XXIII

Below Sea Level

My mother calls to say that Poppy is not going to get any better. Before I can respond, she asks if Olivier and I are doing all right, why he never answers the phone at the new number I’ve given her. I make up an excuse because I can’t bear to tell her that I’ve left him. Can’t bear to hear her accusations that I’ve ruined my life, or worse, to hear her confirm that maybe I didn’t deserve it—that I have spit in the face of luck.

I buy a ticket back to New Orleans to visit my family. I spend the first few nights at my grandparents’ house. Poppy has taken a turn for the worse; he’s eighty-five years old, but he is aware that I am near him. I decide to sleep on the couch across the living room from his chair where he sleeps now sitting up.

It’s late when I finally convince my grandmother to go to bed. “Don’t forget to give him his medicine,” she tells me. “And if you can’t help him when he needs to get up and go to the bathroom . . . make sure you wake me up.”

I assure her that I’ll be fine. That I can get him water. Late into the night, I tell Poppy stories about France, and he asks me too many questions: How’s Laure? Is Olivier doing okay? He doesn’t go so far as to ask me why I left him—he knows without my having to tell him. In his drug-induced state (medicine for his congestive heart failure), he tells me how much he liked Olivier, even if he understands the sadness that seemed to weigh heavily on me the last few times I was home.

“I just want you to be happy. I’ve had a good life, and that’s all I want for my kids and grandkids. Happiness. How do you say that in French?” he asks.

Poppy finally dozes off, but the heavy wheezing keeps him from sleeping soundly. Every hour, I raise my head and open my eyes, trying to focus in on something familiar. I forget where I am, and then I make out my grandfather’s shape in his chair, wait to make sure he’s breathing, and then fall back asleep.

It’s strange being back, and I try to make up for lost time with my family, so I make the rounds, visit my great-aunt in the French Quarter, other aunts and uncles scattered throughout the city and beyond. And when my mother’s sister asks me to fly to Arkansas to house-sit and take care of my two teenage cousins, I don’t hesitate, even though I want to be by Poppy as much as possible.

It’s early evening when I arrive in Little Rock, so my aunt and uncle have already packed and are dressed, ready to go to my uncle’s medical fund-raising event. So they kiss me hello and good-bye and tell me the boys have eaten and are finishing homework. I take a tour of the grand house, a rambling five-thousand-plus-square-foot home at the end of Foxcroft Road. The guest bedroom has huge floor-to-ceiling windows that face the bed, so in the morning you wake to the trees pressed to the glass and the sound of the river just beyond. Wishing for a more intimate space, I go into the kitchen and make myself a sandwich, call my grandmother, who says Poppy’s asleep, not to worry.

Late in the evening, I take out my laptop and sit at the kitchen table and start writing, first a few lines of a poem and then longer paragraphs about Korea and Provence, recent conversations with Olivier. Pages and pages come to me. I write it all down, trying to make sense of some of it.

Before going to bed, I double-check all the locks, go upstairs and make sure the boys are in their beds, turn off the lights in my aunt and uncle’s bedroom. I have never slept well alone in new homes, even in familiar ones. I get a glass of water to take with me and see myself in the kitchen window, rippled from the reflection of the outdoor pool. I look exhausted. I check the locks again and lead Ben, the big Akita, to sleep on the floor next to my bed. I climb in and turn off the lights and wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.

Somewhere between a dream of Olivier’s voice and the memory of South Korea, the phone rings. I answer in French, “Allo, oui?”

“Kim Sunée? It’s Aunt Kim.” Her voice is calm and determined. She is my mother’s second youngest sister and my godmother.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“It’s one in the morning. I need the hotel where Aunt Patty is.” I know what she’s going to say, but my silence and hesitation make her speak. “Poppy died a few hours ago. In his sleep.”

I start to ask her a million questions: Are you sure? Where’s Grammy? Was he in pain? Where is everyone? But she wants me to concentrate on finding the hotel info so she can contact my other aunt.

After I give her the information and hang up, I am suddenly terrified of the silence and strangeness of my surroundings. I wrap the covers tightly around my body to keep myself grounded, but it seems that I am floating, suspended. I imagine my grandfather watching over me, and I see myself, alone in a strange bed in a city I don’t belong in, but mainly alone.

