Paris Ever After: A Novel

by K. S. R. Burns

I drop the cashmere throw and rush toward Sophie, waving my hands to shoo her away. But she doesn’t budge. She stands as rigidly as a department store mannequin, her red-painted mouth a lowercase “o” of astonishment.

  Manu appears as I’m grabbing Sophie by the shoulders. Perfect timing. “Here,” I say to him, spinning her around and pushing her into his arms. As he ushers her away I slam the door shut.

  Sophie is out. I’m in. Yeah, karma’s a bitch. Yet I pity the real pain I saw in her eyes. Margaret is Sophie’s mother, the one person in the world from whom she has a right to expect unconditional love and acceptance. As we all do from our mothers.

  But right now my priority has to be Margaret. I hurry back to the bed. “It’s OK, she’s gone.”

  I put an extra emphasis on the “she,” again out of pity for Sophie, who—whatever she is—is not an “it.”

  The terror on Margaret’s face has transmogrified to petulance. “Amy, my dear girl. You’ve been away ever so long. Where in the world have you been?”

  I sit beside her on the bed and stroke her icy cheek. “I was—out for a bit. But I’m here now. Don’t cry.”

  Too late. She’s already crying, and like yesterday, I’m disturbed to see a woman in her sixties weep with such utter abandon. I’ve always believed that with age comes serenity. I’ve never thought of older people as having passionate, unbridled emotions. They usually look so sedate.

  But Sophie’s return from the dead, so to speak, has turned Margaret’s world upside down and inside out. In her addled state of mind, she probably thinks she’s seeing a ghost.

  Margaret rolls away from me and buries her face in her pillow. “I’ve been calling and calling for you, Amy. For ever so long.”

  “What? You called for me?”

  My pity for Sophie begins to dissipate. She knew her mother wanted me, but she declined to deliver the message. She even kept me away by force. Here I’ve been making excuses for her behavior—after all, who wouldn’t be upset to return home after a prolonged absence (for any reason) and find another girl, a sort-of substitute daughter, living in her room, sleeping in her bed, wearing her clothes, and being mothered by her mother? If I had a parent as lovely as Margaret, I would want her all to myself. Forever.

  But Sophie has been back in Paris for only a day, and her parent is already a blubbering, hysterical mess.

  “Margaret.” I cup my hand around her trembling shoulder. “You’re shivering. Would you like me to make you a nice hot cup of tea? Or a tisane? Does that sound good?”

  I had her at “tea.” She pauses mid-sob and twists to look at me, the corners of her mouth lifting into the beginnings of a small smile.

  “There. You see?” I grin at her. Our roles have reversed. I’m the mother now, the comforter, the provider of tea, the crooner of soft words. It’s a lovely feeling. And, maybe, good practice for Catherine.

  “Everything will be all right. I’ll go put the kettle on.” I arrange the cashmere throw over her legs and turn to leave the room.

  But when I open the door Sophie is standing there, her arms wide open, just the way Margaret opened her arms to me yesterday, when she was standing in the doorway to the apartment and calling for me to come. Now it’s more obvious how they could be mother and daughter.

  I step to block Margaret’s view. Manu again appears, grabs Sophie around the waist, and drags her away. I turn back to the bed and to Margaret.

  It all happens very fast. But not fast enough. As if a switch has been flipped, Margaret has moved into full freak-out mode. She rolls her head back and forth across the pillow. Strands of white hair stick to her damp cheeks. A vein in her forehead throbs. Her normal aura of Shalimar has been blotted out by the salty stench of tears. “Don’t leave me!” she moans. “Don’t leave me with—that!”

  This time I immediately understand what the “that” is.

  “It’s OK. It’s OK. I won’t leave you, Margaret. I’m staying right here with you.” I sit beside her and stroke her thin arms through the blanket, trying to quell her trembling. Yesterday, I believed I’d lost Margaret, my new beautiful friend and potential mother substitute, and I was scared. Today it seems as though Margaret has lost herself, which is much scarier. None of this wild emoting goes with the Margaret I thought I knew, the crisp cheerful ever-so-British Margaret forever putting the kettle on or running a bath. Manu said she had a complete mental breakdown when Sophie went missing. It must have been like this.

