“I'll have someone collect them.”
“Someone?”
“My driver.”
Claire glanced outside at the black car.
“You really are rich, aren't you?”
Alexandre smiled.
“I've done well.”
“How well?”
He hesitated.
“Very well.”
Julien leaned toward her.
“I told you.”
Alexandre called his assistant and canceled every meeting for the day.
His assistant, Sophie, sounded stunned.
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
“The German delegation flew in this morning.”
“Reschedule.”
“The board meeting—”
“Tomorrow.”
There was silence.
“Are you all right?”
Alexandre looked at Claire.
“For the first time in a very long while, I think I might be.”
He ended the call.
Claire watched him.
“You shouldn't neglect your work because of me.”
“I lost thirty-three years with you. They can survive one afternoon.”
Her eyes filled again.
“Stop making me cry.”
“I'll try.”
He did not.
Not intentionally, at least.
When they reached Claire's apartment, Alexandre nearly cried himself.
It was on the fifth floor of an old building with no elevator. The stairwell smelled of damp plaster, and the light on the third-floor landing did not work.
Claire climbed slowly.
By the fourth floor, she was coughing.
Alexandre noticed.
“How long have you had that cough?”
“It's nothing.”
“How long?”
“A few months.”
“Have you seen a doctor?”
“I've been busy.”
He stopped walking.
“Mom.”
Claire looked back.
He had used the tone of a businessman accustomed to receiving answers.
She almost smiled.
“Once.”
“And?”
“He gave me medicine.”
“Which medicine?”
“I don't remember.”
“You don't remember?”
“I couldn't afford to refill it.”
Alexandre said nothing.
But Julien saw his face.
“Grandma says medicine costs too much.”
Claire sighed.
“Julien.”
“What? It does.”
Alexandre continued climbing.
He was beginning to understand that discovering his mother alive was only the first shock.
Discovering how she had been living was the second.
Her apartment consisted of two small rooms and a kitchen barely large enough for one person. Water stains spread across one wall. The heater worked inconsistently, and blankets had been hung over the windows to keep out drafts.
There was almost no food.
Alexandre opened a cupboard.
Rice.
Tea.
Half a packet of pasta.
Nothing else.
He closed it.
On a shelf near the window stood several framed photographs.
One showed Claire as a young woman.
Alexandre stopped.
Memory hit him so violently that he gripped the shelf.
She was standing beside a river, laughing.
He remembered that laugh.
Another photograph showed two children.
Alex and Daniel.
Alexandre lifted it.
His hands shook.
“That's us?”
Claire stood behind him.
“Yes.”
Daniel was perhaps two.
Alexandre was five.
His arm was wrapped protectively around his little brother.
“What was he like?”
Claire smiled sadly.
“Daniel?”
“Yes.”
“He worshipped you.”
Alexandre closed his eyes.
“He used to follow you everywhere. If you climbed onto a chair, he tried to climb onto it. If you refused carrots, he refused carrots. If you laughed, he laughed even when he didn't understand why.”
Julien stepped closer.
“My dad hated carrots.”
Claire laughed.
“He never changed.”
Alexandre smiled through tears.
“What happened to him?”
The question darkened the room.
Claire sat.
“He became a mechanic.”
“That surprises me.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
“You were always the one taking toys apart. Daniel was the one putting them back together.”
Alexandre laughed softly.
Claire continued.
“He married young. It didn't last. Julien's mother left when he was four.”
Julien looked down.