I want to talk to Olivier. I want to be in the safety of his world, where everything is planned and taken care of efficiently, the world effortlessly at his beck and call. Naively, I imagine that maybe he could have changed this moment, somehow helped my grandfather stay with us a bit longer. I get up and turn on all the lights, Ben following me as I go upstairs and make sure the boys are safe. I sit outside their bedroom door and, listening to the soft breathing, drift off to sleep in the hallway until morning comes.

The eight-hour drive from Little Rock to New Orleans with my aunt and uncle and cousins is mostly veiled in silence. We stop for a roadside lunch of meat loaf and mashed potatoes, but no one really wants to eat. I think of the time I visited Poppy, right after his stroke, and what I remember most is this: his untended garden and, later, his lost appetite. It should have been a clue, a sure sign that he was giving up.

At the funeral home, my sister seems confused at our arriving so soon, but she hugs me a little longer than usual. She looks professional in her black skirt and jacket, slim bare legs. She’s even taller in wedge heels, and her acute way of summing things up, adding and subtracting with such precision, still makes me feel inadequate and frivolous in her presence. Suddenly, I wish I had worn something less expensive, pulled my hair back into a tight neat ponytail.

My mother takes me in her arms. She’s pale and red-eyed. But as if realizing who I am again, she quickly disentangles herself from me, crosses her arms tightly across her chest, and looks through me with a gaze that’s older, weary. I spot my grandmother at the altar. She’s thin and pale, and her hair is dyed a terrific shade of gray violet.

“Oh, Grams,” I say with my hand clasped over my mouth before any other words slip out. I take her in my arms. She tries to smile, but two invisible strings tug down the corners of her lips.

“You must be tired.” She pushes me away but takes my hand firmly in hers. She seems disoriented as she tilts her head as if to make sure the words have come from her and not someone else. She leads me closer to the coffin, and there he is, her husband of fifty years, my grandfather of half that time, dressed in a blue suit with too much makeup on, lying peacefully in a box.

I had no idea this would be open casket. This is the first dead body I’ve ever seen. My grandmother keeps touching Poppy’s hand, arranging his tie, expecting him to respond. But he doesn’t, and I tell her that this is not my grandfather, it’s just a shell of his body. She pats his head, looks at him as if he is responding, telling her something only she can hear.

Family and friends take turns to pay their respects. People from my childhood. My mother nods at them, then twists her hands nervously. After several hours, we go back to my grandmother’s house, then to my parents’ home on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. My mother and sister and I gather on the big porch with the ceiling fan on high.

“Did you see him in the casket?” Suzy repeats over and over, taking my hand unexpectedly.

I want to talk about him, our Poppy. “I can’t believe he’s gone,” I blurt out.

“I know it’s hard, but you really weren’t here during most of the time he was sick,” my mother says. “If you had been, this wouldn’t be such a shock.”

“I know, but it’s still—”

It feels as though I’ve never left. I scoot down low in my chair, fan myself with the Living section of the Times. It’s so easy to be accused. So much easier than explaining things we don’t know how to articulate.

“Your grandmother was here, your sister . . . your father . . . I was here,” she continues, taking the paper from me and folding it precisely. “I’ve always been here.” She sounds as if she’s underwater now, her voice coming in thick waves.

My sister gets up, shaking her head. My mother starts sobbing, silently at first. I go to her, but she’s afraid to let me touch her, to take me in her arms. I’m so sorry for all of it, sorry for her father’s death, my grandfather. I’m sorry for Grammy, for not coming home sooner, for always being too much, and never enough.

The next day, my aunts and uncles and all of us gather together, and somehow we’ve managed to make food, a seafood mirliton casserole and a baking sheet of custard-thick bread pudding for my grandmother and visitors. The kitchen is filled with stale loaves of French bread, platters of dried-out finger sandwiches. I toss out the remaining crab shells, knowing this would break my grandfather’s heart.

“Oh, Kim Sunée,” Grammy says, and sighs, scooping out some pudding. She hugs me tightly, rocks me in her arms as if I were five again. “My little Kim. You were always older than your years.” I love my grandmother’s embrace, but my mother asks me to help out, so I go to pour glasses of wine, fruit punch for the younger cousins; I want to be useful.

