“I was in the area. Passing through. I heard a commotion and went into the bar and saw you.”
I shake my head and then wince at the pain. “Bullshit,” I spit out. “That’s bullshit, Blaise. Why were you there?”
A drop of rain falls on my nose, cold as ice.
“We need to get you back home.”
“No, you need to tell me what’s going on!”
He looks up and down the street. “I’ll tell you later. First we get you home.”
As the rain starts to fall, the kind of rain that feels like a prelude to snow, I have no choice but to let him. I’m too tired and out of it to argue, too scared over what happened and too suspicious to appreciate the fact that Blaise is here.
Things start to pass by in a blur.
With his coat around my shoulders, I’m now wearing two coats, and Blaise leads me over to a taxi, and then the next thing I know we’re going up the stairs of my apartment.
He takes me right to my door, and I’m wondering how the hell he knows where I live. When did I ever have him over? But then there were so many parties that I’ve had over the years, especially with Cyril in the picture. It’s possible he had been an uninvited guest.
I fumble for my keys and open the door.
He closes it behind us, locks it, takes me by the arm, and leads me over to my bed.
I immediately collapse on it, facedown, and the world starts to whirl around, black.
“What were you doing there, Blaise?” I manage to ask, my words slurring together into one. “Were you following me?”
There’s a pause as the lights in the bedroom flick off.
“Yes,” he says.
CHAPTER TWELVE
BLAISE
Four years ago
“She’s dead,” my mother says over the line, the hardness in her voice fading at the end. Before I have a chance to ask who, before my mind and heart run away on me, she goes on, “Eloise. She was in a car accident early this morning.”
My heart lurches to a stop in my chest. “Was she with Seraphine?”
“No, she was alone,” she says, and I can hear the clink of ice cubes. I can’t blame her for drinking now. “It was a bad accident on the highway between Paris and their house. Many cars smashed up. Eloise, she . . .” She trails off. “I need you to come home, Blaise. The funeral is next weekend, and I need you there.”
I’m surprised at the route she’s taking. My mother rarely needs me for anything, nor did I think she was that close to Eloise. I know that the relationship between them was always strained, particularly in the later years; even so, my mother acts like she doesn’t need anyone.
“Blaise,” she says abruptly. “You will come.”
The thing is, I probably would go anyway, without my mother demanding I do so. I liked Eloise deep down, even if my parents did a lot of talking behind her back, even if I was raised to view that side of the family as being inferior in some way. But I’ve been in Thailand for a long time, and I have a feeling that if I set foot back in France, I’m not going to be coming back here.
“Okay,” I say with a sigh. I stare out the window of my villa into the hills of Mae Hong Son. There’s a jungle fowl strutting along the edge of my infinity pool, and the sun is making the water sparkle. I don’t want to leave this place, leave the person I’ve become here. I especially don’t want to put a stop to my Muay Thai classes.
“I can leave next Friday,” I tell her. That gives me the week to get my head on straight.
“Next Friday?” she practically barks. “Blaise, you will come immediately. Get the first flight out. You know money is no expense.”
“I can’t just up and leave,” I tell her.
“You can. What are you doing there, anyway? You know I haven’t talked to you since it was your birthday, and that was only because I called you.”
Well, how incredibly gracious of you.
She goes on, “It’s for family, Blaise.”
I snort. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Mother, but since when have you ever given a shit about family, particularly that side?”
Silence fills the air. “I care,” she says after a moment. “Blaise . . . you have no idea what it’s like to be me, what I’ve gone through. What I’ve done.” She sniffs. “I can’t deal with this alone. Your father and your brother, they don’t understand. I need . . . I have to talk to you. Before the funeral. I need your support, you’re the only one who might even care a little about me.”
She sounds so small and broken that my stupid hardened heart softens just a bit. Fuck me, this is going to be a horrible week. I almost envy Aunt Eloise. She doesn’t have to deal with any of this shit, any of us, anymore.
“Okay,” I tell her. “I’ll get the first flight out.”
Questions hang on my lips: How is Seraphine doing? Is she okay? Is she alone?
But I press my lips firmly together.
I’ll find out soon enough.
Nothing had ever felt so wrong as landing at the Charles de Gaulle airport and seeing the gray, gloomy, and smog-filled landscape. Such a drastic change from the clarity and peace and quiet of the hills of Northern Thailand that my brain actually felt rattled. The long flight didn’t help either.
But if I thought that was bad, the moment the car pulls up the driveway of my parents’ house, that’s when I feel like I’m caught in a terrible dream.
“This is it?” the driver asks me when I make no indication I’m going to get out of the car.
“This is it,” I tell him and finally step out. He brings my suitcase out from the trunk—the same suitcase I’ve been living out of for years, the metallic exterior beaten and burnished by my many travels—and I take it, bringing it up to the house.
At first glance I notice that my mother’s car is here but no one else’s. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, though.
I knock on the door, and after a moment my mother answers.
I didn’t expect this. Usually she has a maid answer the door. And more than that, I don’t expect my mother to look so horrible. That’s a cruel thing for a son to think, but it’s true. Normally she’s on top of everything in regard to plastic surgery and other vanity treatments, but she just looks haggard and old.
Vulnerable, even.
“Blaise,” she says to me, holding out her arms. I should be glad she doesn’t have a drink in her hands for once, though when I give her an embrace and kiss her on the cheek, I can smell the booze on her like it’s perfume.
“Mother,” I tell her, stiffening as she holds me for longer than she normally does.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she says, and when she pulls back, I notice the mascara smudges under her watery eyes. “You must have had such a long travel day. Here, here, come to the sitting room, and I’ll get you something to drink.”
“Water would be good,” I tell her as I pull the suitcase into the hall and shut the door. She walks off, a bit unsteadily, toward the kitchen. “Don’t you have someone to get that shit for you?” I call after her.
“I sent them into Paris to get some provisions,” she says.
I look around. Nothing in this place has changed, and it’s unsettling. Even more unsettling is the feeling that I never left. “And so I’m guessing Pascal and Father are out too?”