Chapter 9 #2
"It's hard not to. The silences are louder than the words."
"Margot had already left étienne by then.
Whatever broke them happened long before the project collapsed.
Bastien's wife..." He pauses. "Claire had an affair with an artist Bastien had championed.
Someone whose career he'd built. That kind of betrayal doesn't just end a marriage. It poisons everything around it."
"And Caroline was sick through all of this." His jaw tightens. The word sick sitting between us like it isn't big enough for what it actually means.
"The diagnosis came six months before the resort collapsed.
I was trying to keep her alive, keep Emma from understanding how bad it was, keep the business running.
I didn't have anything left for them." His hands tighten around the wine glass.
"They needed me and I wasn't there. And then Caroline died, and I needed them, and by then we'd forgotten how to need each other. "
"But the children kept you connected."
"The children are the only reason we're ever in the same room at all.
" He almost laughs, but there's no humor in it.
"Sophie and Luc and Emma. They don't care about our history.
They just want to be together. Three years of their fathers circling each other like wounded animals, and those kids just kept choosing each other. "
The fire pops. Rain taps against the windows.
"What's it like now?" I ask. "When you're all in the same room?"
"Tense. Hostile." He searches for the word. "Like we're all waiting for someone to make a wrong move."
"But you want to fix it."
"I want to stop being the reason my daughter's best friends' fathers won't look at each other.
" He meets my eyes across the firelight.
"I want to stop watching étienne control everything because he's terrified of being left again.
I want to stop watching Bastien burn bridges because he'd rather destroy something than let it disappoint him. "
"And yourself? What do you want to stop doing?"
He doesn't answer right away.
"I want to stop being so gentle that no one takes me seriously," he says finally. "I spent so long trying to keep the peace that I forgot how to fight for anything. Including myself."
We talk until the wine is gone. Books. Hotels. The particular exhaustion of carrying everyone else's feelings while pretending you don't have your own.
He understands that last part. I can see it in the way he listens, not waiting to respond, just taking it in.
"When's the last time someone took care of you?" he asks, and I don't have a ready answer for that.
"What do you mean?"
"For the past few weeks, you've taken care of everyone.
Sophie, Luc, Emma. You've managed étienne's tension and Bastien's intensity and whatever other chaos has come with each household so far.
" He leans forward. His knee is close to mine now.
I'm aware of the gap between us, how small it's gotten.
The firelight catches the line of his jaw, the shape of his mouth, and I make myself look at the flames instead.
"But when's the last time someone asked if you were okay? If you needed anything?"
I open my mouth to answer and realize I can't.
"That's what I thought," he says. Gently. Without judgment.
"I don't know how to let people do that," I admit. "Take care of me. It feels like losing control. Like if I stop managing everything, it'll all fall apart."
"Including yourself?"
"Especially myself."
He's quiet for a moment.
"Caroline used to say the same thing," he says finally. "Even when she was sick. She'd try to take care of me, take care of Emma, manage everything from her hospital bed. I had to learn to just... sit with her. Not fix anything. Not manage anything. Just be there."
"Was that hard?"
"Hardest thing I've ever done." He almost smiles. "Harder than losing her, in some ways. Because it meant accepting that I couldn't save her. That all I could do was stay."
At some point the fire becomes a blur. His voice becomes rhythm without words. The couch becomes cozy beneath my cheek and the last thing I register is the sound of rain.
I surface to arms around me.
Strong arms. Careful. Lifting me from the couch like I weigh nothing.
"I can walk," I mumble. The words come out slurred.
"I know." His voice is close. Low. "But you don't have to."
My head is against his chest. I can hear his heartbeat, steady, slower than I expected. He smells like woodsmoke and red wine and the wool of his sweater, and something in me relaxes before I can stop it.
He carries me up the stairs, and I hear the creak of floorboards, my door opening.
He sets me down on the bed, and even through the fog of sleep, I'm aware of how gentle he is. How he supports my head as it meets the pillow. How he pulls the covers up without disturbing me.
He's standing there. I can feel him standing there, even with my eyes closed.
"Thank you," I manage.
He doesn't respond. Doesn't move.
And then, so light I might be imagining it, fingertips brush my hair back from my face. Slow. Delicate. Like I'm something he's afraid of waking even though I'm already half awake.
His hand rests on my skin for a moment. Then it withdraws.
"Sleep well, Madeline."
I hear his footsteps moving away and the click of the door closing behind him.
I lie in the dark. My pulse hasn't settled.
He carried me upstairs. Brushed my hair back from my face. And then he left, when he could have stayed, when I'm not sure I would have stopped him if he had.
I turn my face into the pillow. The room smells like lavender and, somewhere in this house, a man who lost his wife is probably asking himself the same questions I'm not letting myself ask.
I let him see me tonight. The real, unmanaged version. I was just Madeline. And Raphael didn't need me to be anything else.
I close my eyes and I can still feel it. His heartbeat under my cheek. His hand in my hair. The way he said my name. Quiet. Like he'd been saying it his whole life.
I didn't plan any of this. I didn't manage it or schedule it or brace for it.
And that's exactly why I'm in trouble.