All the familiar faces I haven’t seen in years make me dizzy with sadness. My grandmother’s friends asking if I’m engaged, why I haven’t been home in so long. They look at me as if I’m guilty, an impostor. I panic, regretting for an instant having left Olivier, the security of his world. I want him here, alive, touching me, guiding me gently through the questions. Proof that I have a life, a good life. I call him but get only the answering machine.

When all the guests have left, I find my mother and grandmother among the candles burnt to the wick, dried-out bread crusts, and a mass of arranged flowers. They’re sitting in the dark, at the kitchen table. My mother is drinking coffee from a doll set that Suzy and I used to play with. But the pieces are chipped and her thumb and forefinger too big. All around her are boxes, photos, and papers. Worn slippers, a broken music box, a tiny multistriped Korean kimono.

She pours me a cup of coffee. It’s tepid and bitter.

“There are some things you might want. Photos of your grandfather, some of your drawings, clothes, books. I’m getting rid of everything that weighs me down.”

I pick up a few pictures. There’s a photo dated 1975.

I’m sitting on my mother’s lap as Poppy scrutinizes my foot. He’s got a strange look on his face, tweezers in his hand. He keeps trying to take out the pieces, metal, glass, and needles. Everyone is staring at the foot except me. I’m staring straight at the camera, beyond, watching as they all look for something they can’t see. Do they want me to speak? Strange creature. They won’t ask me any more questions for now. “Just bootiful,” I always answer. And they smile, waiting anxiously for Poppy to dig it out—something tangible, proof, some sort of clue as to who I am.

I set it all down, the papers and folders, sweaters, and old dresses. My grandmother pulls out a stack of photos from when my grandparents came to visit me in France. “Here’s your grandfather toasting with Giselle; he loved Olivier’s mother,” she jokes.

“And here we are at Notre Dame.”

It was December in Paris, and my grandmother and great-aunt were shopping on the other bank. Poppy and I were on Île Saint-Louis, sitting behind Notre Dame, watching the river float away from us, commenting on the passersby.

My grandfather turned to me and said in all earnestness, “People are dying who have never died before. And,” he continued, looking at his crusty banded watch still set on a distant time zone, “all this time we’ve been sitting here and only two pregnant women.” He hoisted himself up from the bench, shaking his head. He held on to my arm as we crossed the bridge to the other island. “All this movement, all this life. I need something sweet.”

We walked a bit more and stopped at a confiserie, my grandfather tipping his hat as he crossed the threshold. “Bonjour, señor.”

We bought a box of dark chocolates, and with each bite of bitter sweetness, I knew this would be the last trip my grandfather would make to visit me across the ocean. The last time we’d take a high-speed train to the High Alps, where he’d wake up early in the Provençal morning and pick fresh figs, enjoying the coolness of the large stone house, waiting for the rest of us to wrest ourselves from sleep and dreams. It was the last time we’d walk together, laughing and crossing foreign streets, watching people, all the life that made him so hungry.

My sister offers to drive my grandmother home. We want her to stay with us, but she’s tired, she says, and needs some time alone.

I take a moment to call Olivier again.

“Are you all right? I’ve been waiting for you to call back. Are you at your mother’s? I don’t have her number anymore.”

“No, yes.”

“I’m so sorry. Laure sends her best, too.”

“Is she there? Can I talk to her?”

“She’s at her mother’s, but I talked to her earlier.” He hesitates. He has told me that Laure has good memories of me, and one day maybe we can see each other again, but not now. Not for a long time. “What can I do?”

Take me home, I want to say. Take me back. But I don’t. I bite my lip instead.

“Let’s talk when you get back. Call me or I’ll call you . . .”

“Maybe we could try to . . . I don’t know.” The tears come softly and fill up my mouth and throat. My mother’s not standing far, so I tell Olivier I’ll call him back.

“Yes, maybe we could . . . ,” I hear him say back. “Je t’embrasse.”

My mother blinks as if trying to focus. She pours more coffee, and I sit down and wait, mimic her gestures as we drink from china-doll cups, so fragile, in this quiet kitchen of the night. I need air, so I suggest that we go outside, sit on the back porch.