  When Margaret’s sobs dwindle to intermittent choking sounds, it occurs to me to ask about her pills. I’ve never asked what they’re for, that subject being none of my business. But whatever the pills’ purpose, if she’s been steadily taking them, then abruptly stops, she might have a reaction of some kind. Like chills, the shakes, and paranoia.

  “Margaret, have you been taking your medication?” I strive for a conversational tone but cannot completely erase the tremor from my voice. I nursed my dad as he succumbed to multiple sclerosis. And Kat as she battled cancer. But neither of those experiences prepared me for this.

  Her eyes flutter open, and she blinks up at me. I try to catch a glimpse of her pupils, because maybe instead of not taking anything, she’s been taking too much of something. But I can’t really tell.

  “You know, your pills? There’s a pink one, I think, and some blue ones.” I squint at the clutter of bottles and vials on the dressing table across the room. “Could I look at them?”

  When she doesn’t object I slowly rise to my feet, patting her shoulder. “I’m just going over here, to your dressing table. See? I’m not leaving you.”

  She lies quietly, watching me through slitted eyes, and all seems well until I reach the dressing table and pick up the first bottle. That’s when the shrieking commences. I rush back to her side, but before I get there, she’s launched herself out from under the covers, leapt to her feet on the bed, and started to jump up and down. Her arms are outstretched, her spine is flexing, and her head is lolling back onto her shoulders, as if she’s riding a bronco.

  I don’t know what is more disturbing—the high eerie pitch of her keening or the fact that she’s naked.

  twelve

  OK, she’s not naked.

  She’s wearing a white cotton bra and underpants, and also socks—not thin synthetic ones from Walmart like my mother’s (which I’m still wearing), but a thick woolen hand-knitted pair that I’ve seen her put on when she’s especially cold. Even in the summer, Margaret gets chilly. She’s maybe too thin.

  I’ve grabbed her dressing gown from the armoire and am struggling to insert her flailing arms into the sleeves when the door opens and Manu strides in.

  Thank God.

  “Margaret! Madame.”

  His voice is low, but it seems to penetrate her screams, and the crying begins to abate.

  “Margaret.” He grabs her hands. “Please. You must try to calm yourself.”

  Together we manage to get the robe on her, tie the belt in a lopsided bow, smooth back her hair, and wipe her cheeks dry.

  “We’re here,” I say to her. “We’re here. It’s OK.”

  She stares up at me and shakes her head, as if to say that nothing is certain anymore, not even our physical presence.

  Her sobs slowly die down, and all grows still. Calm. Manu and I are sitting side by side on the edge of the bed, our thighs touching. Margaret is curled into a loose ball across our laps. I am cradling her shoulders, and Manu is massaging her toes. Her eyes, sea green again, dart around the room, from time to time focusing on Manu’s face as if he is the savior, the answer to everything that is wrong in her world.

  She’s just starting to relax, her arms and legs growing heavy, when the door flies open, and Sophie again bursts in.

  Incredible.

  Sophie is either very stubborn or a very slow learner. How can she not know that her presence is the last thing her mother needs right now? I try to signal to her with my eyebrows to leave before Margaret sees her. But the damage has already
been done.

  “No! No! No!” Margaret again starts to writhe in our arms. Her face has gone from white to red to purple. Her body in the silk dressing gown is hot and slippery.

  Sophie just stands there in the open doorway, her lower lip quivering, her eyes dull. I want to shout, “Get out of here, now! What are you? Stupid?”

  But that’s the one thing I can’t say. Margaret is Sophie’s mother, and this is Sophie’s home. Not my mother. Not my home. All I can do is try to hang on.

  “Mon Dieu.” Manu slides out from under Margaret’s long and now stiffly outstretched legs, grabs Sophie by the elbows, and starts to propel her toward the door. This third time, however, she puts up more of a fight.

  “Maman!” she cries, wrenching herself from Manu’s grasp, and against my better judgment, I’m again moved to pity Sophie. No daughter wants to see her mother screaming and thrashing like a lunatic. Daughters need their mothers to be heroes. We need them to be better than any human being can ever really be.

