Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
MADELINE
The first week back in Paris disappears into logistics.
The weekly rotation is officially suspended—no one's had time to sit down and decide what comes next—so I spin between households as needed.
Monday I'm at Raphael's, waking Emma for school, negotiating breakfast, navigating the morning rush of backpacks and forgotten homework.
Tuesday and Wednesday at Bastien's, helping Luc with a geography project, cutting out pictures of the Seine while he arranges them with silent intensity.
Thursday and Friday at étienne's, but he's in London—Fashion Week meetings that suddenly couldn't wait. Just Sophie and me, pretending we don't notice how empty the apartment feels without him.
I check my phone more than I should. étienne's name never appears.
I don't have time to dwell on it. There's too much to do. Too many schedules to coordinate, too many small crises to solve.
This is my job. This is what I'm here for.
Everything else is just... everything else.
Something has shifted, though. Small moments that didn't exist before the retreat.
At Raphael's, his hand finds mine on the couch after Emma's asleep. We sit like that for a while, not talking, just existing in the same space. He kisses my knuckles before saying goodnight.
At Bastien's later in the week, after Luc is in bed, Bastien finds me in the kitchen.
He doesn't say anything—just slides his arms around me from behind, presses a kiss to the curve of my neck, holds me there.
When I turn, he kisses me slow and unhurried, then goes back to his studio like nothing happened.
These moments feel stolen. Private. Something that belongs to us, separate from the chaos of schedules and logistics and étienne's cold silence.
But by the second week, I start noticing other things.
It begins at Monday pickup. I'm waiting outside Sophie's classroom when Madame Lefèvre—Marcus's mother, the one who called our arrangement "very progressive" at the retreat—approaches with another woman I don't recognize.
They're mid-conversation, voices low, and when they see me, something shifts in their expressions.
Not hostile, exactly. But not friendly either.
"Madeline," Madame Lefèvre says. Her smile is the kind you give to someone you're being polite to, not someone you like. "How are you settling back in?"
"Fine, thank you."
"I'm sure." She exchanges a glance with her companion. "It must be exhausting. Managing three households."
"It keeps me busy."
"I imagine it does." Another glance. Meaningful, somehow. "Well. Have a lovely afternoon."
They walk away, heads tilted together, whispering.
I tell myself it's nothing. Parisian mothers are cliquey. I'm an outsider, an American, the au pair for an unconventional family arrangement. Of course they gossip.
But then it happens again.
At Tuesday's pickup, a father I've never spoken to steers his son away when I say hello.
At Wednesday's music assembly, I find myself seated at the end of a row, the seats on either side empty even though the auditorium is crowded.
At Thursday's bake sale, I offer to help arrange pastries and the organizing mother thanks me but says they have "enough hands. "
Small things. Easy to dismiss individually.
Harder to ignore as a pattern.
Friday afternoon, I arrive early for pickup and wait in the small courtyard near the primary classrooms. It's quiet there, tucked away from the main gates, and I'm tired—the kind of tired that comes from running on caffeine and pretending everything is fine.
I'm sitting on a bench, scrolling through my phone, when I hear voices from the other side of the hedge.
Two women, speaking French, rapid and low, but my language skills are good enough to follow.
"—said she heard it herself. During the retreat."
"Heard what, exactly?"
"Noises. From the au pair's room. Late at night." A pause, heavy with implication. "And she wasn't alone."
My stomach drops.
"No."
"Apparently, the floors in that wing were thin. Madame Descourtes's room was directly beneath hers. She said it was... unmistakable."
"Which one? The fashion one or the hotel one?"
"She couldn't tell. But she said it sounded like more than two people."
Silence. Then a sharp intake of breath.
"You're not serious."
"I'm just telling you what she told me. And what she put in her letter."
"She wrote to Dubois?"
"Several parents did, apparently. After what people saw at the retreat—the way those men looked at her, the way she was always between them—and then this?" A disapproving tsk. "It's not appropriate. Not around children."
"Those poor kids. Can you imagine?"
"Someone needs to say something. The school has a reputation."
Footsteps. They're moving away now, their voices fading, but I've heard enough.
I sit frozen on the bench, phone forgotten in my hand, heart pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat.
She heard it herself.
Noises. From the au pair's room.
More than two people.
The night with Bastien and Raphael. The chateau.
We thought we were quiet—Raphael's hand over my mouth, Bastien's whispered instructions—but we weren't quiet enough.
Someone heard. Someone in the room below, lying awake in the darkness, listening to sounds that left no room for innocent interpretation.
