Chương 8
Claire went silent.
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
“Of course he did.”
“What does Alain know?”
Another silence.
This one lasted longer.
“Claire.”
“I don’t know.”
“Marc says he met him.”
“I know.”
Mathilde stopped walking.
“You knew that?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“A week ago.”
Anger rose immediately.
“You told me he contacted Julien.”
“He did.”
“You did not tell me he met Alain.”
“I didn’t know whether it mattered.”
“You are doing it too.”
Claire inhaled sharply.
“What?”
“Deciding what I need to know.”
The line went quiet.
Mathilde could hear a bus braking somewhere on Claire’s end.
“You’re right,” Claire said.
The absence of defense took some of the force out of Mathilde’s anger.
“I’m sorry.”
Mathilde leaned against the hospital corridor wall.
“What happened?”
“Marc found Alain through Julien.”
“And?”
“Alain agreed to meet him.”
“Where?”
“A café outside Lyon.”
Mathilde closed her eyes.
Marc had traveled to Lyon.
He had gone far enough that the trip itself required planning.
He had arranged transportation, time away, lies.
“What did Marc tell me he was doing that day?”
“I don’t know.”
Mathilde knew.
He had said he was attending a supplier meeting outside Paris.
He had sent her a picture of a train station coffee and complained about the price.
The ordinariness of the lie made her feel sick.
“What did Alain tell him?”
“Marc wouldn’t say.”
“You didn’t ask?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“He told me I had caused enough damage already.”
Mathilde looked through the glass panel in the corridor door.
An orderly wheeled an empty bed past.
“Did that make sense to you?”
“No.”
“Then why did you stop?”
Claire’s voice grew quieter.
“Because he sounded exactly like he did after Elise died.”
Mathilde said nothing.
“He told me then that I had filled Elise’s head with the idea that adults were failing her.”
Claire paused.
“He blamed me for making her suspicious of her parents.”
“That sounds convenient.”
“It was.”
“Did you believe him?”
“For a long time.”
Mathilde heard shame in the answer.
Not theatrical shame.
Old shame.
The kind that had grown roots.
“Why?”
“Because I was seventeen too.”
Claire gave a dry, broken laugh.
“At seventeen, if someone’s family tells you that you made everything worse, you believe them more easily than you should.”
Mathilde thought of Ines.
“What was in the letters that Marc is afraid of?”
“I’m not sure he’s afraid of the letters.”
“What is he afraid of?”
“Being contradicted.”
Mathilde pushed away from the wall.
“By whom?”
“Alain.”
That answer pulled her up short.
“What did Marc believe about Elise’s illness?”
Claire hesitated.
“That she inherited it from Alain’s family.”
“We know there were problems in that family.”
“Yes.”
“Then what could Alain contradict?”
“I don’t know.”
“Claire.”
“I truly don’t.”
Mathilde rubbed her forehead.
“Then what do you know?”
Claire exhaled.
“Elise’s mother once told me that doctors had found more than one issue.”
“What does that mean?”
“She had obstruction, infections, kidney damage.”
“That sounds consistent.”
“It is.”
“But?”
“But her mother also said there was something about medication.”
Mathilde went still.
“What medication?”
“I don’t know.”
“Prescription?”
“I think so.”
“For Elise?”
Claire was silent.
“Claire.”
“No.”
Mathilde felt the corridor narrow around her.
“Whose was it?”
“I never knew.”
A door opened down the hall.
Two medical students came out talking quietly.
Mathilde turned away from them.
“Are you saying somebody gave Elise medication that wasn’t prescribed to her?”
“I’m saying I heard her mother say the medication wasn’t meant for Elise.”
“When?”
“After the funeral.”
“Why didn’t you tell Marc?”
“I did.”
Mathilde closed her eyes.
“And?”
“He told me I was lying.”
Of course.
“What kind of medication?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could it have caused what happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did the doctors know?”
“I don’t know.”
Each answer was infuriating and, for once, honest.
Mathilde sat on a plastic chair near the elevators.
“Did Elise mention it in the letters?”
“One letter says her father gave her pills because he thought the doctors were overcomplicating things.”
Mathilde’s stomach turned.
“What pills?”
“She didn’t name them.”
“Did she say what they were supposed to do?”
Claire’s voice became thinner.
“She wrote that he said they would help with the pain and help her sleep.”
Mathilde stared at the floor.
The hospital tiles formed a pattern of pale gray squares.
“Was that before she collapsed?”
“Yes.”
“How long before?”
“About two weeks.”
Mathilde thought of Marc telling Ines to take ibuprofen and use a heating pad.
The similarity was not exact.
That almost made it worse.
Patterns did not need to repeat perfectly to be patterns.
“Claire, bring me copies of those letters.”
“Not all of them.”
“What?”
“Only the pages that contain medical information.”
Claire was quiet.
Then she said, “That’s fair.”
“And don’t tell Marc.”
Mathilde heard herself and stopped.
“No.”
“Mathilde?”
“Tell him if you need to.”
She closed her eyes.
“I’m done building truth through secret alliances.”
Claire did not answer immediately.
“Okay.”
When the call ended, Mathilde sat for several minutes without moving.
She wanted to call Marc.
She wanted to demand the full story.
She wanted to hear him explain Alain, the medication, the trip to Lyon, all of it.
But every conversation with Marc had become a contest over sequence.
He always wanted to reveal one thing before someone else revealed another.
He wanted context first, then evidence, then forgiveness for how context had shaped the evidence.
Mathilde no longer trusted the order he chose.
Ines returned just after ten.
She looked exhausted.
Mathilde helped her settle back into bed.
“How was it?”
“Boring.”
“That’s good.”
“They made me lie still forever.”
“You survived.”
“Barely.”
Mathilde handed her the apple juice.
Ines took a sip.
“Did you call him?”
“No.”
“You wanted to.”
“Yes.”
Ines looked at her over the carton.
“You’re getting better at saying yes.”
Mathilde smiled despite herself.
“So are you.”
The smile faded from Ines’s face.
“Mom.”
“Yes?”
May you like
“What if Dad comes here anyway?”
Mathilde looked toward the door.