  Mothers know this. Even I know this. Surely Margaret does. But now her screaming has risen to an ear-splitting crescendo. I struggle to prevent her from rolling off my lap onto the floor. Sophie evades Manu’s attempts to pull her away and drops to her knees at my feet, her mouth gaping wide and revealing a missing molar. No wonder she keeps her lips pinched together most of the time.

  I shout into Margaret’s ear. “Margaret. Please. Look at me.”

  But instead she’s looking at Sophie, who’s also weeping loudly. Sophie is as prone to outsized emotion as Margaret is, I realize. That’s another way they’re alike.

  Luckily for all of us, Manu is like Kat, in that he’s the kind of person you want to have around in a crisis.

  “Sophie, viens.” He grabs her under the armpits and hauls her to her feet. She kicks and spits like an angry kitten, but he manages to eject her from the room—for the last time, I sincerely hope—and close the door behind her, wedging a chair under the knob.

  The ghost monster once again vanquished, Margaret’s screams stop, abruptly and completely this time, like snipping a ribbon in two. Manu and I look at each other in astonishment, and all of a sudden, it’s as if there’s no Sophie and it’s back to just the three of us. Oh, I’m going to miss this.

  I’m starting to relax when—faster than it takes to tell it—Margaret flips off my lap, lands on her knees, springs to her feet, and bounds across the room like a fawn. Manu reaches out to grab her, but she’s too fast for him. It’s astounding really. Before either of us can even call her name, she disappears into the adjoining study, the room that would make such a perfect nursery but that now, because of Sophie, will never be one. The door slams shut, and we race to try the knob, but it’s locked. Margaret’s periodic bouts of madness always seem to have an underlying thread of intelligence. Just when you think you’ve got her figured out, she hits you with another surprise.

  “What now?”

  Manu’s opening his mouth to answer me when we hear the first crash. Then another, and another, and another, each one louder than the last. The din can probably be heard throughout the building. I’m certain Catherine can hear. I want to reassure her, to say, “No, my little one, this isn’t what the world is like; this isn’t how people act. Not usually.”

  I slap the solid panel of the door with the palms of my hands. “Margaret! It’s Amy! Let me talk to you, let me see you. Please?” I want to remind her that she has friends, that good things are still out here, waiting for her, that the world is beautiful if not always just.

  My response is a heavy thud followed by a tinkling of broken glass. It could be the television. Or maybe the computer. Or the window. Manu and I again turn to each other, and I know we’re both thinking the same horrible thought. What if Margaret jumps out the window?

  I pound on the door as hard as I can. Manu rattles the knob. We join our voices together and call to her in unison, and we’re rewarded by a pause in the crashing. But then we hear the whoosh of something heavy sliding across the carpet, followed by a boom and a thud and more breaking sounds. I cover my face with my hands. This is not the kind of situation I’ve ever had to deal with before. My mother used to get angry—she had moods. She never smashed things though. The worst she did was yell, at me or at Dad, and grab the car keys to go for a drive.

  I didn’t recognize it as a child, but to escape, to flee—that was the overwhelming desire wafting from my mother like a powerful perfume. Perhaps that’s why I ran away to Paris. It’s a family trait.

  Manu touches my shoulder. “Is there not a key?” He shouts to make himself heard. This is madness.

  I shake my head. “No! I don’t think so!”

  The only interior key I know of in the whole apartment is the one that goes to the bathroom door. We keep losing it because it keeps falling out of the lock.

  Manu kneels down and positions his lips at the keyhole. “Margaret! Madame! S’il vous plaît. Je vous en prie!”

  Please. I beg of you.

  It’s odd he should use formal language like “je vous en prie.” Manu and Margaret always say the familiar tu to each other—they really are like mother and son. But the decorous vous seems to spark some reflex of politesse in her because the sound of breakage dies away.

  I’m resting my forehead against the door when I realize that no noise is scarier than noise. Now we can only imagine what she’s doing in there.

  “What next?” I whisper to Manu.

  Me, I’m out of ideas. This isn’t my country. Margaret isn’t my mother. Manu is at least French and her longtime friend. Possibly her future son-in-law. I shudder at the thought. When Manu called me earlier and asked me to come here fast, I was glad William had, temporarily at least, put himself on the back burner. But when I look around this room, all I can think is how out of place I am. A foreigner, a stranger in a strange land.

