Chapter 5 #2
Brigitte, at fifty-eight, was two years older than he was.
They had married when he was twenty-six and she was twenty-eight, at the beginning of her medical career.
They dated briefly after meeting at a Christmas party, had a blazing hot affair that was entirely sexual, with little else between them, and he had done the honorable thing and married her when she got pregnant and refused to get an abortion.
It had never been a love match, but his rocketlike rise to stardom in his field had compensated for it.
She had loved the money he made and the lifestyle it gave them.
They had respect and prestige. Xavier’s parents were impoverished aristocrats, land rich and cash poor.
His father was the president of a small bank, and Xavier’s success in business was legendary.
Xavier and Brigitte never got along but the money he made gave Brigitte a life she’d never had before and made it worth it to her to stay with him.
And then he risked and lost it all. She hated him for it.
Their marriage had been a thirty-year battle, and a final descent into hell when he gave up his job and lost his money on the failed start-up.
More than three years later, there was nothing left but the bitter taste of ash for both of them.
He stayed at the chateau as much as possible, while she worked in Paris, avoiding him.
He was less and less visible in a job market that had all but forgotten him, and he had no way out of the pit he had dug for himself.
Divorce was impossible because she would get half of the chateau and he would be forced to sell it, leaving nothing to give his daughter one day, and being the first member of his family in three centuries to lose the family chateau and fail to defend their honor.
So they were stuck in a dance of mutual hatred and despair, bitterness and anger, and Brigitte never missed an opportunity to remind him of what a failure he was.
He had been at low ebb for three years, and saw no way out, less and less every day.
Men had lost their lives willingly in similar situations.
He had dreams of another start-up, but no money to pursue them.
The ugly dumping ground of an apartment was a symbol of the state of their marriage and relationship.
Their life in boxes, any semblance of respect gone.
He had put a coat of paint on the dirty walls when they moved in, which was all they had ever done for their marriage, whitewashed it as an inadequate solution to solve a situation that was irreparable.
They had barely known each other when they married after dating for three months.
Their daughter Victoire was the only bright spot in a marriage that should never have happened.
She was a lovely young woman who had grown up like a flower in the scorched earth and debris of her parents’ marriage and loved her job as a nurse practitioner in Africa.
During the pandemic, he hadn’t seen her for two years, and since then she had found a job and life that fulfilled her and where she felt useful, in Zimbabwe.
She hadn’t seen her parents in a year. Xavier adored her, and her mother did as well.
She was where they poured the only love they had in them.
They were good parents and terrible partners, and she had dodged the missiles they hurled at each other for all of her life.
She was twenty-nine years old, happy in Zimbabwe, and satisfied to live on what she made.
She had few needs, and whether her father had a big job or none at all made no difference to her.
She didn’t have her mother’s lust for money.
She knew the good man her father was, the kind person and good parent, and would have forgiven him if he had lost the chateau.
She hated to see him so unhappy and punished so cruelly by her mother.
He felt honor-bound to save the chateau for her, whatever it took to do so, and he put up with Brigitte’s bitter barbs whenever he saw her, which was as little as possible.
They had given up the pretense of friendship or respect.
They lived in separate enemy camps, he in the beauty of the C?te Basque, at the chateau, and Brigitte’s entire life centered around the hospital where she practiced.
She had been a hero of the pandemic, and was a talented doctor, her only compassion for her patients.
She wasted none on Xavier, and thought him undeserving.
The loss of his job she considered a final act of idiocy on his part that had cost her too much to forgive.
She had loved the lifestyle he had given her and lost. She had loved their magnificent apartment, loved to travel, and enjoyed the envy of her friends.
—
The realtor called when Xavier was in Paris for a rare visit.
He had heard of a job that might be opening up in his old field, at a new ad agency being formed, and had come to Paris for an important business lunch.
He hadn’t warned Brigitte he was coming and hoped to avoid her.
He had gone to the apartment after lunch to pick up some papers he had in files there, and Brigitte was startled to see him when she walked in, took off her coat, tossing it with her white doctor’s coat on one of their two chairs, and overheard his conversation with the real estate agent in Biarritz.
His words didn’t surprise her, but enraged her again as she poured herself a glass of white wine she’d left in the fridge a few days before.
She hadn’t seen her husband in a month, and neither smiled when they saw each other, as he continued the conversation and ignored her. She didn’t offer him any wine.
“It’s not for sale,” Xavier said firmly, and sparks flew from Brigitte’s eyes.
She could guess the subject. Time hadn’t been kind to her.
She worked hard and had worn herself to the bone working for days without a break during the pandemic.
She had never invested herself in her looks, and she looked older than her fifty-eight years.
She was more interested in her medical career than in beauty, and had never been interested in fashion.
She was wearing an ill-fitting gray skirt, heavy boots, and a black sweater that was too big for her.
She kept her hair short in no particular style, which looked almost military.
Whatever softness or femininity had once been there had vanished years before.
She looked as ill-loved and untended as she was, like a garden that hadn’t been watered in years.
She wore her nails trimmed very short for medical reasons, and didn’t bother with manicures.
She’d been fighting a war against Covid for years, since it began, and had performed nobly in the crisis, to the great respect of her peers, and even Xavier on that single front.
She was an outstanding physician, and a terrible wife.
Xavier was still a handsome man, with dark aristocratic looks, dark brown hair, warm brown eyes, finely chiseled features, and a cleft chin that was decidedly attractive and enhanced his looks, but she no longer cared.
He was tall, thin, and athletic-looking.
He had been a hard worker when he had a job and stayed fit by doing all the heavy work and repairs at the chateau.
He had nothing else to do now, and it helped buoy his spirits to do something constructive.
His morale had suffered severely from three years of hard blows, many of them delivered by his wife, which she thought justified.
They had as little left in their emotional reserves as he did in his bank account. And they were still hanging on.
“I might be willing to rent, on condition that I retain use of the dower house on the property,” Xavier continued the conversation on the phone.
There was a pause then as he frowned, and seemed to be considering something.
“I’ve never thought of a price for a rental,” he admitted.
“What would you consider the top of the market?” Then another pause.
“Fine. Add another twenty percent to that, and I’ll rent it.
As is. No additions, no repairs, no improvement projects to suit her.
Can she afford it?” He knew the woman would be crazy to rent the chateau at that price, but the realtor said she looked like a rich American.
He just hoped she wasn’t crazy and wouldn’t be a nuisance.
“Six months, or a year. No longer. Children?” He looked satisfied by a negative answer.
“Full financial references, I don’t want a squatter I can’t get out.
I want to get a look at her. I’ll be there tomorrow,” he said decisively, and sounded like the businessman he had been and no longer was, much to his chagrin.
He had lived with deep humiliation ever since the global travel business failed, and not being able to find another job as CEO in any field.
He was afraid he’d been out of work for too long. He felt stale.
“Who was that?” Brigitte asked when he ended the call, as she added more wine to her glass, and again offered him none.
“The realtor in Biarritz.” She thought so. “An American woman looked at the chateau today. He thought she might rent it. He’s not sure.”
“And you won’t sell it.” Her jaw tightened.
“He wanted to know our status about selling,” Xavier said honestly.
“That’s easy. We’re broke,” she said nastily. He was used to it. She’d never been gentle, and less so now. She was cold and angry, with an anger older than time.
“Thank you for reminding me,” he said, tense. “And we’re not broke. We have the money from the apartment. We moved into this rat’s nest so we could preserve that money. We’re lucky Victoire is in Africa and not living with us, fortunately for her.”