The Returned

by Seth Patrick

  “Fish?” said the boy.

  “Yes, and what else? Caroline?”

  “Seaweed? Beavers?”

  Adèle smiled gently. “Perhaps. Mateo?”

  “Goats?”

  The rest of the class burst into laughter. Adèle settled them down, but the look on Mateo’s face suggested laughter had been precisely the reaction he’d been looking for. “I don’t think so. Anything else?” Most of them wouldn’t know about the lake, she knew, about what was beneath its still, icy surface. Some parents tended to think it too frightening for younger ears, certainly, and the rest played it safe. But with the water level so low, the time was right to talk about it.

  The past was something that shouldn’t be ignored.

  The thought made her pause. She took a breath before continuing. “Do you think there might be houses?” she said, smiling as the children whispered excitedly. “When the water level goes down, you can see a church steeple. The village church flooded years ago when the old dam broke.”

  “Are there people living under the water?” asked one girl.

  Adèle shook her head, the questions coming thick and fast as the children’s imaginations caught fire at the story.

  “Did anyone die because of the dam?”

  “Why did Simon kill himself?”

  Adèle froze. “What? Who said that?” It had been Chloé. She was sure it had been Chloé. Adèle looked at her daughter. “Did you ask a question?”

  The children watched Adèle, silenced by the intensity in her voice.

  Chloé nodded, looking concerned. “I just asked why did the dam break?” Adèle said nothing, her face pale, the words caught in her throat. “Mum, are you OK?”

  The class started to whisper. What’s wrong with her?

  Adèle shook it off. She clapped her hands and told the class to settle.

  • • •

  “You should take a pill and get some sleep,” Thomas told her at home. “You’ll feel better.”

  “No, I don’t think I will,” she said. It was one of those rare occasions when she’d asked him to come home and he had come. No emergencies. No complications. No excuses. When he came through the door, he’d started to tell her something about animals being drowned in the lake, but she’d hushed him. Talking this through was more important.

  “Why did you never tell me about Simon before?” she asked.

  Thomas was wary. “You know why. Because I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “You didn’t reckon it was important?”

  “Adèle, please. Of course I did. It wasn’t as if I didn’t think about it. I thought about it often, but my decision was always the same. You were in pieces after his death. I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to cope with the truth.”

  “It might have been simpler if I’d known, Thomas.” More honest, she thought. Open. At least that.

  “Is it simpler now?”

  Even though he’d finally told her last night, he hadn’t gone into the details. She wanted to know everything, every part of it. To read the police report. To understand. Why Simon had looked at life with Adèle, at life with his child, and had chosen oblivion instead.

  “Do we really know he wanted to die?” she said, grasping at straws.

  Thomas sighed and shook his head. “There were several witnesses, Adèle. Please. If there had been any doubt, there would have been no need to hide things from you. You loved him. What he did was a betrayal of that. None of us wanted you to have to face such a terrible truth. Father Jean-François didn’t think you would be able to cope with it. But you have to face it now.”

  Adèle looked up to see Chloé on the stairs and wondered how long the girl had been listening. She went up to her and hugged her. Then she took a pill to seek a little oblivion of her own.

  • • •

  Chloé was in her room, drawing, when Adèle opened the door to Father Jean-François. Chloé had told her that Thomas had gone again, having been called away for work. Adèle hadn’t been sure how to feel: annoyed that he’d left or pleased that he trusted her not to do anything foolish.

  She frowned when she saw the priest, and he frowned too, clearly uneasy.

  “Father,” she said. “This is…unexpected.” Unwelcome was what she meant. Still, manners were called for. She asked him in, offered him coffee, went to make it. He seemed oddly eager to delay their conversation.

  “Thomas asked me to come see you,” the priest said, as they finally sat. “He was very worried.”

  “Is it because of Simon?”