“There’s a nice breeze.” She nods, following me out. I pull up a rocking chair for her and sit on the swing.

“They’re evil,” she says, slapping her legs. “The mosquitoes this time of year.” She hums a tune that I vaguely remember from when we were children. And then she sets down her cup, leans urgently toward me. There’s something she’s thinking but hesitates to share.

“Kim, are you happy? So far away, from us, from me?” She sits back in her chair, a bit breathless. She closes her mouth, and I notice her skin falling in soft folds around her chin and cheeks. I nod. She smoothes her hand along her neck and face. “You’ll never have wrinkles like me. Asian skin doesn’t age like ours.”

I want to tell her so much, about leaving Olivier, my life in France, how difficult it is, that I’m not sure I made the right decision. I want to tell her about Flora and my friends Paolo and Gilles, Jan. Even about the unexpected desire I have to fall in love with someone my age, maybe think about a more stable future, words that I think she would want me to say. I want to reassure her, maybe reassure myself. But I don’t know where to start, if she can hear me.

“I worry,” she says timidly. “You may not believe it, but I do.”

“You don’t have to worry about me.”

There is a long silence, and then she asks, “Why don’t you and I go to counseling together?”

I try to explain to her about my sessions with Grignon, but she uses the words therapy and counseling as though they’re over-the-counter remedies for headache, muscle pain.

“You were so poised and calm,” she continues as if I weren’t even there. “When your father and I first saw you, we didn’t know we were going to take you with us. But you smiled and climbed in our laps, every day for a week.” My mother turns away, and I can see her body starting to shake, years and years of unsaid words, of unshed tears. “I just want to be friends,” she manages to whisper.

I shake my head. “Mom . . .”

She scoots down low in the rocker. She looks so small and frightened, I am suddenly filled with pity. The Spanish moss tosses in the breeze, and I remember that it’s a natural disease, the moss spreading in silence. I tell her this for no reason at all.

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” I tell her when she doesn’t answer. “And I don’t want to fly back across the ocean with hard feelings between us—”

She rocks back and forth abruptly, her face wet, flushed with sorrow. I want to go to her, take her in my arms, but she’s stiff and silent now except for the muffled tears.

“You should go now. It’s getting late,” she whispers, walking to the edge of the darkened porch. She lets me hug her. She’s brittle in my arms. I want to invite her to come and visit again, tell her something reassuring. “Your grandfather was happy you came home,” she whispers.

She is not really looking at me, but to the wind. I try to focus in on what she sees, eucalyptus and sycamore trees, Spanish moss bending gently in the breeze.

“It is a disease, you know . . . that Spanish moss,” she confirms. She reaches out for me after all these years, and I squeeze her trembling arm.

Yes, I nod, not knowing what else to say.

“Good-bye,” she says, talking no longer to me, but to the night, her hand reaching out as if she were losing sight, as if only the dark and intangible parts of the world could help us now.

For an instant, I realize how in some ways I do resemble her. I turn my face to the wind, try to see what she sees. Trees bending graciously in the breeze. Fractured light casting strange shadows on our hands and bodies. There are no more words for now, just little leaves inside of us, these good-bye branches.

On the flight back from New Orleans, all I can think of is how I wish I had spent more time with Poppy. I think of Flora and those I’ve left behind. Olivier. I want to see him, ask for forgiveness for leaving him. More than anything, I’m ready to find a place to call home. I want so much to talk to Olivier, to see him again.

The phone rings before I’ve even unlocked the door.

“Keem?”

“I was just about to call you. I have so much I want to talk to you about.”

“Me too. This is really important.” There’s a moment of hesitation, so unlike Olivier. “Have you been running?”

“Just got in from the airport.”

“How’s your family? Your grandmother? How are you?”

“Okay. Not really. I guess we’re as well as we can be. Poppy talked a lot about you right before . . . Listen, Olivier, can we meet? Soon?” Long pause.

“Of course. You need me right now, I know, but things are different.”

“I’m okay. I just need to see you . . . When I was in New Orleans, you said maybe . . . we could . . . try to see if maybe we could work things out. Remember?” There is silence. “Remember?”

