Her mother was right. Well, partly. Laura remembered their conversation over lunch.
‘Are you sure you don’t want more than a salad, dear?’ her mother had asked. ‘My treat.’
‘No, I’m not hungry,’ she’d replied, thinking that eating lunch with Noreen in The Ivory was not her idea of a treat. Or anywhere else for that matter. It inevitably meant being subjected to jibes about being overweight, or “obese”, if Noreen was to be believed.
‘At least there’s a silver lining in all this,’ her mother had commented, smiling at her beatifically.
‘In all what?’ Laura had asked, staring at her blankly, her eyebrows pinching into a frown.
‘You know, your near-death experience,’ she’d continued. ‘You’ve lost tonnes of weight.’ Laura had choked on a cherry tomato.
Looking down and appraising her tummy now, Laura realized she had indeed lost several pounds. She didn’t feel good for it, though.
Her eyelids felt heavy and her body cried out with exhaustion. But as always when she tried to get to sleep, images flashed in front of her eyes – even as she squeezed them shut – a series of film-like stills of people frozen in the strobe lights as they ran for their lives in every direction while she stood rooted to the spot, compelled to watch the slideshow. She could hear the rapid gunfire, smell the stench of fear. Above all, she could clearly see the face of the Frenchman who had saved her life.
And then lost his.
Chapter 4
5 MONTHS AFTER
Sandrine
Sandrine slid the snapshot out from under the book in the drawer of the coffee table and stared into her dead son’s round face. He was looking directly at the camera, his eyes the same colour as Sam’s, hazel with green tinges that flashed wildly whenever he was angry or sad. She stroked Antoine’s cheek with her forefinger as she sat on the sofa, a solitary tear plopping onto the photo in her lap as her son grinned up at her. He still had braces on his teeth then. He must have been about fifteen. Only four short years of his life left, although no one could have predicted that at the time.
Sandrine had photos of Antoine hidden everywhere, although Sam – in one of the rare moments when they’d talked about what it meant to have lost Antoine that way – had asked her to take them all down. It was easier for him, he’d said, not to have a constant reminder.
Sandrine saw her son everywhere, even without the photos. She imagined him lounging in front of the television or sitting on the empty chair next to Maxime at the kitchen table. When she closed her eyes, she could visualize him so clearly it was as if his image was printed on the insides of her eyelids.
She was sure the same thoughts and images went through Sam’s head as hers. Identical memories of their son. The first time Antoine managed to swim a whole length of the pool, when he broke his arm falling from a swing, his first medal at judo, the afternoon the boys had all fished together in their grandfather’s pond in Brittany and Antoine was the only one to catch any trout, the day they realized he was taller than Sam … Memories that would forever more be bittersweet.
Sometimes, when she and Sam were sitting across the kitchen table from each other or next to each other on the sofa, they were so close she could reach out and touch him. And yet, the distance between them seemed too far to travel. They blamed themselves and each other, wondering what they would do differently if they could go back in time. They couldn’t talk about it. They couldn’t find the words. And so they barely spoke to each other, even though they both knew that saying the wrong thing was better than saying nothing at all. What was left unsaid loomed large in the small space between them, making the air rancid with resentment and reproach. They were each alone in their grief.
Since it had happened five months ago, Sandrine struggled to keep afloat as every day more waves of sorrow broke over her. She had so many regrets. She wished she’d been a better mother. If only she’d paid more attention to her son. She hadn’t known anything about his plans for that evening, although that wouldn’t have changed anything. Even if she’d asked him where he was going and he’d told her, she wouldn’t have stopped him. She couldn’t have foreseen the danger. Could she?
She hadn’t seen Antoine that day. For once, he’d left the house before she got up. She knew he’d had breakfast – he’d unloaded the dishwasher and cleared his plate and mug into it. But she didn’t know what he was wearing that day and she didn’t remember their last conversation. That still tortured her. Were her last words to him kind? Banal? Good morning or goodnight? Or did she nag him for something inconsequential like talking with his mouth full or playing his music too loudly? When was the last time she’d told her son she loved him or that she was proud of him? When was the last time he’d made her proud? Or smile?
She looked at the photo of Antoine one more time, drinking him in, then put it back under the book and closed the drawer. She rose to her feet, knowing she had to get out of the house and get some air.
She put on her coat and shoes, slung her handbag over her shoulder and stumbled through the door. Her legs felt unsteady as she walked to the bus stop. She could feel people’s eyes on her, boring into her. They must have thought she was drunk or drugged.
She saw her neighbour, Angélique, cross the road, throwing disapproving glances over her shoulder and pulling her toddler by the hand to the safety of the pavement on the other side. Angélique had once been a good friend, but all Sandrine’s friends avoided her now. It was as though her bereavement and affliction were contagious; as though she would jinx them or their children.
The background noise on the bus had a calming effect on Sandrine and chased the thoughts of her dead son to a recess of her mind. She looked out of the window as the bus hugged the River Saône, the road following its meanders. Sandrine lived in a suburb to the north-east of Lyon and hadn’t been into the city centre for many months, but she soon found herself walking across La Place des Terreaux and into the wind.
She glanced at the Bartholdi Fountain to her left. Once, when her parents had come to stay, she’d shown them around Lyon and was amazed to discover almost as much about the city as they had. How was it that when you lived in a place, you were always the last to visit its sights? The fountain’s four sculpted horses pulling the chariot represented rivers racing out to sea, Sandrine recalled, although she couldn’t remember which rivers. She stopped for a moment and studied the monument, wishing she could gallop away or flow out to sea. She’d grown up by the sea and she missed it.
Pulling up the collar of her coat against the cold as she passed the city hall, Sandrine headed for La Rue de la République. There were people everywhere, walking up, down and across the shopping street in undisciplined hordes. She felt as if she were swimming upstream, struggling against the current, but at the same time she appreciated the impression of blending into the crowd. There was little chance she’d see anyone she knew; no one here knew her or anything about her. She could pretend to be normal.
It wasn’t until Sandrine saw the red and white signs for SOLDES in the window of a perfumery that it dawned on her why there were so many shoppers in town. This was the first Saturday of the January sales.