The Unbreakables

by Lisa Barr

  “Actually, that does sound good.”

  I open the wine, pour him a glass, aware of his eyes on me as I hand it to him. He sips the wine, looking a bit more relaxed. “Tell me, how did you even end up in Èze, sculpting for my wife? That’s a long way from Chicago.”

  “I think this story requires a refill.” I laugh, pouring myself more wine. Never mind that he’d brought me chardonnay, and I’m mixing the red into the remnants of the white. Admittedly, I’ve become a daily drinker. Wine is the new Evian. “It’s been a difficult summer for me,” I tell him. “I came to Paris to visit my daughter at the end of her semester abroad. I’m . . . newly separated from my husband. It’s actually a long, awful story—believe me you don’t want to hear about it. Anyway, the short version is that I came out to Provence for a little soul-searching.”

  “Was the search a success?” he asks delicately.

  “You could say that I’m a work in progress.” We both laugh lightly.

  “Sounds like there are a lot of missing details to that story.” His eyes flash. The way he is looking at me is suddenly different, less intense. There’s a casual ease to his gaze. I’m sure I’m imagining it.

  “My husband cheated on me,” I divulge, and then cover my mouth. What am I saying? It’s the wine talking. It’s the fact that I’ve barely eaten today. But I keep going. “To be honest, it’s not a soul-search, more like a rescue mission.” Just stop, I warn myself. He doesn’t need to know any of these details—especially those details.

  He stares at me, unblinking, and it’s uncomfortable. I look away. I’m really such a mess. “Nathalie cheated on me too,” he whispers, setting down the wineglass. Oh god.

  I don’t blink this time. No matter what, I will not betray her trust. Let him talk. Better him than me.

  His eyes suddenly turn somber, darker. His forehead furrows. “I actually haven’t discussed this with anyone. I’m very private, not the type to just open up. But it’s all very strange, isn’t it, all of these connections. You, me, your daughter, my wife, and . . .”

  Olivier is what he wants to say.

  “Yes.” My heart is thumping.

  “I was lying in bed last night, thinking that everyone is connected to . . .” Luc searches my face, shaking his head. “That guy,” he says.

  That guy. He definitely knows.

  “I can’t even begin to imagine how you feel about him regarding Ava . . . but it was also Olivier who had an affair with my wife.”

  I know, Luc, I know. I’m too afraid to move or speak.

  “They think I don’t know.” He leans forward, cups his chin in his hand. “But there were so many signs, sloppiness—which isn’t like Nathalie. She’s a woman who is always in total control. But these days . . .” He looks away, visibly pained.

  These days are shit, I think. His wife of nearly twenty years is about to die, and all she wants to do is spend her last days alive in this studio with me and Eve—not him. Her heart is with Olivier—not him. She’s with Luc out of guilt and history. And he knows. My heartbeat quickens. The pain he must feel.

  He clenches his jaw and I wish I could run my hand along it, soften it somehow, and tell him I know exactly what he’s going through—the betrayal, the abandonment, the loss. “My wife . . . sometimes I think I know her too well. In many aspects it’s a good thing, but really if you think about it, it’s a curse.”

  I don’t need to think about it, I know.

  His hands fidget. He’s no longer relaxed, no longer GQ cool. “We’ve been together so long and we don’t have children, so the focus on each other is perhaps even stronger. I know what she’s about to do before she does it. And Olivier—I’ve known him since art school. He’s a pig.” The golden flecks inside Luc’s eyes blaze like torches.

  “Yes, but a complicated one,” I say honestly. “I wanted to hate him for having an affair with my daughter, and I do, believe me.” I don’t mention the almost-pregnancy. “And then he set this up for me with Nathalie. So yes, I hate him for what happened with Ava, and yet I’m grateful to be here.”

  Luc doesn’t say anything for a long while. He stares out the window over my shoulder. I turn to look. There’s a shadow of a leaning tree, its branches lightly slapping at the window. “I cannot help but wonder if Nathalie didn’t get sick, would it have continued? Is she still with me only because she’s sick?” Again, he searches my eyes for answers. Stay neutral. Stay Switzerland. “She’s dying and I promised myself that I would never let on that I know. I think she’s at peace thinking that she got away with it, without hurting me. And somehow that hurts even more. But really, what’s the difference now, right?”

