Chương 12
Ines sat up straighter.
“Why would her mother do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Marc know about the letter?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Before he went to the hospital with Ines.”
Mathilde felt the room go silent around her.
Even the distant hallway noise seemed to recede.
“How long before?”
“About two months.”
Mathilde lowered the phone slightly.
That meant Marc’s panic had not started with Ines’s appointment.
He had been living with new information about Elise before Ines called him from school.
He had already been primed to see a hospital as a threat.
“Claire gave him the letter?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She wanted his help understanding it.”
“Did he help?”
“No.”
“What did he do?”
“He became angry.”
Alain’s voice remained flat.
“He accused her of reopening things that should stay buried.”
Ines looked at Mathilde.
Mathilde could see the question forming.
“Why did Claire suddenly reopen it?”
Alain answered after a pause.
“Because Elise’s mother died last year.”
Mathilde felt the chain click into place.
A death.
Old belongings.
Old letters.
A name.
A search.
Not fate.
Just unfinished history becoming accessible because the last person guarding it was gone.
“Did Claire inherit the papers?”
“Some of them.”
“Medical records?”
“Copies.”
“Did you see them?”
“A few.”
“What do they show?”
“I am not qualified to interpret medical records.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Alain sighed.
“They show that Elise was seen by doctors more often than Claire believed.”
Ines frowned.
“So she did get treatment?”
“She did.”
“Then why did everyone say she was ignored?”
Alain was quiet.
“Because being taken to doctors and being believed are not always the same thing.”
Ines leaned back.
Mathilde felt that sentence settle heavily.
Alain continued.
“Her father appears to have minimized symptoms at some visits.”
“Appears?”
“That is what the notes say.”
“And her mother?”
“Sometimes she pushed for more testing.”
“Sometimes?”
“Yes.”
Mathilde rubbed her forehead.
“So this family story everyone has been carrying around for thirty years is not even one story.”
“No.”
Alain’s answer came immediately.
“Families rarely are.”
Ines looked at Mathilde with a tired expression that said she had already learned enough about that.
“Why did Claire lie about going with Marc to meet you?” Mathilde asked.
“I cannot answer for her.”
“Did they argue?”
“Yes.”
“About what?”
“About me.”
Mathilde frowned.
“You?”
“Claire believed I had abandoned Elise.”
“Had you?”
Alain did not answer quickly.
“I did not know Elise was my daughter until after she died.”
Ines whispered, “Oh.”
Mathilde sat down.
“How is that possible?”
“Elise’s mother never told me.”
“Why?”
“I was engaged to someone else when we had the relationship.”
His voice contained no self-pity.
“She married Marc’s father soon afterward.”
“Did he know Elise wasn’t his?”
“I believe so.”
“And he raised her anyway.”
“Yes.”
Mathilde thought about the man Marc had described with such contempt.
A cruel father.
A controlling father.
A father who dismissed pain.
Now there was another fact sitting beside those.
He had raised a child who was not biologically his.
Human beings refused to become clean categories no matter how desperately people needed them to.
“What happened when you found out?”
“Her mother called me after the funeral.”
Alain’s voice roughened.
“She said Elise was mine.”
“Why tell you then?”
“I asked her that.”
“What did she say?”
“That she could not carry it anymore.”
Mathilde closed her eyes.
There were too many adults in this story deciding when truth became unbearable enough to hand to someone else.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing useful.”
Alain paused.
“I drank for a while.”
The bluntness caught Mathilde off guard.
“I divorced.”
Another pause.
“I spent several years pretending none of it concerned me because I had not known.”
Ines spoke softly.
“Did that work?”
Alain gave a short laugh without humor.
“No.”
For a moment, nobody said anything.
Then Mathilde asked, “Why did you meet Marc?”
“Because he called me and said his daughter might have the same condition.”
“You had medical information he needed.”
“I had fragments.”
“Did you give them to him?”
“Yes.”
“All of them?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because he was not asking like a father trying to help his child.”
Mathilde felt herself go still.
“How was he asking?”
“Like a defendant.”
The word landed with brutal precision.
Ines looked at Mathilde.
Alain continued.
“He kept asking what could be proved.”
“Proved about what?”
“Whether Elise’s condition was hereditary.”
“Why would that matter to him?”
“I asked him.”
“And?”
“He said if it was hereditary, then he could not have caused Ines’s delay to matter.”
Mathilde stopped breathing for a second.
Ines’s face changed.
Not shock.
Something quieter and worse.
“He said that?”
Mathilde asked.
“Yes.”
“Exactly?”
“Not exactly those words.”
Alain’s tone sharpened slightly.
“I am giving you the meaning, not pretending I remember every syllable.”
Mathilde appreciated him for that and hated the meaning anyway.
“So he wanted biology to excuse timing.”
“Yes.”
Ines looked down at her hands.
Mathilde wanted to touch her but did not.
“Did Claire hear him say that?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did she keep helping him?”
Alain was silent.
“Mr. Perrin.”
“Because Claire has spent most of her adult life believing she failed Elise.”
Mathilde frowned.
“She was seventeen.”
“I know.”
“Then why would she think that?”
“Because Elise asked her to tell someone what was happening at home.”
Ines looked up.
“What was happening?”
Alain hesitated.
“You said you would warn us if something was not appropriate,” Mathilde said.
“Yes.”
“Is this one of those things?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer frightened her.
Ines spoke.
“Was she being hurt?”
Alain inhaled slowly.
“Not in the way I think you mean.”
“Then how?”
“Her parents were fighting constantly about her illness.”
He paused.
“Her father believed her mother was encouraging the symptoms.”
“Like Dad said Mom would do with me,” Ines said.
Mathilde’s throat tightened.
Alain continued.
“Her mother sometimes hid appointments from him.”
Mathilde stared at the phone.
May you like
The parallel was becoming unbearable.
“Claire knew?”