“ Écoute. You left,” he says, raising his voice. “I gave you everything I thought you wanted, and now—”

“That you wanted,” I correct him, and regret it instantly. It seems later than it is. Six p.m. or a.m., I don’t know which, and my stomach is empty. I’m thirsty, too. I slip off my sandals and stretch my feet along the cold hardwood floor. “Let’s not have this same conversation. I want to start over, Olivier. You know I’ve always loved you. I didn’t know how to—”

“Keem, you just don’t live in this world, do you.”

“I hate when you tell me that—”

“Poetry. Images. Frozen forever. That’s what I love about you, even if . . .”

“It doesn’t matter. We’ve been separated long enough. If we still love—”

“I’ve met someone.” He pauses again. I don’t believe him. “A simple, sweet woman who’s not a threat to my heart.”

I hold the phone away from my ear.

“She’s an art teacher from Strasbourg.” He pauses, waiting for me to object, but I want to hear it all. “She knows everything,” he continues. “About how we met, how much I loved you, how much you hurt me, your need to leave . . . she accepts it all—”

“Olivier, stop it.”

“She’s my age. She understands what that means. Doesn’t want kids.” He pauses. “She’s not complicated. She knows where she comes from. I’m just asking that you free me.” I shake my head and cover my mouth to silence the tears. “So I can love someone else, just a little bit. Just a fraction of how much I loved you. Because you always said I loved you too much.”

“I can’t. During the whole flight back, I was thinking about how we’d get back—”

“She just wants to be happy—”

“Does she sleep in our bed, Olivier?” I really don’t want to know, but I’m suddenly angry and can’t help myself. “In our bed?”

“ Merde.”

I know this is our last chance. “Olivier, I just want to see you, in person. I’ve never asked you for anything.”

“That’s the problem. No, she never stays over here. I always meet her in Strasbourg . . . or elsewhere. Ça ne te regarde pas.” It’s none of your business.

“Please. Let’s meet tomorrow. Just this once.”

“It’s late. I’ve got to go now.”

“Will you call me later?”

“I can’t. I have a dinner.”

“With her?”

“I’ll try to call you from the mobile . . . to see when we can meet.”

“Tomorrow. Let’s say tomorrow. It’s important.”

“Okay. We’ll see. D’accord.”

I go to Jan’s to tell her the news that Olivier and I are going to see each other, maybe work things out. I try to sound hopeful and not desperate, even though I’m a bit of both and, more than anything, exhausted, disoriented.

“You haven’t slept, and you’ve just buried your grandfather; maybe you should just take some time . . . to take it all in.” She pours boiling water into a pot of daisylike blossoms of chamomile and leads me into the living room. She sets out two bowls and a pot of honey and motions for me to sit.

“I don’t have time,” I answer, not able to sit. “I’ve wasted so much of it already. I wish you could have met Olivier. You will . . . soon.”

She doesn’t say it. She doesn’t have to, but I know she doesn’t think it’s a good idea, this running over to meet him. But I have an adrenaline rush like never before. I pace around her apartment, trying not to think of Poppy, my family. Keep moving, I tell myself, keep moving, don’t stop, and maybe the world won’t come crashing down.

“I think you should get a good night’s sleep. I’ll make us some pasta. We’ll go for a swim in the morning, get back into this time zone before making any rash decisions.”

I want to tell her that maybe I should go back to my place, but the last thing I can bear is being alone.

At 8:30 a.m. Paris time, I’m still at Jan’s and it has been at least twenty-four hours since I’ve slept or eaten, even though Jan tried to tempt me with her homemade pumpkin soup. I’m shaky with jet lag and the excitement of reconciling with Olivier.

“Maybe you should wait to talk to Olivier again until you’ve slept,” Jan suggests.

“I have to go. He told me last night he’d meet with me.”

“He told you he’d call to set up a time,” she reminds me. “Let’s have some tea and baguette and think this through.”

But I’m already at the door, twisting my hands, running a brush through my hair one last time. “Wish me luck.”

I walk the twelve blocks or so from Mabillon to 40, rue du Bac. I spot the purple scooter immediately in the courtyard, and my heart fills, so happy to see that he’s home, just as he said he would be. I recognize the heavy linen curtains from our old apartment hanging from the third-floor windows. He’s home, alone, as promised. I let out a sigh. I am here to ask his forgiveness.