  “Simon?” he said. He looked anxious, distracted. “Yes. Thomas came to me yesterday, very confused. Talking about resurrection… To be honest, I think it’s sheer jealousy. Today, he called me and asked me to come see you. He sounded desperate. I’m worried about him, Adèle. He’s jealous of a spirit, something that doesn’t exist.”

  Adèle plunged the coffee and poured. “It’s not quite as simple as that, Father. Simon is still very much with us, and Thomas wants to understand why. We both do. It’s me that he’s worried about. He loves me. Much more than Simon ever did, I think.”

  The priest looked uncomfortable, perching on the edge of the sofa and gripping the coffee cup tightly. “There’s no use comparing them, Adèle.”

  She stared at him—this fidgeting, awkward man of God, who had no idea what was really going on. “How would you know?”

  “After all the times we talked about Simon, I think I understand your feelings for him. In spite of all that, you thought about the man. His moods. The rage that took him sometimes, which you always forgave.”

  Adèle caught a hint of blame in the priest’s eyes. She didn’t like it. He had no right. “You encouraged me to live with Simon’s memory, Father. All these years, you pushed me to live with the dead. Yet you knew he killed himself.” He looked away, the cup in his hands shaking slightly. “Without Thomas, I’d already be dead,” she said. “Like Simon. I thought he’d been stolen from me and from our daughter. But all that time it wasn’t theft. It was abandonment. How dare he come back and expect me to open my arms, and my legs”—the priest squirmed, but she didn’t care—“when he’d given up? Whatever pain he suffered, he had everything he could want. And he threw it away.”

  “Adèle, the way you talk, I just don’t understand. You act as if Simon…” He stopped, gesturing, lost for words.

  “Simon came back, Father,” she said, her voice cold. “He’s alive again. As young as he was ten years ago. As arrogant as he was.”

  She saw panic rise in the priest’s eyes. Panic, as if he’d already heard what she was saying a dozen times: heard it and dismissed it as wishful thinking, as fantasy.

  “I have to…” he said, and then he stood, looking pale and nauseous.

  He ran from the house, without looking back.

  • • •

  The next time Adèle opened the front door, it was to a young redheaded girl she thought she recognized, but she couldn’t put a name to the face.

  “Are you Adèle?” said the girl.

  “Yes. Do I know you?”

  “I have a message. Meet Simon at the bus station tonight, in time for the last bus. Travel light. That’s it.” The girl turned to leave.

  “Wait,” said Adèle. “What did he tell you?”

  “That you were meant to get married and you’re going to make up for lost time. He’s lucky you didn’t forget him.”

  Adèle closed her eyes for a moment. This was it. This was the time for a final decision. She opened her eyes and shook her head. “Tell him I’m not coming.”

  “Are you sure?” said the girl. She looked surprised. “I think he really loves you, and what he’s going through isn’t easy. Believe me, I know.”

  Adèle saw the look in the girl’s eyes and understood. “You’re the same?” she asked, and then her hands ca
me up to her mouth as she placed the girl. She looked like Léna but much younger. It was more than that, though. Hers was the face on the T-shirt that Chloé had been given to wear for the commemoration of the bus accident, the girl whose name Chloé had to say. “Camille. Camille Séguret.”

  Camille nodded her head. “The same. And the person I love doesn’t want me. It’s hard, but in the end it’s your decision. Just be sure to make the right choice.”

  Once the girl had left, Adèle told herself again and again: I’m not going.

  Then she went to look up the time of the last bus.

  49

  Julie got the call from Laure in the afternoon. The woman who had disappeared from the Helping Hand with Victor had been spotted on CCTV, picked up, and taken in for questioning.

  “I’ll call you when there’s more news,” Laure had said, but Julie had no intention of just sitting and waiting. In the few hours since she’d found out that Victor had vanished, her mood had darkened considerably. Victor had been a lifeline—he had given her the hope that had been missing for seven years. Victor being taken from her had been bad enough—Victor in danger was unbearable—so simply waiting in her apartment wasn’t something she could do. She took herself to the police station and waited there, on a hard bench in the cold waiting room, her impatience growing as time ticked by. The patronizing looks from the reception staff weren’t helping her mood.

