Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The next day, Sabine and Aubin took the first train from Paris to Neufchateau.
He listened to music, and she watched the world pass by, numb.
They had extra bags of stuff: clothes from their second-hand shopping excursions, books, food for the trip.
She didn’t want to leave a single thing at her father’s.
She poked Aubin with her foot. He shifted one headphone to tune in. “We never went to the Pont des Arts while we were in Paris. I wanted to see where rude tourists attach their locks.”
“We didn’t need to. We had a much better time than that, despite how it ended.”
She moved from her seat opposite to next to him and tucked herself under his arm.
“Do you want to talk about any of it?”
“Well,” she said, liking how she fit into his chest, “let’s see. Here’s one random thing … My dad wanted to come to my grad celebration in Toronto, and my mother refused. That pisses me off, even though he completely flaked out on us in Paris.”
“Life is complicated,” he said, pulling her in closer.
“And now I have to dream up something to say to her when we get back.”
Marlow and Lali brought quiche from the boulangerie up to the Mirabelle fort so Yakiv could slay invisible foes with a cardboard shield and sword.
“What a disaster,” said Marlow.
“Life is bright,” Lali said. “You just can’t feel it right now.”
“On what planet are things bright?”
“You have been invited to interview for a job at Cannes. We got out of Ukraine alive. Yakiv is a brave knight. Fedir has a job.”
“But you had to give up being a doctor.”
“Until I can afford to pass my medical exams here, this dream is not dead. It is just napping. Also, you have a daughter who will change the world. You have spent the summer in France. You have slept with two not-so-bad men.”
They burst out laughing at that.
“What is the funny?” asked Yakiv, eyeing them from under his cardboard helmet. He’d learned bits of English from Marlow over the summer.
“Nothing,” said Marlow. “Your mum made a joke.” Yakiv went back to slaying foes.
“OK, not a complete disaster,” said Marlow. “But what will I do about the taxes? No one’s going to buy the house with that on the books. I can’t afford to keep it, and I can’t afford to sell it.”
Lali shrugged. “We also have back taxes. They sit on our account, but they are not an emergency because we don’t want to sell the house.
Luc, too. Madame Belleville has back taxes, and they must be expensive—look at the size of her house.
Rémy makes noise sometimes, but if she forced the issue, there would be no one left in Mirabelle. Her program would be a failure.”
Marlow nibbled on flaky quiche crust. “I’ll miss this when we go back to Toronto.”
“It’s amazing you will miss that and not the very, very good sex.”
“Lali!”
“You told me it was very, very good! Am I wrong?”
“You’re not wrong.” They laughed again.
“What is the funny?!” demanded Yakiv, now exasperated.
“If I could keep the house,” said Marlow, “be debt-free, earn my living here, and sleep with both men with no consequences whatsoever, I would totally stay.”
“I love your ambition.”
“Although sex with two men,” said Marlow. “So many sleepless nights.”
“I will make you food to keep up your energy. And I will live your dream by hearing your stories. Do you think you might stay?”
Marlow gazed at the cows in the valley, lazily swishing their tails. “I don’t know.”
“When you picture going back to Toronto, are you happy?”
Marlow shook her head. “I’ve felt more alive and interested here than I have in a long time.
I feel somehow part of Mirabelle. Back in Toronto, I have friends and colleagues, I have my brother, and my parents—but here, even in such a short time, I feel like I belong.
And I can make a difference. I know it’s corny. ”
“Corny? As in the food?”
“No,” said Marlow, chuckling, “as in sentimental. I don’t want to perpetuate the cycle that’s happened with these tiny towns. And I don’t want to abandon you.”
They watched Yakiv, standing on a rock, holding his now somewhat droopy cardboard sword to the sky in a valiant knight stance. So certain of himself. So proud.
“So, what will you do?” asked Lali.
Sabine was putting leftover lunch from the trip home into the fridge when her mum came in.
“Hey,” she said, hoping the moment didn’t explode.
“Hey,” said Marlow.
“What’s up around here?”
“Ruth didn’t buy the house in the end, so I still own it—and I now have a twenty-thousand-euro back-tax problem. Tell you more later, but yeah. You?”
“I’m really sorry,” said Sabine, trying to figure out what part of Paris to share in return. She hated this version of them—the lying, keeping stuff from each other.
“So,” she ventured, knees shaking a bit, “La Sorbonne said no to late entry, but we went to this cool place called Chateau Beaupré that has artist residencies, and I think I might do that for a year. To make my tiny books.”