Since I forgot to bring the door code with me, I can’t enter the building. I wait: 8:45, 9:00, 9:15. The clock in the entrance clicks away. Finally, a woman comes out of the building, and I enter. I find the initials OB and ring. I hear a bell sound several floors up, followed by a dog bark. I ring again. Barking. Ring, bark, ring, bark. Could it be coming from his place? Our dogs are in Provence.

There’s a second door that leads into the building, so I must wait. I wait. Suddenly I wish I had slept, but this rush of adrenaline keeps me going. Twenty minutes pass, and a woman finally exits. I slip in. My heart races. I feel like a bank robber, a jewel thief. I am filled with anticipation. I can’t remember now if he’s on the third floor, French, or fourth floor. I’ve been here only twice, and all the doors are the same.

I knock softly on the first door, and a small, toothless man opens, wearing a golden Hermès bathrobe. I excuse myself and knock on the door across the way. For some reason, I hold my palm over the keyhole. Why? In case that woman from Strasbourg or, worse, some one-night stand appears? No woman comes. Olivier flings open the door, furious. I have never seen such rage in his eyes. His hair is sticking up, and his face is puffy with sleep. He’s wearing a pair of navy Gap shorts and a New Orleans Jazz Fest T-shirt. I know immediately that he’s not alone. I try to force my way in. He grabs a cocker spaniel that barks at me.

“Whose dog is that?” I ask.

He grabs it and shoves it back into the apartment. He slams the door and starts making his way down the stairs, forcing me to go down backward.

“You lied!” I scream. “You lied! I knew it. You said she never sleeps here. I knew you weren’t alone. I only came to find out the truth!”

All I want is for him to hold me. We stand there staring at each other.

“You have no right to come here, no matter what I tell you . . . no right.”

“But you said we could see each other today, talk, maybe . . . maybe get back together,” I whisper.

“I said that last night. But you have no right.”

“Liar!” I scream. I can’t help but shout, then a sound I don’t recognize comes from deep inside, as if someone is gutting me.

He grabs my shoulders and shoves me hard toward the entrance, surprised by his own force. “You haven’t slept, have you,” he says, stopping for a moment, about to caress my head. He leans so close, I think he’s going to take me in his arms. “And I know you miss your Poppy. You’re not in a good state right now.” Then, just in case I might have misunderstood these words or his gestures for anything else, he adds, “You really need to leave.”

“I’m gone,” I tell him. “You’ll never see me again.”

“Vas-y!” he screams back, gesturing with his hands as if pushing me away. “I’ll never have to think about you again. Plus jamais.”

I try to touch him, go for his heart. I want to puncture it. He grabs my wrists, squeezes them as hard as he can. He looks down at his hands. “What am I doing?”

We have lost control of everything. Someone rushes past us and up into the stairway, reprimanding us in French. Olivier throws us out into the first building and stands there sobbing, shaking his head. The dog barks in the distance. I want to kill the dog, kill myself. I pound the glass as he rushes to the stairs and disappears into the dark stairwell.

I don’t really know where I am. I try to see what time it is. The vintage Cartier watch Olivier gave me years ago is dangling off my wrist, he ripped the band, and this makes me smile for some stupid reason. We have just battled it out, and I am the loser. What if Poppy could see me? Is this the happiness he wished for his kids and grandchildren? I start laughing, then sobbing so hard that my body begins to shake.

I start to walk, slowly, trying to figure out what time it is. My watch reads 2:20 a.m. What time is it in Tunisia, New Orleans, six feet under? I don’t remember the last time I ate or slept. I stumble into a café and ask for napkins and some change. My wrists are scratched and bleeding. I go down by the toilettes and dial Grignon’s phone number. The instant I hear his voice, I start crying again. I start to hyperventilate.

“You’re twenty minutes late for your session.”

This makes me cry even harder, and he tells me to come at 2:00 in the afternoon.

I order some coffee and ask the time again, but every answer seems like a lie. I’m exhausted, hungry, but I can’t eat. I keep touching my arms and wrists, the exact places where Olivier touched me, amazed at the bruises and wounds already beginning to form.

