46. Back to Life
Alexander
I take the news in stride.
Thanks to the work I’ve been doing on myself, my career is no longer my sole priority. I no longer measure my personal worth exclusively through professional success.
Little by little, I’m realizing how much pressure I had put on MatchMapping.
It was as if I needed to prove something—to my family, to the world, to myself.
I do love my work, that much is true, but I had become a slave to the validation it gave me.
My relationship with Kristel didn’t provide the fulfillment I was hoping for, so instead of ending it, I drowned myself in work. As if extra hours could fill the void.
Since then, I’ve decided to strike a better balance between my professional and personal life.
I leave the office at exactly 6 p.m., no matter how much work remains. Even if there’s no one waiting for me at home in the evenings, I take the time to cook, to read, to find new activities.
Among them, my favorite has become restoring the canvases I’ve salvaged from trash bins.
After showing them to experts, I followed their advice. I learned the techniques: removing staples without tearing the fabric, humidifying to relax the fibers, flattening under weight, mounting onto a new support, then stretching again. Precision work—one mistake, and everything is ruined.
“Ouch!” I shout, smacking my finger for the fifth time.
Oliver laughs, savoring my thirty-year-old whisky, comfortably settled on my couch.
“If someone had told me that you—the clumsiest guy I know—would one day take up manual work, I never would’ve believed it.”
“Maybe,” I reply, “but I did a good job.”
He smiles, raises his glass in my direction, his gaze warm with affection.
“Yes. You did a good job.”
Hearing him admit it feels good, even if, in the end, I didn’t accomplish anything extraordinary. I just saved a few canvases that were headed for the landfill.
But what I did, I’m proud of it.
*
The following Saturday morning, I ring the doorbell of a modest apartment in the 20th arrondissement.
A young woman appears in the doorway. She must be around Sam’s age—twenty-three, maybe twenty-four. She radiates a quiet gentleness that immediately puts me at ease.
“Hello, Miss Rain?”
“Please, call me Lucile. Come in.”
She steps aside to let me in and closes the door behind us.
Her studio smells of turpentine and oil paint. Everywhere, canvases in various stages of restoration, jars of varnish, brushes soaking in glass containers. An organized chaos.
I set my load down on the table.
She unwraps the package carefully, examines each canvas in silence. Then she nods, satisfied.
“Excellent work. The flaws are barely visible. You can come pick them up in two weeks.”
*
When I return two weeks later, I’m blown away by the result.
Lucile has filled in the missing sections, restored the most damaged areas. It’s almost impossible to tell that these paintings were once abused, crumpled, thrown away. They’ve been given a second life.
I pay her the agreed amount and add extra.
“That’s too much,” she protests.
“No,” I say simply. “You deserve it.”
*
I then head to Sam’s place.
My heart beats a little faster as I climb the stairs. I didn’t warn her I was coming, and it’s the first time I’ve seen her since our breakup three months ago.
She’s surprised to see me, but she invites me in anyway. Her gaze drifts toward what I’m carrying, curious, though she doesn’t say a word.
I greet the Lacroix sisters, who give me curious looks as well.
I hand the package to Sam.
Intrigued, she opens it. Pulls away the kraft paper. Then freezes.
Her eyes widen. She recognizes her paintings.
Silence. Long. Heavy.
Then her eyes fill with tears.
“But… how?”
“I found them the night you threw them away.”
My voice is soft, a little hesitant.
“I couldn’t leave them there. I restored them with the help of a fifth-year heritage restoration student.”
She runs her fingers over the surface of the canvases, incredulous, as if afraid they might disappear beneath her touch.
Her emotion tightens my chest.
If only she knew. There’s so much I want to tell her.
But words aren’t enough anymore.
Only time and my actions will show what I’ve truly learned.
For now, seeing her happy is enough.