  She finally caught sight of Laure and hurried over to her.

  “Hi,” said Laure. Wary, as ever. “There was no need to come down. I said I’d call.”

  “Indulge me. Well?”

  “Nothing so far. She says she and the boy left together, then split up. But she’s hardly reliable.”

  “Why not?”

  Laure raised her eyebrow. “She says that she was born in 1943 and died thirty years ago and that she’s Michel Costa’s dead wife, Viviane.” Laure looked around to check the coast was clear, then gestured for Julie to follow. They reached a door with a small glass window, and Laure pointed inside.

  The middle-aged woman calling herself Viviane Costa was sitting alone in a room, looking bored.

  “That’s her,” said Laure, catching the look of surprise on Julie’s face. “Do you know her?”

  “I think so,” said Julie. With so many photographs around Monsieur Costa’s house, it was a face that had gradually seeped into her memory.

  “Who is she?” asked Laure.

  “Do you think I can talk to her?”

  Laure nodded, looking nervous. “Be quick, though. This is completely against regulations.”

  Julie went inside. The woman’s face lit up when the door opened, then faded back to boredom. “Shame,” said the woman. “I thought you were bringing food.”

  Julie pulled up a chair. “You’re really Michel Costa’s wife?” she asked.

  The woman looked at her and smiled thinly. “Yes. I’m Viviane Costa. I suppose you don’t believe me?”

  Julie shook her head. “No, I do. I do believe you. I was your husband’s nurse. I’ve seen photos of you.”

  “I noticed he kept those. He didn’t forget me.” She smiled, and there was a hostile edge to it. “Wasn’t exactly pleased to see me when I came back, mind you.”

  Julie looked at her. She hadn’t changed at all from the photos. Not one bit. “So you’re…you’re dead?”

  “I’m afraid so,” said Viviane. She gave Julie a wry smile, seeming to find the whole situation amusing.

  Julie took a breath. It had been in her mind since Victor had jumped from the window. The oddness of him, his old clothes. He’d always seemed otherworldly. She’d already thought him a ghost or a figment of her imagination—one step further wasn’t too much of a push to believe. But she still needed to hear it: “And the little boy who was with you? Him too?”

  “Yes.”

  Julie thought herself a rational person, open-minded but rational. Resurrection from the dead was for those who had faith in something greater, and she had none. “But how?”

  Viviane shook her head and sighed. “That’s a very good question. You would think there has to be a reason, wouldn’t you? I suppose there probably is.”

  Julie waited for her to say more, but nothing came. “When did he die?” she asked.

  “Not long before I did,” said Viviane.

  “And his parents? What happened to them?”

  “Dead too. All murdered.”

  Julie’s heart broke anew for Victor. She’d wondered what trauma he’d faced, and it was worse than she could have imagined. No wonder he hadn’t spoken to anyone. He must have been terrified.

  “So where is Victor now?”

  “Victor?”

  “I mean the little boy.”

  Understanding dawned on the woman’s face. “Ah, so you’re Julie? He mentioned you. Don’t worry about him. He has something he wants to do. Perhaps it’s why he’s here—I don’t know. He’ll come see you once his work is done.”

  Julie nodded. “You know that your husband…”

  The woman smiled. “Of course I know. I went to his funeral.”

  “Why did he do that?”

  “He hardly spoke to me when I came back, Julie. All those years and he hardly said a word.” The air of smug amusement slipped from Viviane Costa, just for a moment. Underneath, the emotion was raw grief.

  There was a brief knock on the door. Julie turned to see Laure waving. Hurry up.

  She had one more thing to ask. “When you came back, how did you know? How did you know you were dead?”

  Viviane frowned. “Well, it didn’t take long to realize.”