At 1:55 p.m. when I arrive at Grignon’s office, I’ve been walking around the city for five hours with swollen eyes, crying on and off. What will I tell him? I don’t think I’m depressed—nothing matters when you’re depressed. I am immeasurably sad; and in sadness, everything seems to matter.

“I don’t want to lie down on the couch,” I tell him when I arrive. “I’m scared.” But I can’t face Grignon, so I lie down. It feels good to stretch out. I close my eyes. I hold my breath, knowing that if I were to die, this would be the best thing, the best place, the best time. I don’t know how many minutes pass. Three or fifteen or two hours. I start to breathe normally, realize I’m alive, and slowly begin to cry again.

“Tell me,” he says softly.

I can’t catch my breath, and every time I try to speak, only sobs. I can’t stop myself. “I—I went to see him,” I say finally. “He told me we could see each other this afternoon, and I went early. I know I shouldn’t have. And he was enraged, came flying down the steps like a madman . . . he was furious. But he lied. He said she never stayed there.” I recount the whole bloody scene, the vulgar names he called me, and the fury . . . the moment we almost embraced, but how he grabbed my wrists instead. I lift my arms above my head so he can see the bruises.

“Why did you go?” Grignon asks.

I shake my head, and tears stream down my cheeks. “The men. I’ve made such a fool of myself. Je suis ridicule.”

“Est-ce que vous vous êtes respectée?” The question is, did you respect yourself?

I shake my head. Bien sûr que non. Self-respect has not been on my agenda lately.

I make another hasty decision to no longer see Grignon, because unjustly, secretly, I want to blame him for letting me leave Olivier, stumble into relationships with men like Jean-Pierre, for not telling me how to live my life, for not giving me the secret ingredient for happiness.

But one day I wake up, panicked. I pull on yoga pants, running shoes, and an oversize sweater, and pull my hair into a sloppy ponytail. I call Grignon, not knowing what time or day it is.

“I need to see you,” I tell him. His voice is slow and soft, so I know he’s in a session. “It’s urgent,” I say, wanting to shake him out of the trance.

“Très bien, venez à neuf heures.”

At 8:44 a.m., I’m standing at 248, boulevard Raspail, counting down the minutes before my time.

When Grignon opens the door, he makes a point to look down at my shoes, up at my hair. I nod, as if to say “I know I never go out looking like this.” I pace back and forth a couple of times before making my way toward the divan, but Grignon gestures for me to sit across from him. It’s the first time we will sit face-to-face.

“Dites. Racontez-moi.” Tell me, he says gently.

It has been years, and here I am face-to-face with myself, this voice that won’t give me the simple recipe to a nice life, write me the happy ending. I’m breathless. I stand up again, ready to bolt.

“Mais où allez-vous?” he asks, wanting to know where I’m going. I go toward him and throw 300 francs in his lap, ready to storm out. Any other time, he would have let me, but he stops me, repeating softly, “Mais où allez-vous?”

I turn around. “Why don’t you tell me. Tell me where it is I’m going.”

He gestures for me to sit again. I stand for a moment, looking down at my tightly laced running shoes. A standstill. Why am I so stubborn? Where do I think I’m going? I look up, and he is standing now, still, arms by his side, a smile, not mocking or laughing, just the gentlest look in his eyes to tell me everything’s going to be okay.

I realize I have no idea where it is I think I’m running to, not now, not all these years. My voice is crowded out with tears, years and years of tears that have built up. I hate myself for this weakness, this indulgence, but it feels good, primal. Grignon gestures to a box of Kleenex, and I take a handful, thankful and obedient.

I am grateful that he knows, unlike other men in my life, that I want to be stopped from leaving. Even though I am always ready for a fight, so stubborn that I will shoot myself in the foot, my pride will make me go away to nowhere in particular just to make a statement—to say that I’m strong, independent. In another language, these words would mean something else, convey what I truly am: a loner, lonesome, and irreversibly heartbroken.

“I’ll see you on Wednesday,” Grignon says slowly, cheerfully, making sure I hear him. “Wednesday.”

I nod, whisper, “Mercredi,” and, “Merci,” before I rush out into the street, back into the world. I will be back, but it is only a matter of time before I am ready to leave France, leave behind ten years in a country where I have mastered another language of survival.