“Where are you staying?” Another pause.Please don’t let her answer be—
“With my father,” said Sabine.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Marlow felt a stab in her chest.
“See? You overreact about everything.”
“No, I react exactly the right amount to my daughter visiting her deadbeat father who hasn’t once been a real or even a decent parent. Are you moving in?”
“I might.”
“Jesus. Why?”
“Because I’m going to try to go to the Sorbonne. And if it works out, he offered to let me stay with him. His apartment is five minutes from the university.”
“I thought you said yes to U of T!”
“Not exactly. I just said that to get you off my back.”
“So you lied about that, too? I don’t understand,” Marlow said, tears rising.
“I love it here in France, Mum, and I love Maison Perdue. I’ve just been feeling unsure about school, and I decided to go to Paris with Aubin, and we did plan to be back that same day, but it’s been going well, so I stayed. It isn’t more complicated than that.”
Marlow sat on the stone wall and took a breath. The evening air had cooled. “When will you be home?”
“I don’t know. Probably a few days, a week at most. I’ll keep in touch now. I promise.”
“Do you have money?”
“I have my bank card. But just so you know, other than the train ride here, I haven’t had to buy anything. It’s been really nice. Yves has covered everything.”
Of course he has,thought Marlow. He’s making up for lost time. Trying to look good, the magnanimous father. All her years as a single parent, covering every pair of cleats, every art class, tutor, rent payment since the day she was born—wiped out in one visit to Paris. When Sabine came back to her, if she ever did, Marlow would look like a stingy, no-good shell of a mother, and Yves would be the star. It had already happened, far as she could tell. At least she was calling him Yves and not Dad.
“Sabine,” Marlow said, jaw clenched, “get back here now.”
“No.”
“I swear to God—”
“What? You’ll ground me? I’m not twelve.”
“You’re no adult either! You’re out in the world, in a foreign country, with a boy—do you even have contraception?”
“Give me some credit!”
“Why should I? You’re AWOL, making bad decisions with a boy Guillaume has already pegged as entitled and directionless with a nose for trouble. Like I’m not going to fight to get you back from the two worst influences on the planet!”
“I’m going to stop talking, because I don’t want to say anything I regret. Only, you had a chance to be chill about this, and you ruined it.”
“Iruined it?” screamed Marlow. “How is your bullshit behavior my fault?”
“This is not bullshit, this is my life!” Sabine yelled back. “And like it or not, I’m having a good time, and I’m going to attend La Sorbonne in September thanks to my dad!”
And there it was. “Dad.” Marlow hung up and headed for the Mirabelle steps but stopped midway, breaking down, shaking and gasping for air, unable to get to the top.
Sabine, in the bedroom chair in Yves’ apartment, stared at her phone. Aubin sat on the bed, one headphone on, listening to music, the other off so he could hear what was happening.
“That didn’t sound like it went well,” he said.