  I yearn to save him from the torment I also feel. What is the difference now? Nathalie is dying and my own marriage is already dead. I yearn to reach out, to comfort him—but I don’t. The part of me that is still me knows better. Find words, I tell myself, soothe this beautiful man somehow. “The way Nathalie talks about you, looks at you still, it is love. Don’t lose sight of that. Maybe it’s not perfect. Maybe it’s a long-term love that turned into friendship. But it is still love built on history. You grew up together. No one can take that away. Trust me, I know.”

  “I appreciate that, I really do. But does history require lies?” he asks, sounding so vulnerable. I can feel his rawness as though I’m inside him. He loves her.

  “I can’t answer that, Luc. I just can’t.”

  His shoe grazes mine accidentally, and I feel a shooting sensation throughout my body. I quickly pull away. Strangely, we are bonded by Siamese betrayal. “I have never cheated,” he says. “I’m probably the only Frenchman alive who can say that.” He laughs in a sad sort of way, then places the half-full wineglass on the small table and stands. It’s enough. We both know we crossed too many boundaries. Our conversation is much more intimate than it has a right to be. “Thank you again for being here for her.”

  I remind myself that this is a good man—not a Gabe Man. A man with a cheating, dying wife who loves another and he knows it, but is too honorable to reveal the truth to her, even at the expense of himself.

  After Luc leaves the studio, I don’t even have the strength to remove my soiled, dusty clothes. I collapse on the bed next to Eve. I lie on top of the covers, staring at the glittery stars above and then at Eve towering over me, a milky goddess. I replay every word of the conversation with Luc in my head, twisting, turning, reinterpreting—playing mind games until my eyes finally shut, until Luc becomes nothing more than a dream, and tomorrow becomes a reality I don’t want to face.

  Tomorrow I head home.

  V.

  If I create from the heart, nearly everything works: if from the head, almost nothing.

  —MARC CHAGALL

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  IN THE OLD DAYS, GABE WOULD HAVE PICKED ME UP FROM THE AIRPORT, AND IF he couldn’t because of work demands, it would have been Samantha or Lauren. There was never a thought that I would one day get off a plane—after traveling for hours and managing mishaps from Nice to Heathrow, missing my Chicago connection, having to fly to JFK instead—spend a sleepless night in a crappy airport hotel, and then onto a Chicago flight early this morning, and be alone. That I would pick up my suitcase, meeting no one in Baggage, and return to a home that is no longer mine, alone.

  I check my watch as I quickly make my way outside to meet the Uber: 9:30 a.m. here, 4:30 p.m. in Saint-Paul. I feel displaced, a stranger in a strange land. I told Ava, who isn’t a morning person, not to come get me, and I warned her not to send her father. She promised. And yet, I find myself looking around for Gabe anyway.

  When the Uber arrives, I’m half hoping it’s Stan the Uber Guy, but it’s not—it’s Charlene, a bubbly grandmother, who recently lost her husband, whose daughter and granddaughter live in Atlanta, and about a thousand other personal details about her life that she rattles off that I hear but don’t really listen to. This is what Uber has done for humanity—even chatty grandmas can reinvent themselves.
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  As I stare out the window at all the passing familiar highway exit signs, I’m surprisingly not tired. I had taken a Benadryl and knocked out a solid six hours of sleep on the Heathrow–JFK leg of the trip, and I slept for nearly the entire ride back to Chicago. But my stomach is twisting as I get closer to North Grove and all of its suburban trappings. I wonder if Lauren and Samantha know I’m coming. I’m definitely going to run into someone because suburbia is not who you run into, it’s who you try to avoid.

  Charlene is rambling on about her six-year-old granddaughter with the genes of Einstein and apparently a gifted gymnast, and I toss back all the right responses, from “Don’t you love that” to “God, I miss that” to “The best age ever, the best.” We finally pull into my driveway and it’s as if time froze and I had melted. The sprinklers are still on, just as I’d left them. Pablo is barking up a storm. I can hear him going apeshit from the other side of the driveway door. He knows it’s me. I begin to tremble. This is happening.