  Manu squints at me—it’s his thinking squint, the one he uses when deciding which catering client will need to go last—then pulls his phone from his hip pocket.

  He stands. “Please remain.”

  I nod. I will remain.

  When Manu opens the bedroom door, Sophie’s round face looms like a white balloon. I was hoping she’d been scared off. Or given up and gone somewhere, anywhere. Sophie disappeared out of Margaret’s life once before. Poof. Why not again?

  “Sophie,” he murmurs, taking her arm and closing the door behind him.

  I sit on my heels on the carpet outside the locked study door, my hands folded in my lap and my head bowed. Catherine doesn’t move. William and his presence in Paris seem very far away. Not the slightest squeak comes from the study, not even when I call, “Margaret? How about a cup of tea?” No sound comes from the sitting room either—if Manu and Sophie are talking, they’re being quiet about it. I don’t even hear traffic noise from the street.

  The silence becomes worrisome. Margaret isn’t a young woman. She may have passed out in there or had a seizure or a stroke. Or something. What if when we get to her, it’s too late? What if Catherine is somehow being damaged by all this madness going on outside the sanctuary of my body?

  I scramble to my feet and pace. I’ve often wondered why Margaret chose this room as her bedroom when it’s so much smaller than the other one, the one I’m no longer entitled to think of as my own. Only the biggest and the best for Princess Sophie, I suppose. Margaret gave her everything she had to give, and Sophie repaid her by disappearing and then reappearing and in the process robbing her mother of her mental balance. Even if the disappearance wasn’t her fault, even if she truly was kidnapped, the way she engineered her return was thoughtless and screwy.

  Dad liked to crack, “Insanity is hereditary—you get it from your kids.” An old and pretty dumb joke. But did I, too, drive him crazy with concern, with fear, with love? Catherine isn’t even born yet, and I’m already obsessing over what’s good for her, what’s best for her, is she all right, will she be happy, will she be safe.

  I make Margare
t’s bed, sit on it, and again notice I’m still wearing my mother’s white socks. The nylon is so thin I can see my toenails through the fabric. I take them off. Once the socks have worn out, they’ll be gone. Forever. Like Kat. Like my mother. I smooth them over my knee, fold them, and slip them into my pocket. Later I’ll wash them out, by hand, and return them to their plastic baggie.

  Since there’s no clock in Margaret’s bedroom, and my phone is in my tote bag out in the sitting room, I’m not sure how much time passes before I hear the familiar creak of the apartment’s front door, followed by the lilting hum of French voices. I’ve just stood up when the bedroom door swings open, and Manu appears, followed by a half-dozen uniformed men.

  They’re dressed in loose-fitting navy blue jackets and matching trousers, striped around the arms and legs with wide yellow ribbon. The backs of the jackets are stenciled in all caps with the words, “SAPEURS POMPIERS PARIS.” They’re wearing shining silver helmets that make them look, to me, like space-age knights. Margaret’s charming ladylike bedchamber feels suddenly awash in testosterone.

  “Ici?” one of the knights asks, tipping his gleaming headgear in the direction of the closed study door.

  Manu nods. “S’il vous plaît. Elle est très fragile.”

  The knight who spoke, the “head knight” in my overactive imagination, nods. He knows his patient is fragile. That’s why he’s here. He came to do a job, the nod says, and how he does it is up to him, the trained professional. Manu and I are at best just bystanders, at worst potential impediments. But at least he lets us remain in the room as he swiftly approaches the door and begins to run his fingertips over the panels, the handle, and the hinges.

  The hinges. Manu and I could have tried to disassemble them and remove the door ourselves. Then we wouldn’t have had to summon this intimidating platoon of military types, who are sure to terrify Margaret out of what’s left of her wits. But the events of the day have clearly spun out of our control. That much is obvious.

  I retreat to the far corner. Manu sits on the edge of the dressing table. Sophie remains, thank God, elsewhere. The head knight rattles off a string of commands to one of his sub-knights, who hustles out and instantly returns with a large canvas bag of tools. Their competence is breathtaking.