Chapter 21
It was agreed that Tiphaine would babysit Nassim at Nora’s house on Thursday.
Tiphaine left work at four o’clock sharp, drove to the school to pick the child up, and brought him home.
She rang the doorbell as she had on Tuesday, to let Inès know they were there, in case she was already home.
And, just like on Tuesday, there was no answer.
She put the key in the lock, opened the door, and followed Nassim into the house.
A strange sensation came over her as she walked into the kitchen. A feeling of absence, almost physical, like the gnawing ache of hunger. Uneasy, Tiphaine tried to get ahold of herself.
“Would you like something to eat?” she asked Nassim as she opened the refrigerator to inspect the contents.
He did. She prepared a snack for him. He ate it, hungrily, at the kitchen table, with her sitting opposite him.
How many times had she shared this moment with her son, sitting in this very room, asking him how he was, how his day had been.
The only difference was that Nassim sat facing the window, while Maxime always used to have his back to it.
“Did you have a good day at school?” she asked Nassim. The child nodded. He really wasn’t talkative, not like Maxime, who’d tell her in detail about every noteworthy episode of his day.
“Tell me what you got up to!” she insisted.
“I did some work.”
“I’m sure you did. But apart from that? How was recess? Lunch?”
“I don’t know. Nothing special. Just like usual.”
“So how is it usually?”
“Um . . . I don’t know.”
End of the discussion. The child’s refusal to engage irritated Tiphaine, who was feeling increasingly on edge.
She watched him sitting up straight as he munched his cereal, his eyes lowered—he was too perfect, too well behaved.
Tiphaine gave a sad little smile and offered him a glass of orange juice, which the child politely declined.
Once he’d finished eating, they went into the living room and began on his homework.
When it was done, Nassim sat down at the PlayStation.
Tiphaine went back into the kitchen, put the cereal away in the cabinet, the milk in the refrigerator, and the bowl and spoon in the sink.
There were a few other dirty dishes in there and so, almost instinctively, she washed them and put them to dry on the rack. She didn’t know what to do after that.
Although in fact she did. There was something she wanted to do.
To see, really. A place she could never stop thinking about that exerted an irresistible pull on her.
On Tuesday, when she’d babysat Nassim for the first time, she’d not been able to keep from thinking about the room upstairs.
But she’d had to look after the boy and, on top of that, exploring the first floor had kept her from rifling through other memories.
Now, though she didn’t know why, the obsessive thought manifested itself almost the moment she entered the house.
Perhaps Sylvain hadn’t been entirely wrong in thinking that coming back here was a bad idea.
Tiphaine went into the living room, as if the kitchen and its proximity to the entryway that led to the stairs were no longer safe.
She stood for a few minutes behind Nassim, watching with a distracted eye as he destroyed unlikely aliens with equally improbable weapons.
Then she randomly took a book off a shelf and settled down in an armchair.
She didn’t read a word, but the very fact that someone might come upon her and see nothing unusual made her feel more relaxed.
She felt in control of her emotions and allowed her thoughts to wander freely.
Her eyes skimmed the walls, floor, and ceiling.
Everything was so different. Even the way the house smelled wasn’t the same anymore.
She stood up from the armchair, walked around it, and began pushing it toward the dining room, all the way to the corner where her grandmother’s old rocking chair had once stood.
“What are you doing?”
Nassim was standing in the opening between the two rooms, holding his joystick in one hand and looking at her, wide-eyed. Startled, Tiphaine stared back at the boy, then at the armchair, then back at Nassim.
“Well, as you can see, I’m moving the armchair.”
A beat of silence.
“Why?” asked Nassim.
Tiphaine took a moment to answer.
“Because . . . because it’s better here . . . Right?” Faced with the child’s doubtful silence, she added, “Don’t worry. I’ll put it back before your mom gets home. What do you think?”
The child pouted, an expression of aversion more than approval, and went back to his game without another word. Tiphaine watched him walk away with a sense of dismay. This kid didn’t seem driven by any emotion. It was like trying to grab hold of a bar of soap that kept slipping from her hands.
She braced herself and walked back to the living room, where she planted herself in front of Nassim.
“What do you like to read?”
The child looked up at her, startled.
“Stop gawking at me like an idiot every time I say something to you! We can talk, can’t we? Do you read books? Stories, comics?”
“Yes, I like comic books.”
“What are you reading at the moment?”
“Titeuf.”
“I know Titeuf!” she exclaimed with exaggerated enthusiasm. “Milo used to read them all the time. Have you got some at home?”
“Yes. Up in my room.”
Tiphaine’s heart sank.
“Will you . . . will you go and get one?”
“Which one?”
“Your favorite.”
Nassim hesitated for a moment, torn between wanting to continue his game and being obliging and polite; then he stood up, dropped the joystick on the floor, and walked out of the room.
He came back a few minutes later and handed a book to Tiphaine, who took it and thanked him.
He went back to his video game and Tiphaine sat down in the armchair she’d moved and opened the book.
This time, she was really reading. From time to time, she let out an exclamation, followed by a giggle.
After a moment, intrigued, Nassim went over to where she sat, leaving his avatar to be obliterated by extraterrestrials.
“Why are you laughing?” he asked. Tiphaine noticed the warm curiosity in his voice.
“Because it’s funny. Have you read this one?”
He leaned down to see which story it was.
“Oh yes! That one’s really funny!”
“And this one made me laugh too,” she said, flicking back a few pages.
She angled the book slightly toward Nassim so he could read it too. The child burst out laughing.
“Yeah, that’s a good one! It’s one of my favorites.”
“Which one is your absolute favorite?”
“This one!”
He grabbed the book and leafed through it until he found the story he was looking for. Tiphaine watched him out of the corner of her eye, delighted to see him loosening up. He pointed to a page and she read it, then laughed heartily.
“That’s very good! Have you finished reading it?”
“Almost.”
“Do you want me to read you the rest?”
“Yes, please.”
Tiphaine made room beside her for Nassim. She put an arm around him and began to read.
Sitting there, Tiphaine felt suffused with a happiness she hadn’t felt in a long time.