And now that someone has written a letter.
To Madame Dubois.
About me.
The classroom doors open and children spill out. I see Sophie first, then Emma, then Luc trailing behind, his head in the clouds. They run toward me, full of stories about their day, and I smile and nod and say the right things while something cold and terrible unfolds in my chest.
We walk to Bastien's car—he's picking up today, and Sophie and Emma are having a sleepover at his place. He's waiting by the curb, sunglasses on, looking effortlessly put-together in a way that probably contributes to the rumors.
He takes one look at my face and his expression shifts behind the glasses.
"What happened?"
"Later." I glance at the children climbing into the backseat. "Not now."
He accepts this, but I feel his attention on me the whole drive.
That evening, after the children are in bed—Luc in his room, Sophie and Emma sharing the guest room—I tell him everything.
The whispers. The pointed looks. The conversation I overheard.
"Someone heard us," I say, the words tasting like ash. "At the chateau. That night. They heard... enough. And they wrote to Dubois about it."
Bastien's face goes very still. "Who?"
"I don't know. They called her Madame Descourtes. Her room was directly below mine."
"Descourtes." He's quiet for a moment. "I don't know the name."
"Does it matter which one?" I wrap my arms around myself. "She heard us. She told other parents. They've written letters — multiple letters — about the arrangement, about me." I swallow. "They called it inappropriate. Said someone needs to say something. That the school has a reputation."
Bastien pulls out his phone.
"What are you doing?"
"Texting Raphael. And étienne." His voice is flat, controlled. "They need to know."
"étienne won't respond."
"He will." Steel enters his tone. "This affects Sophie."
He types rapidly, then sets the phone down. We sit in silence, waiting.
Raphael's response comes within minutes. Then étienne's—brief, clipped, acknowledging receipt but offering nothing more.
Bastien's phone rings. Raphael.
"I'm putting you on speaker," Bastien says. "Madeline's here."
"Are you okay?" Raphael's voice is warm with concern, and something in my chest loosens slightly.
"I don't know," I admit. "I don't know what any of this means yet."
"It means we need to get ahead of it." Raphael's tone shifts, businesslike now. "Before Dubois calls us in. Before this becomes official."
"It's already official," Bastien says. "Parents have filed written complaints. That makes it a matter of record."
"Then we request a meeting ourselves. Show we're taking it seriously."
"And say what? Deny everything?"
Silence on the line.
"We can't deny what someone heard," I say quietly. "We can only... explain. Somehow."
Bastien's phone buzzes. Then Raphael's—I hear the chime through the speaker.
A pause.
"Dubois," Raphael says. "She wants all three of us. Monday morning."
"Not Madeline?"
"Just us."
Bastien exhales slowly. "That's not a conversation about schedules."
"No," Raphael agrees. "It's not."
"What are they going to ask you?" My voice comes out smaller than I want it to.
"I don't know." Raphael sounds tired. "But if parents are complaining about the arrangement itself—about Madeline being shared between households—"
"Then they're going to suggest we don't need her anymore," Bastien finishes. "That the coordination has served its purpose. That we've learned to coparent just fine."
The words hang there.
That we don't need her anymore.
"They can't do that," I say, but even as I say it, I know they can. I'm an employee. A solution to a logistical problem. And if the school decides I'm causing more problems than I solve—
"They won't." Bastien's voice is sharp. Final. "Whatever Dubois says on Monday, whatever she suggests—it's not happening."
"We're not letting you go." Raphael's voice is steady. Certain. "That's not on the table."
My throat tightens.
"We'll figure it out," he continues. "The three of us. We'll talk to étienne, we'll go in there together, and we'll figure it out."
The call ends.
Bastien sets down his phone. Picks up his whiskey. Puts it down again without drinking.
"You should get some sleep," he says.
"So should you."
Later, I stand in the hallway outside the children's rooms. Luc's door cracked open, nightlight glowing soft against the walls. In the guest room, Sophie and Emma are tangled together—Sophie's arm thrown over Emma, both of them breathing slow and deep.
I think about the letters. About what the parents wrote. About how easy it would be for Dubois to solve everyone's problem by removing the common denominator.
Me.
Tomorrow Emma will wake up and ask for pancakes. Luc will slide a new drawing across the table without a word. Sophie will pretend she's too old for a morning hug and then linger at her door until I give her one anyway.
And I might not be able to tell them that I don't know how many tomorrows I have left.
I watch them until my vision blurs.
I don't know how much of their world we're about to break.
And for the first time since Paris started feeling like home…
I'm not sure I still belong in it.