  Julie struggled to articulate her fear—the fear that had been crouching in her mind for days, if not years, living a half-life in the shadows. “Because sometimes…I wonder if I’m…”

  Viviane broke into laughter as Julie stuttered to a halt. “Oh, please,” she said, sounding bitter. “I suppose you could take a leaf out of my husband’s book, because there’s certainly one way to find out.”

  • • •

  Julie went back home. Viviane Costa’s words stayed with her and kept sounding in her ears.

  There’s certainly one way to find out.

  For seven years, she’d felt dead inside. The only person she’d made a connection with since then had turned out to be some kind of ghost. And now even he had left her.

  As dusk fell, the air in her apartment felt stale and humid. They could do with a storm to clear things. She opened the window as wide as it would go and propped her front door open a little for some cross ventilation. Across the hall, the door of Nathalie Payet’s empty apartment was sealed with a crisscross of crime scene tape. She returned to the window and looked out onto the grass below, thinking of Victor when she’d seen him down there that first night, looking up at her.

  She found herself crying. He’d given her hope, and the hope had been snatched away. She sat against the window, looking down to the ground, feeling closer to Victor. She moved her legs over the frame, one at a time, until she was sitting as he’d sat, looking down to where he’d fallen. It didn’t seem so far, she thought. Not so far to fall.

  Not so far to find out.

  “Julie?”

  She looked up, dazed. It was Laure, standing in the doorway.

  “I… The door was open,” said Laure. “I wanted to make sure you were OK.” She looked extremely anxious, edging slowly into the room, and Julie absently wondered why.

  She looked at Laure, saying nothing.

  “Don’t do it,” Laure pleaded. “Don’t do it.”

  Suddenly, Julie understood and realized where she was sitting: both legs hanging over the window frame. She felt cold, unable to move.

  “Give me your hand,” said Laure, moving carefully toward her, reaching out.

  Julie couldn’t speak.
She realized part of her had wanted to do it, had wanted to fall and find out the truth. Either way, maybe she wouldn’t have felt so alone anymore.

  “Please, Julie,” said Laure. “I love you. Please.”

  Julie pulled her shaking legs inside. She couldn’t look Laure in the eye. “Well, if that’s how you feel about it,” she said, dismissive.

  Laure was angry. The grip she had on Julie’s arm was so tight it hurt, as if she were afraid Julie might throw herself out of the window after all. “Have you lost your mind? What the hell were you doing?”

  “Don’t worry,” Julie said. “I wasn’t going to do anything. I just…I just wanted to check something. You wouldn’t understand.” It was bluster, that was all, and she could see Laure wasn’t buying into it.

  Laure stepped past her and shut the window. Then she held her head in her hands, stunned. “Christ, Julie. I’m sorry about Victor. But this isn’t the answer.”

  “Oh, fuck off,” Julie shouted, suddenly furious. Laure couldn’t just walk back into her life like this and expect to know her. “You have the answers, do you? Are all my problems that obvious?”

  Laure’s expression hardened. “Well, the next time you make a cry for help, try taking pills. You won’t survive that fall.”

  They glared at each other in cold silence. Laure’s radio sparked to life, breaking the tension.

  “Inspector,” said the voice on the radio. “We’ve spotted a boy near rue Saint-Michel, matches the description.”

  The hostility fell away from both their faces. Laure lifted the set. “Thanks,” she said. “I’m on my way.” She looked to Julie. “That’s not far from the Helping Hand. Maybe he’s heading back.” Laure moved to the door; Julie grabbed her coat and hurried after her. “What are you doing?” asked Laure.

  “Coming with you,” said Julie. “Or would you rather I stay here alone?”

  50

  Toni left Samuel in charge at the Lake Pub and drove home early. It felt so strange, to be going to the old house knowing Serge and his mother were both there. He left the streetlights behind, driving up the forest roads. As he turned onto the rocky track that led to the family home, he knew things would be difficult—but he would make them work. With the help of his mother and brother, Serge would stay true to his word.