  The door flings open and Gabe stands there, leaning against the doorway jamb like the ghost from Christmas past, barefoot in his flannels and white T-shirt, his hair sticking up along the sides, and his arm in a sling, with Pablo at his side. I think of Holly the nurse and I don’t feel sorry for him. Maybe a tiny bit.

  “Girl, that man is a maye—an. Lucky you.” Charlene lets out a long whistle, which sounds like a teakettle. The kind that pierces the ear and you want to scream shut the fuck up already as you race across the kitchen to turn it off.

  “Yes, he is a man.” That’s about as much as I’m willing to give Charlene as I gather my things, thank her, wish her and her family well, and open the car door. Gabe rushes over and grabs the suitcase out of my hand. I let him do it.

  “Thanks,” I say, but refrain from telling him to be careful of your arm and your ribs.

  “Wow.” He stands back for a second. “You look great, Soph. Your hair. You look . . . so different.”

  “Thanks.” I interpret “so different” to mean good. Gabe, even with the stick-up hair, is still unfairly handsome. The kind of maye-an that every woman would tea-whistle at, even a grandma. Gabe is going to die with a full head of hair and a hard-on. As much as I hate him, he has not lost his sex appeal. Not even a little. The muscle memory flexes throughout my body, as I mentally chalk up his marital crimes against me.

  As we enter our house, I reach down and embrace Pablo, who smells freshly shampooed. I stop walking, pausing at the edge of the laundry room, hesitating to cross over the threshold into my renovated kitchen. I fold my arms tightly and peer inside. All that vintage white on white with splashes of red and black that I was once so gaga about, and now means nothing. It’s my kitchen but not my kitchen anymore. And it’s huge. I forgot how big it is. I’d been living at the hotel and then in Lea and Jean-Paul’s small apartment with barely any kitchen space. But this . . . I glance sideways at Gabe, who is intently watching me, still my husband but not my husband. It’s all so familiar and so foreign—my life, but not my life.

  “Ava is still sleeping,” he says quietly, not wanting to interrupt my reentry thoughts, then carefully moves past me and heads into the kitchen, placing my suitcase next to the food pantry. “She told me to wake her up as soon as you came home. But I think it’s best to let her sleep for a bit.” He exhales deeply. “Come inside, Sophie.”

  He’s trying. Nodding, I enter slowly and drop my purse onto the kitchen table and walk around.

  “I made some coffee. It’s a new bean—stronger than our usual. You know that barista with the nose ring, she recommended it.” Gabe is talking in double time as he gets out the mugs. I see him but not really. I don’t hear him either, the way I didn’t really hear Charlene, like I’m in a thick fog or I’ve just woken up from a coma. I scour everything around me, trying to reconnect with what was once my life, my things. Nothing has changed physically. Even the same yellow sticky pad near the phone on the counter, which has “Things to Do, Bitch” embossed at the top, is scribbled with Dr. Jerome at 11 a.m.—as in my internist appointment over a month ago. Before.

  “You okay?” Gabe asks gently, as he pours me a cup of coffee.

  “I don’t know. No, I guess. I feel off, shaky,” I answer honestly as we both sit down at the kitchen table, not in our usual seats next to each other, but in opposite seats. We are tiptoeing, being so careful, so adult, right now. I suppose that’s where anger lands after it leaves town: civility.

  “Ava mentioned you are sculpting again. That’s really great.” He is trying so hard to connect with me that it’s almost painful.

  “Yeah, I’m working with a very talented sculptor over there, helping her finish her installation.” On a major piece for which your daughter posed nude for her lover’s lover. I bet she didn’t tell you that part. But I say none of this as I sip my coffee, which tastes weak and watery, now that I’ve gotten used to the full-bodied burnt-bean taste of French-roasted coffee. That conversation I’m saving for Ava, when we’re alone.

  “And your hands—you’re okay?”

