“What are we going to tell the girls?” he asked, on the verge of tears himself.
“That’s up to you. What are you going to tell them about Pascale and the baby?” He still hadn’t faced it, as though the day would never come, and his daughters would never know.
“I don’t know. I wish I didn’t have to tell them so soon. They’ve never even met Pascale.” He had handled the whole thing miserably, and she wasn’t going to clean up the mess for him.
“I assume you’re going to live with her,” Nadia said in a strained voice, trying to be gracious about it.
“We haven’t figured it out yet.” They had the house in Ramatuelle until September, and she was having the baby a month later. She was going to stay with her mother in Brittany for the last month, and wanted to give birth there, to be near her mother, so she could take care of the baby. Nicolas had promised to be there for the delivery. But where they would live after that hadn’t been decided. His life was up in the air. The only stability he had was with Nadia, and now she wanted him to move out. “Let me think about it for a few days, and I’ll let you know,” he said in a raw voice, and she nodded.
“You haven’t been around much. I think even if you pretend to sleep here occasionally, the children know something’s up. Maybe not Laure, but definitely Sylvie. I hope you tell them about the baby before someone else does.” He was lucky she hadn’t. She was leaving it to him. Miraculously, no one else had told them. And Nadia didn’t give them access to the internet. They were young enough that his affair with Pascale was the kind of unsavory gossip parents didn’t share with children their age. But sooner or later someone would.
“Why would anyone do something like that?” He looked shocked. “Tell them, I mean. They’re children.”
“It happens. People like to talk about the miseries of others.” He got up and left a few minutes later, and Nadia stood on the terrace, thinking about what she had just done. A page had turned. It had taken three months for her to get there. She had asked him to move out. She wanted to feel proud of herself, and thought she would. But she didn’t. She just felt sad.
* * *
—
Nadia had to go to her office the next day, and their babysitter called while they were having breakfast. She said she had eaten sushi the night before, and was violently ill. The housekeeper was on vacation, and Nadia thought of taking the girls to the office with her, but it was distracting, and she needed to catch up on her work. She had to schedule a meeting with her client in London. She called the wife of the guardian downstairs, and asked if she could stay with the girls, at least until lunchtime. She was going to bring her work home with her after that. She had no other solution. The guardian’s wife came upstairs, and Nadia hurried out five minutes later, and promised to be home by one. They were going to go for a walk in the Tuileries Garden to get some air while she was at work.
Nadia came back promptly, and the apartment was strangely silent when she walked in. She thought they were still out, and was surprised to see both girls sitting on the living room couch with somber faces. She thanked the guardian’s wife, who told her the girls were tired from their walk. She said she had offered them lunch, but they weren’t hungry. Nadia paid her and a few minutes later, she left. She was kind of an old biddy, always meddling in everyone’s business, but she was helpful from time to time.
“Are you feeling okay?” she asked them both, and they nodded. She thought maybe they were still tired from the trip. They were sitting like statues, and Sylvie looked at her with enormous eyes and burst into tears. Her mother rushed over to her and took her in her arms.
“What happened? Was Madame Martin mean to you? Did she tell you scary stories?” People did stupid things sometimes, and by then Laure was crying too.
“Madame Martin said that Papa is having a baby with another lady…an actress…and you’re probably going to get a divorce. Is that true?” Sylvie wailed, and Laure echoed her, then clung to her mother and sister as though they were in a lifeboat and she was afraid of falling out.
“Whoa…” Nadia didn’t answer for a minute, while she thought about what to do. Nicolas had left her with his mess to clean up, and she was on the front lines now. She knew they would remember what she said forever. “First of all, let’s all take a deep breath and calm down. You know that Papa loves you, and I do too. Do you know that?” They both nodded, and she wiped the tears off their faces. “And sometimes even grown-ups do silly things. Papa has a friend right now who he likes a lot. She’s very young and very pretty, and it’s true, he’s having a baby with her. But that doesn’t change how he feels about you,” she said seriously.
“Are they coming to live with us?” Laure wanted to know.
“No, they’re not.”
“Is the baby a boy or a girl?” Laure again.
“A boy.”
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t think he has a name yet.”
“I don’t like boys,” Laure said definitely while Sylvie stared at her mother with a ravaged expression, as though the world as she knew it had come to an end. She wasn’t wrong.
“Are you and Papa getting a divorce?” Sylvie asked her.
She hesitated for a minute, she didn’t want to lie. “Not right now. Things have been very confusing, with his friend and the baby. I think Papa is going to get his own apartment while he figures everything out,” or live with Pascale, which she didn’t say to them.
“Does he want to marry her?”
“I don’t know,” Nadia said honestly.
“Do you hate him now?” Sylvie asked her.
“No, I don’t. I’m sad that things are confused and difficult, but I don’t hate your father.”
“Do you hate his friend?” Nadia shook her head in answer.
“Why don’t they give the baby away?” Sylvie suggested. It was a somewhat sophisticated concept for a ten-year-old.
“I’m sure they want the baby,” Nadia said, trying not to sound judgmental.
“Why did Papa do that, if he has us? He doesn’t need a baby.” She looked devastated.
“You’ll have to ask Papa that.” She wasn’t going to venture into those waters. Let him explain it, if he could.
“Will we see him if he moves to his own apartment?” Laure was worried.
“Of course. You can visit him there, and he can still come here to see you.” Both girls were relieved when she said that it wasn’t a full-on war. But everything they’d heard was confusing. They needed to hear from their father now.