Seventeen #2
They sit on either side of me, Clément resting his head against my arm, Nathalie twisting the hem of my shirt. I open the book to an illustration of a bedroom with green walls and a bunny tucked in for sleep. I turn the pages, read the simple sentences.
There’s something in it—the occasional rhymes; the strange pictures of bunnies where the people should be; the dollhouse, glowing as though a light were on inside; the perfect nighttime sky with its moon and stars—that takes me away from Felix and Al and what I’ve just discovered.
I finish, and Nathalie says, “Again,” so I read it another time through, and I wish to read it for a third and a fourth time, but the children are tired.
“Stay with us,” Clément says.
“All right,” I say. “For a little while.”
I turn off the bedside light, pull the blankets up to their chins, and Felix passes the window, just a blur of dark, gone in an instant.
How recent is this thing between him and Al?
It feels old, like a hope he’s carried for a long time.
Or maybe it was an experiment, or a misunderstanding, or a fleeting moment of desire.
I hear Al and Adele at night sometimes, often enough to know Al must enjoy it.
And I see the way he looks at her with affection, how he runs his hand across her hips when they pass in the hallway, the appreciation in his eyes when he watches her bend over to pick a record.
I see him at the plant, the way he carries himself around the others, like a taken, married man.
Whatever that was between him and Felix, I know he’s devoted to my sister, hungers for her in the way a husband’s meant to.
The minutes pass. Clément’s body turns soft, sinking quickly into sleep. Nathalie tosses and turns, fighting, always.
Brave Felix. To try. To be turned down.
Finally, Nathalie’s breathing is steady. The party is still in swing. A burst of laughter from inside the house, a faint hum from the yard.
Felix is in the living room when I emerge, crowded around the Victrola with Bernard and some of the others. Al’s at the table, playing cards with Lionel and three men from the plant.
Felix flashes his usual smile at seeing me. “Thought we’d lost you to the children’s bedtime.”
“You almost did. Join me out back for a cigarette? It’s stuffy in here.”
“I’ll be right out.”
Outside, just a small group remains gathered at the fence, talking and laughing. I take a seat on the steps, away from all of them. Light a cigarette. A minute later, Felix sits next to me.
“I just read the strangest book to Clément and Nathalie,” I say, wondering if he heard it.
“Oh yeah?”
“It hypnotized me.”
He laughs. “Sounds like a good story.”
Goodnight, nobody. I see the bunny in her rocking chair, the mouse and bowl. A yelp comes from across the yard. We turn to see what it is—one of the younger girls, doubled over and laughing—and the group around her is laughing, too. “They’re drunk,” I say.
“Very. It’s a good party, isn’t it?”
“You said that same thing exactly seven years ago, at the Laurents’ party.”
“Did I? I guess I like most parties.”
“That’s a nice quality in a person,” I say. “To like things.”
“Well, thank you.”
I nod. Sip.
I’m aware of all of it—the jasmine vine, fragrant in the dark.
Clément and Nathalie, curled together, sleeping in my bed.
Al at the card table and Adele washing the dishes and Claire at home three doors down.
Aware that I’m an adult, a woman, here, now, and different from the group at the far side of the yard.
“Felix,” I say. “Let’s get married.”
He turns to me in surprise. Says nothing at first. I’m calm, ready for whatever might come. Without speaking, he reaches for my cigarette. Takes a drag, lets it out. “I … I don’t know what to say. You’re a ravishing girl, Odette. Truly. But I’m afraid I wouldn’t make you a good husband.”
I take the cigarette back from between his fingers. “You want to be a family man, I can see it. You adore the children—”
“What’s not to adore?”
“And they adore you. We enjoy each other’s company.”
“We do.”
“That’s all I need.”
“There are other factors.” He looks pained, like he’s worried about hurting me. I remember something else from that last New Orleans New Year’s Eve.
“You have a condition,” I say.
“Well…” He hesitates. “Yes.”
“Al isn’t going to run away with you,” I say, soft so no one might overhear us, and as gently as I can.
His eyes widen. “Ah,” he says. “You saw. But you still want to marry me? Why?”
“I want to adopt Nathalie. I can’t do it unless I’m married.”
“An arrangement,” he says.
“An arrangement,” I say. “I wouldn’t ask much of you. Just … Al’s off-limits.”
He grimaces. “That was a mistake. It won’t happen again.” He looks at me, and his charm slips away. His face is bare now. “I want a family,” he says. “I want to come home to people who love me. But to be perfectly honest, I’d still need certain freedoms.”
“Of course. I’m not asking you to change any of that.”
“I’d offer those same freedoms to you, should any man catch your eye. I still don’t quite understand why you want to do this with me.”
I ache to tell him, but I won’t. What does it matter anyway? It’s over, that part of my life. Now it’s me and my children. And Felix, if he’ll have me.
“We could combine our incomes, get a small house,” I say.
“My decisions would be my own. Your decisions would be your own. I don’t want another husband.
Not in that same way. I already did it once and I don’t want to do it again.
To be a wife—in that way—again. When I think of it, when I imagine it, I feel like I’m suffocating. ”
I finish my cigarette, stub it out on the stair. The group at the far side of the yard is gone now, slipped out the gate, and we’re alone. The moon hangs in the sky, half-lit, waxing. I take a deep breath, my chest full of hope.
“Odette,” he says, eyes glistening. “I’ve been so lonely.”