-Sophie-
Shaking, shaking, I must stop shaking. But how, how can I when it’s here, it’s here, it’s finally happened. And oh God, the bile, the bile that’s in my throat. I haven’t felt this since, well of course, since it happened. I think I’m going to be sick. Eurgh-gh-gh! There we go. But what. What what what am I supposed to do now? This Ellie, she knows, she’s got my phone number, God knows how. And she’ll come here, with my son, this ‘Will’, Guillaume. And I’ll be face to face with the guilt and the shame and the horror of it all over again. And they’ll look with these accusing accusing stares, and Alain, Alain will happen to be here because life, it’s shitty like that. And even if they don’t accuse me of the worst crime a mother can commit, Alain will know that I have lied to him. That the life that I have created is a lie, that our engagement is a lie, our future is a lie. Why bother arguing the ‘woman of the moment’ idea? That I just am what I am in this moment. How easy would it be then for Alain to say oui, moi aussi, je veux vivre dans l’instant, mais l’instant, c’est parti. And he will be right. The moment, our present, it will have gone, and I will have to go too.
But worse, worse than all that. I will have to see Guillaume’s face. And I cannot cannot cannot do that. Particularly not now, now that he may well resemble Max. I will come face to face with all that has been, all that can no longer be. With the horror of the moment, not this moment I am in with Alain, but that other moment. And again, again I wish we had not argued that evening. Wish I had not snapped. Wish I could undo all that cannot be undone.
Except Alain. I don’t want to have to undo Alain. Undo this. The ring on my finger. The smile I had until even two minutes ago on my face. They are mine. I have as much right to them as anyone else. I do. I have told myself this and I must believe it. Even the worst criminal, when they have served their time, repented, deserves a second chance. But have I even served my time? Have I even repented? Is this what must happen now, when I see him, both of them, here in this apartment?
So what do I have to do now? Do I have to run? Do I go again to Bois de Boulogne? Or do I leave Paris entirely? Start again, again?
Oh, and the shaking, it has returned. I must sit, I must sit on the floor. I cannot go, I cannot start again. I must stay here and I must hope, I must hope that the Channel, it will be my moat and this Ellie, and this Will, they will not cross it. If they can find me here, then fine, I will move in with Alain. And the phone, it can ring and ring and ring but the mother of Will and the wife of Max won’t answer it. For she is not that now. She is the wife-to-be of Alain, the stepmother-to-be of Matthieu. She will not be confronted with the horror of the past. She will not, she will not, she will not. Because then the horror wouldn’t be in the past. It would be here, with me, again. And this time I may not be able to escape.