  I glance down at my hands; hands that have been working overtime, day and night, on Eve without a hitch or even a twinge of pain. His eyes meet mine thoughtfully, and we are both thinking back to that awful moment years ago when I finally had to accept what four doctors had advised: No more sculpting. That night, after Dr. Number Four gave his verdict, I broke down completely in Gabe’s arms. He held me, soothed me, saying repeatedly, “I wish I could carry this instead of you. I would rather me not being able to do surgery, than you not being able to sculpt.” The ultimate sacrifice—him for me. The ultimate declaration of love—I would take a bullet for you. Were those words even true then? Did he feel that then? All I know is that I believed him then. I look away from him, and out the kitchen window. But not now.

  I sip the coffee, stare into the mug, the silence between us palpable and stretched. Finally, I look up at him. “How are you feeling? From the accident.”

  Our gazes lock again, so many words are left unsaid. Better that way. “Still hurts. Still healing, but improving, thanks. Still on painkillers, which I’m finally weaning off . . .” He stops there. I don’t ask about the nurse and he knows better than to tell me.

  His good hand cups tightly around his mug. “I’m sorry for all of it, Soph. And I really miss you.”

  Tears appear at the corners of his eyes, and mine remain dry. How did we come to this? I may have been able to forgive a drunken affair, a one-night stand. I may even have been able to work through a few Ashley Madisons with lots of couples therapy. Maybe. But the flirty nurse who he had once called me crazy and ridiculous for thinking that she was hitting on him—an affair back then that clearly continued until now? And Lauren? No way, I shake my head. No fucking way. That’s where it ends. Lauren is family, my sister.

  Instant replays of our friends continue to pop uninvited inside my head on a daily basis, as though challenging me to find the hidden clues—the Where’s Waldo within each scenario. I visualize Gabe and Lauren’s shared looks, their inside jokes, most likely playing footsie under a table or thigh pressed against thigh—the sneaking in front of my face and behind my back, perhaps from the very beginning. I look at Gabe, sitting across from me, that electrocuted hair that used to make me smile in the mornings, that boyish yearning in his eyes that I used to love, and I have nothing left to give. This broke us, Gabe. The others burned a hole through me, but you with Lauren shattered us. I push back the rising anger inside me, and say, “Let’s just keep things above board, nice for Ava this weekend. Okay?”

  Not good enough. I can see it in Gabe’s eyes. He’s not done with this conversation that he clearly has been waiting for, prepping for. “I blew it, didn’t I?”

  I want to say something sarcastic like, No, everyone blew you, but I don’t. I opt instead for the compromiser. “Perhaps we both blew this,” I counter numbly. “Let’s just keep things peaceful.”

  He stands dramatically. “No, don’t do that. Don�
��t protect me. You’re not to blame at all.” He points a finger. Gabe the hero gallops in. “It was all me. You were you. Good, loyal, beautiful. I royally fucked this up. I didn’t know when enough was enough, until it wasn’t.” He picks up his coffee and downs it as though it were Gatorade or a vodka shot.

  Until you were caught. That’s usually the finish line for cheaters.

  I can deal with Guilty Gabe, even Savior Gabe, but definitely not Victim Gabe. That’s when I snap, when I pull the civility plug. No more tiptoeing. “It was Lauren all along, wasn’t it?” My desensitized voice ejaculates into an accusatory hiss. “You really want to put this all on the table—then let’s go.”

  His face turns red, he’s caught off guard. He clearly prefers the civilized version of me. “It wasn’t like that.”

  I shake my head. If I hear one more lie. “Oh, it was so like that. It went as far back as prom night, maybe even longer. You held back your feelings all these years, until you couldn’t—both of you. How you must have laughed behind my back, thinking you pulled one over on me.”

  He sits down. “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t make me feel like this is all in my head—like with that damn nurse.” I slam my coffee cup against the table and it spills in a here-we-go-again moment. “You tell me, Gabe, what am I talking about?”

  “Hi, Mom.” Ava stands in the archway in a faded blue tank top and age-old gray sweats that read “Tyler’s Bar Mitzvah 2009”—how long has she been standing there?

  I jump up from the table and lunge toward her, squeezing her in close. “God, I missed you. Look at you.” She smells like Pantene. I hold her at arm’s length—the wild, wavy mane, the flawless skin. I see her, but I also see Eve simultaneously—my sculpture and my daughter. The flare of the nostrils, the slight chin cleft, the doe eyes. Nathalie’s sculpture.