Her mum’s jaw dropped, but Sabine plunged forth.
“And Yves says he can get me French citizenship so it will be affordable.” Her mum looked like she might have a stroke, but Sabine kept going. “But then he got one of his films greenlit and he didn’t show up at the passport office, so I came home.” She turned back to the fridge.
“He what?”
“It’s OK.”
“It’s not,” said Marlow, clenching her jaw. “Don’t get me started on all the parts of your story I’m struggling with, but of all the not-OK things, Yves bailing on you is the least OK.”
“I get it, though. He had a film greenlit. What was he supposed to do?”
“Put you first.”
“He’s not the only one,” said Sabine, looking right at Marlow. Dangerous territory.
“What do you mean?”
“He came to Toronto and wanted to come to my graduation sushi party, but you said no.”
“True.”
“What the hell, Mum!”
“I had my reasons.”
“And I had my reasons for going to Paris, but you didn’t care about those. He came all that way to see me graduate, and you cut him out. You’re the one who’s kept me from knowing him. So don’t get on his case for missing one appointment.”
Marlow clasped her hands so hard, her knuckles went white.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” Sabine asked, gripping the fridge door. “That’s how little respect you have for me?”
Marlow drew a breath and spoke in measured tones.
“I didn’t let him come because he only happened to be in town, only happened to be at a meeting with Victor, and only happened to see me on the street.
He didn’t have a clue you were graduating.
If he’d called me a month before, hell, a week before, to say he knew and wanted to do something special, I would have let him.
But tell me one time he’s put any planning into his relationship with you. One.”
Sabine couldn’t do that.
“Maybe it was petty to say he couldn’t add himself to the festivities,” said Marlow. “But I was protecting you. Because this is what Yves does. In the end, it’s always about him. And he will break your heart.”
Sabine burst into tears. “I’m really sorry,” she mumbled.
Marlow came over and held her tight. “Me, too.” They held each other for a bit. “One more thing. You’re not pregnant, right?”
“Nope,” said Sabine. “Still firmly a virgin. Anything else?”
“Your offers from all those universities, the scholarships … It feels like such a waste. You have your whole life to do a residency. If you want to go to the Sorbonne, apply for the winter semester. Forget about the fall if they won’t let you in so late.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Or if you’re not ready for school, take a year off.”
“I’m going to university, I just don’t know where. I have until the first of September.”
Marlow released a huge sigh. “Great. I was trying to act like a way hipper parent than I actually am. I totally want you to go—who am I kidding?”
“And where will you find twenty thousand euros for back taxes?”
“I don’t know. Lali told me everyone has back taxes in Mirabelle, too, so I could risk just rolling with it, but given how much Rémy seems intent on being a thorn in my side, I can’t imagine her ever letting it drop. Long story short, that’s an excellent and pressing question.”
Marlow arrived at Guillaume’s and found him at the door, hands in pockets, looking sheepish. She flashed back to him and Luc in a full-on donnybrook at her place. Honestly.
“I wanted to talk to you about what happened,” said Guillaume.
“I bet.” She walked past him inside. “What is this, grade school? You and Luc both need to grow up.”
“I don’t know what came over me. I’ll never do it again, I promise.”
He followed her to her office. She opened her laptop.
“But I do want to fight for you.”
“I wish you two would stop saying that!” said Marlow.
“We said we wouldn’t behave that way. I told you about being involved with Luc.
You said you could handle it. You even told me you sleep with other women, so me sleeping with another man was fine.
And then the moment you two were in the same room, the testosterone flew. It was farcical.”
“For you, perhaps.”
“That’s the problem! Men. I mean, I can choose them. I either pick the guy who gets me pregnant but will never be with me, or the guys who get into fights like teenage idiots.”
“I cannot speak for Luc, but surely a man wanting to fight for you is a good thing?”
“On what planet? You just want something, someone, to claim. I am my own person.”
“I agree. I do not want to claim you. People can sleep with whoever they want. They don’t have to be exclusive. And I respect you—more than I respect myself at the moment.”
“Getting involved with both of you was my fault, but I have bigger fish to fry.”
“Another strange English saying?”
“Yes. It means I have other fires burning. Other problems, and bigger ones.”
“Can I help? If they are back taxes, please, allow me.”
“I don’t want to owe you.”
“You wouldn’t. I am invested in you—you and Sabine. And I am invested in this area. Twenty thousand euros is a small amount for me to pay to breathe life into Mirabelle.”
“I don’t know. I have the appeal—that’s coming up, too.”