Maggie traces the blue-and-white fleur-de-lis tattoo on Gabriel’s biceps with the tip of her finger. She imagines that making love with him now, as a woman, will be very different than it was when they were young. Their tender, tentative adolescent lovemaking—as well as the last few years of perfunctory sex with Roland—have taught her very little about sex or even about how to be in her body. Sex with Gabriel now, she fantasizes, will be more mature and free.
But not yet. This time she’s waiting. Out of respect for Roland and a healthy fear of repeating past mistakes, she’s told Gabriel she won’t sleep with him until they’re sure they want to make a commitment.
“When did you get this?” she asks him about the tattoo.
They’re at his friend’s bachelor apartment on Papineau. There are beer bottles and ashtrays everywhere, mice scurrying boldly across the linoleum and gusts of wind rattling the drafty windows. The friend who rents the place is never around. Maggie suspects he keeps it for sleeping with women who are not his wife. Gabriel says it’s nothing like that, but never elaborates.
“Couple of years ago,” he says. “Do you know what the fleur-de-lis stands for?”
“It’s on the Quebec flag.”
“It was the first provincial flag in Canada,” he says. “One of the few good things Duplessis accomplished.”
“So you had it tattooed on you?”
“It’s meaningful to me,” he says. “It was from a banner that was carried by Montcalm’s French-Canadian soldiers at the victory of Carillon.” He lights a cigarette and picks up an ashtray from the floor. “You probably can’t understand.”
After a long silence, she says, “You still haven’t really forgiven me, have you?”
“Forgiven you for what?” he asks.
“For ending it the way I did.”
“We were teenagers.”
“What if we’d stayed together?”
“It would never have worked then,” he says dismissively.
“Maybe this would have been enough,” she murmurs, snuggling closer to him.
“Meeting secretly in this dump?”
“Being together.”
“You’re too much of a romantic.”
“Am I?” she says. “What is this to you then?”
“I don’t know. Me trying to have sex with you.”
She playfully punches his shoulder.
“And to you?” he asks her.
“I’m hoping it’s a second chance for us,” she admits.
He runs his hand along her hair and then lets it drop back to his lap. “We’re both married, Maggie. Is the future really an option for us anymore?”
“If it isn’t, why are you here with me?”
“I told you. I want to sleep with you.”
“And if I don’t?”
Gabriel sighs, exhaling at the same time. “I honestly don’t know,” he tells her. “But I like being with you. It’s easy. You know me.”
“Doesn’t your wife?”
He shrugs. “It’s different. She knows part of me. The man I became when I moved here for good.”
“And who is the Gabriel I know?”
“The insecure boy who pulled a knife on a couple of thugs,” he says. “The farmer’s son. The kid who fell in love with an English girl who ended up breaking his heart.”
She reaches out and touches his face.
“But you made the choice for us, Maggie, and it wasn’t me.”
She turns her head away, unable to look him in the eyes. It’s on the tip of her tongue to blurt out that it was her parents who made the choice for her, her father. But then she’d have to tell Gabriel about the baby and she’s not ready for that conversation.
“Anyway,” he says, “it’s the best life for you.”
“What is?”
“His life. The one you’re living.”
“Who? Roland’s?”
“Your father’s.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“He always had you brainwashed, Maggie.”
“My mother used to say the same thing.”
“You couldn’t have it all, I guess,” he says, his tone lighter. “The big house, the banker, your old man’s approval, and me.”
“That’s mean,” she says, standing up to leave.
He grabs her arm, pulls her back down on the couch, and straddles her. She can feel his erection and it makes her weak. “Do we have to talk so much?” he asks, his breath warm against her neck. “Let’s just stop talking. It only causes problems.”
He kisses her on the lips and the hairs on her body stand up. She tickles his back under his flannel shirt, remembering that first time in the cornfield when he was just a boy. The sweat on his tanned skin, the way his ribs stuck out, the cocky way he would strut up and down those stalks. And now here he is with that same lean, strong back and the same erratic temperament that never could manage to conceal his inner struggle between pride and vulnerability, between who he was and who he aspired to be. That’s what he meant when he told her she was the only one who really knew him.
“Let’s just enjoy this moment together,” he whispers.
“You mean have sex.”
“Of course.”
How can she enjoy their time together when her mind keeps leaping forward, strategizing and fantasizing, greedily wanting all of him? She dreads having to go home to Roland and his crusade to get her pregnant; to all the pretending and politeness, the smiling and fakeness. Gabriel is real; she wants their relationship to be real. She has no interest in embarking on some kind of illicit affair, filled with secrecy and guilt and uncertainty. She can’t stand the thought of him returning home to Annie tonight, sleeping beside her, talking intimately the way couples do. She wonders how often he makes love to Annie and if he enjoys it, and it’s killing her not to ask him.
He kisses her neck and she lets out a small cry.
“What now?” she murmurs, but he doesn’t answer.