She deserved happiness. The kind of happiness I wasn’t capable of giving.
“Please forget I asked that question. Let’s begin again. Tell me about your job.”
She sighed and began wearily. “Well, firstly, it’s really nice to go into a job where everyone respects your opinion, and you don’t have to wear hose and heels.”
I tried to parse out the phrase she just said and came up blank. “What is that? Ho-sand?”
“Hose and heels. Panty-hose? Tights? Stockings? And high heeled shoes.”
Des talons. A flash of Josephine in scandalous thigh high stockings and high heels hit me between the eyes and flooded down to my groin. I groaned aloud.
She stopped talking instantly.
“Pardon. Continue,” I said with effort. “S’il te plaît.”
Clearing her throat, she went on.
I did my best to focus on her words until I was legitimately caught up in her stories about the history of her current projects. “It sounds like you should have stayed on a bit longer with my mother. She’s been sweet talking developers and town councils long enough that she’s definitely learned some tricks. You could both learn from each other.”
Josephine chuckled, huskily. “I bet. She’s formidable.”
“She wasn’t formidable enough to get you to stay though. I wish you’d stayed.” It slipped out and I cursed myself.
Josephine let out a soft breath. “I couldn’t. And for what?”
“To give me time.” I snapped my lips closed with a wince.
There was a pause where I guessed we both teetered on the edge. “Time for what?” she asked then, leaning over the abyss.
I leaned out precariously far too. There’d be no one to catch us if we both lost our balance. “Time … to trust,” I said.
“Me?”
“No.” I licked lips. “No. In the beginning, maybe. But no. To trust myself. My own feelings.” The admission blew through my lips without pause. I pinched the bridge of my nose. Suddenly the darkness, and the intimacy of our private conversation, and the lateness of the hour, all worked together to ease the ropes that held me so tightly, so safely, atop the cliff. “I … loved once before. Desperately. I was open. Naive.” I laughed bitterly. “Loving wholly. Recklessly. Passionately. I always believed the power of that kind of love could not possibly be carried by one person. When I realized the truth, that not only was I carrying it alone, but that it was in fact an illusion, a massive deception I had bought into … brought a child into. The pain was … it broke me, