Chapter Seventeen
It was raining the next morning. A gray blanket of low clouds covered the city in an indecisive drizzle.
Despite the poor weather, I got up and dressed and went down to breakfast. My plan to find Benoit had hardened into determination overnight.
And a calm steadiness and assuredness burned inside me.
I would find him, hopefully at his house, and tell him how I felt.
I had sorted out all my conflicting and assorted feelings into a clear arrangement of hopes.
I hoped he’d be there. I hoped he’d see me.
I hoped he’d be willing to hear me out. And I hoped that I still had a chance.
After my coffee and baguette, I set out on my bicycle for Benoit’s house.
I rode up Rue de Fortuny and down Boulevard Malesherbes.
Then I took Boulevard des Batignolles all the way to Benoit’s neighborhood.
It was Sunday, so the streets were clearer than usual.
The rain, though misty and light, showed no signs of stopping.
Not the best bicycling weather. But I’d waited so long.
It had taken me all this time to understand myself and what I needed to say.
I didn’t want to wait any longer. Even waiting for a cab seemed like an unnecessary delay.
And I needed the bicycle ride to burn off my nervous energy.
It only took a few minutes to reach Benoit’s apartment on Rue Blanche.
I hurried inside the street-level door just as the rain started to pick up, and I left my bicycle at the bottom of the stairwell.
I was damp, but not soaked. I paused for a breath when I reached the top of the stairs.
The door on the landing seemed different, though I couldn’t say exactly how.
I hadn’t committed it to memory. Or now I was looking at it from a completely different perspective.
A completely different Vanessa. A hopeful woman instead of an annoyed coworker.
Loving not hating. How different that made everything.
I raised my fist and knocked on the door.
A moment later, there was someone on the other side of it, unlatching and opening.
And then there he was. Benoit. Not exactly like I’d left him, standing in his new editor’s office; a more disheveled version of him.
His hair was shaggy and uncombed. His shave wasn’t clean.
He was dressed in his shirtsleeves, and there was no sign of a cravat.
“Oh,” he said with a combination of surprise and disappointment, which pricked at my heart and confidence. Had I been wrong to come? Maybe he didn’t want to see me. Maybe I had really lost him. But I had to try; I had things I needed to say.
“Bonjour.”
“Bonjour, Vanessa.” He smiled, overcoming the shock of seeing me at his door. “What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk.”
He looked hesitantly over his shoulder. “That’s wonderful, darling. But I’m not sure this is the best time.”
A bang, perhaps a door slamming, came from somewhere inside the house. Followed by a moaning scream that didn’t sound childlike.
“Is everything all right?”
“No. I’m afraid it isn’t. We’ve had a rough morning. A rough night. A rough couple of days.”
“What happened?”
He looked nervously over his shoulder again and then opened the door wider. “Please, come in.”
I hesitated. “I have so much I need to tell you. If now’s not a good time—”
“No, no. It’s fine. You’re here now, and I want to hear what you have to say.
It’s just that my mother isn’t doing well.
The woman we had looking after her left a few days ago, and we haven’t found anyone to replace her yet.
The children have been a terror. And so I’m afraid the house is in shambles. ”
“How is your mother?” We were inside the foyer with the blue pagoda wallpaper and the pretty green fern, which looked less lush than I remembered it, like maybe everyone had been too busy to water it.
“She’s recovered physically from her fall, but mentally she’s more distant than she was before.
Her confusion has worsened, and she needs constant supervision.
She’s not even sleeping through the night.
” He ushered me into a small parlor with a window that looked down on the street.
I sat in one of two matching velour armchairs, and he took the other one.
“With the caregiver gone, the burden has fallen on my sister, who has the children to look after as well. I’ve been helping, but it’s not easy with work. ”
“How long is she gone?”
“For good, I’m afraid. She and my sister didn’t get along all that well. And she wasn’t very patient for someone whose job it was to take care of people.”
“Oh.”
“But I don’t want to bore you with the details. What can I do for you?”
The way he said it was more professional than friendly.
Though he was receiving my early, unannounced call with perfect manners, it was not the reception of reunited lovers.
I looked down at my hands. I shouldn’t have expected anything warmer.
