table. He wonders if Renée’s thinking the same things he is. About the miscarriages. How badly they had wanted a child, until the doctors told her she couldn’t have one, and the disappointment that spread wide. Soon after, they bought the inn, and the guests became their family.
“We should help her,” she says, interrupting his thoughts.
“I’m not sure what we can do, mon amour .”
“We help her find him. That’s what we do.”
“We barely know the girl.”
“She trusts you. Why else would she confide in you?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t think we should get involved.”
She’s thinking. “Maybe. I just thought it would be nice to do something for her. She’s all alone.”
He feels something swell inside him. They’d been helpless once, but now they had a chance to help. “We know nothing about this person,” he says. “He could be a monster.”
“Or he could be kind—”
“That doesn’t mean he wants the responsibility of a teenage girl. He may already have a family. I don’t know ... I think we stay out of it.”
“You’re probably right. But she’s lost so much. And she stands to lose more.”
His arm comes up around her. “She’s gotten to you too.”
She sinks into him.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Cassidy can very well pull through,” he says.
She untangles herself from his embrace. “I’m going to find a nurse and see if they can give us some updates.” Which gives him time to stretch his legs. The hospital buzzes with activity, and as he passes the nurses’ station and patients’ rooms, he hears Rosalie’s voice through the open door.
“Thanks for taking care of her, and for the charger. She’ll want her phone when she wakes up.” The nurse exits the room, nodding in his direction, while Rosalie keeps talking. “I don’t know why you can’t have an iPhone like most normal people. Anyway, so I really hadn’t imagined telling you like this. It’s never been the right time, but you need to know.”
There’s a short pause before Rosalie continues.
“I don’t even know if you can hear me, but maybe you can. I’m hoping some of this makes it through to you because ... because ... I’m going to tell him. I hope that’s okay. Especially now ... with you here ... there’s no one else. I hope you’re not mad, but how could you be? It’ll make things easier for us, right?”
Two doctors stroll by, and he strains to hear more.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is that you have some explaining to do, because I’m going to tell him. I’m going to tell Jean-Paul he’s my father.”