Spectacle(60)

Time to explain everything, Maman. Everything.



* * *



For some time Nathalie had been dreading the possibility of running into Simone at the apartment building. When it finally happened, this day of all days, when she had so much else on her mind, the encounter was in some ways exactly what she’d imagined.

In other ways, it was not.

Nathalie opened the door to the foyer just as Simone was about to do the same from the inside.

Simone emitted a tiny “Oh!” while Nathalie lost the ability to make any sound at all. Instinct jumped in as Simone crossed the threshold to go out; Nathalie felt a rush of longing to tell Simone everything that had happened since their fight almost a week ago but forced it back.

They walked past each other in tense silence. Nathalie took one more step and caught the door so it didn’t close between them. She turned back to Simone, whose blond curls obscured half her face. “We should…”

We should talk sometime. That’s what was supposed to come out. Instead her words turned into weak, sightless baby mice when Simone wheeled around and threw her a cold look. Nathalie hadn’t noticed it before, but Simone’s face was tear-stained and her eyes puffy.

Nathalie hadn’t seen Simone cry very often. For all her exuberance, Simone protected her tears. “I keep them in an imaginary jar that only comes out when I’m alone,” she’d once said.

“What’s wrong?” Nathalie blurted out, taking a step toward Simone.

Simone turned her back to Nathalie, hurrying out and down the stairs without a word. Nathalie let go of the door and stood there a moment as it closed, leaning her head against it.

She didn’t feel as upset toward Simone anymore and thought perhaps the feeling was mutual. “Maybe it’s for the best,” she said out loud, because if you said something out loud it was easier to convince yourself.

Wasn’t it?





26


Nathalie entered the apartment to the sound of Maman humming cheerfully and the smell of boiling strawberries. Stanley greeted her, as he always did, and for a moment she took in this scene of what should have been domestic contentment. She looked around the apartment. Everything was so familiar. Yet everything was also different.

Papa was an Insightful.

And her parents had never told her. Never said a word about Henard’s experiments, such that Nathalie scarcely knew anything about them until recently. Like some ignorant child in a rural town where people couldn’t read instead of a young woman living in a magnificent city full of culture. Entrusted with the duties of a journalist, besides.

Do they think I’m a fool? That I would never find out, that they could hide it from me forever?

She reached for her catacomb dirt, forgetting for the second time that day that it wasn’t there anymore.

“Come try this jam!” Maman called from the kitchen.

She tossed her bag on the sofa and approached Maman, who stood with a spoonful of jam, ready to feed her.

Like a child.

Nathalie took the spoon and sampled the jam. With a forced smile, she handed back the spoon. “This will sell out in no time.”

Nathalie’s eyes went to the jars of jam, lined up in a row.

They resembled blood jars. Larger, of course. And she knew the dense, dark liquid and streaks inside the glass and even the droplet on the table was only jam.

“That’s my wish.” Maman turned back to her strawberries and stirred them.

All the way home, Nathalie had thought about what she wanted to say, how she wanted to bring up her powers and what she’d learned from M. Patenaude. She was tired of playing games.

“I found out some things, Maman. About Papa. And about myself, I think.”

Maman paused for a moment, and then continued stirring even more vigorously than before. “Things.”

“Aunt Brigitte isn’t the only member of this family who was one of Dr. Henard’s patients,” Nathalie said, her voice steady and clear. “Papa was, too. He’s a healer. Monsieur Patenaude told me.”

Maman placed the wooden spoon on the counter and reached for a lemon, the muscles in her arm taut. “That’s absurd, Nathalie. M. Patenaude peddles gossip for a living. You should know better.”

“He has no reason to lie. For what?”

“Who knows why people do what they do?” Maman said, cutting the lemon. She squeezed some into the pot of strawberries and stirred some more.

“Are we going to dance with one another again, Maman? I was right about Aunt Brigitte, and I’m right about this. What I don’t understand is why you’re lying to me.”

“Lying?”

“That’s what you’d call it if I evaded the truth, changed the subject, answered questions with questions, and dismissed the facts because they weren’t convenient.”

Maman slammed down the spoon. “What you call lies, I call protection.” She whipped her head around, a hawk alerted to prey. “I told you how embarrassing it was that Aunt Brigitte ended up in the asylum. It’s a disgrace to admit to being any part of that.”

“Monsieur Patenaude doesn’t seem ashamed to be an Insightful.”

Maman stepped toward Nathalie. “Do not ever use that term. It’s an insult.”

“It’s only an insult if you want it to be.”