I had walked into the midst of what seemed like a family crisis.
He had his hands full. I couldn’t ask him for more than this.
I needed to say what I’d come to say. “Benoit, I’m sorry.
About how things between us turned out.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that things are different now. I am different from how I was when we were in Cabourg.”
“You made that quite clear, darling.” There was a hint of pain in his words.
“I know I did. And I know I said I didn’t want to be with you, as well as some awful things about getting you out of my system and all of that. But I’ve gained some perspective since leaving the paper—”
A child screaming interrupted me. It was muffled by the apartment’s interior walls and spaces, but still loud enough to unstring my thoughts.
He picked up the thread that I left dangling. “After your clipped response to my letter, Vanessa, I’m surprised that you’re here.”
“I know. I was short. But I was mad.” I shifted in the chair. “But I’m not here in a professional capacity. And I don’t want to talk about work. The reason for my visit is personal.”
Another shriek rang out, this time closer and more desperate than the previous one. And it was followed by another howl, perhaps from a different child.
“Forgive me.” Benoit stood, concern creasing his brow. “I better make sure everything’s okay.”
I stood as well, and instead of waiting there, I followed him through the door. We were in the hallway, almost to the staircase, when another scream came from somewhere upstairs.
He was surprised when he realized I was following him, but he didn’t stop me.
“I meant what I said. I don’t care about work. I’m here to talk about the way I left things in our personal affairs.”
“The personal affairs you ended, you mean.”
“Yes, those affairs.” We had reached upper floor of the apartment, where we encountered his sister, Rachelle, headed for the nursery where the children were in tears.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought they were both down, and I went to bathe mother. I didn’t realize you had company.”
“It’s fine,” Benoit said, scooping up a teary, red-faced toddler. And then to me, he said, “We’re a bit short-handed, as I mentioned.”
His sister smiled at me with faint recognition.
She was also more disheveled than she had been when I met her.
Her braid had come completely loose on one side, and strands of her dark hair spilled around her face.
There may have been some baby spit-up in it as well, but she was moving so much it was hard to tell. “I’m sorry to disrupt your visit.”
“I came unannounced. It’s completely fine. I don’t mind at all.” And I didn’t. I liked very much getting this glimpse of Benoit’s household, this glimpse of his life.
“Well, perhaps Benoit told you, our mother’s caregiver departed quite unexpectedly, leaving us in a lurch.”
“Our housekeeper helps when she’s here. But she’s out running errands.”
His sister went to put the quieted baby down. “I can’t leave Mother alone in the bath any longer.”
She tutted at the child, whose face was peaceful though streaked with tears. But as soon as she put the baby down, the frantic crying recommenced.
“Darling,” Rachelle said in a tortured voice. “I’m sorry, but I have to check Granny.”
Benoit, who was still holding the other crying baby, looked on helplessly.
“Here,” I said, surprising myself. “I can take her.”
I reached for the child, who turned her pouty little face to me.
She regarded me with suspicion. She also, mercifully, quieted.
She was light but also solid in my arms. Her brown curls were damp with sweat from her fit, and her cheeks were red and mottled.
Her little dressing gown had ridden up to reveal very chubby thighs.
I hadn’t held a baby since I left the girls’ orphanage.
It was a familiar weight that human women like myself had perhaps evolved to appreciate.
I had read Darwin. I pulled her in close and rested her bottom on my hip.
“What’s her name again? I seem to have forgotten.”
“Brigitte.” Benoit watched me get acquainted with his niece, who was watching me intently and thankfully no longer crying.
“Bonjour, Brigitte. Enchanté. I remember now.” I looked at the baby in Benoit’s arms. “And this is Claude.”
“Oui.” He was quiet now too, watching his uncle through teary brown eyes. He had two fine wisps of hair flaring out from behind his ears, and he was dressed in a nautical ensemble that reminded me of my bathing suit. The collar was crooked; a rumpled little sailor. They were adorable children.
Benoit’s sister thanked me and begged off, hurrying back to their mother.
And then there we were, Benoit and me, standing in a messy nursery, each of us holding a baby. The rain had stopped now, and the clouds must have shifted, because the room brightened.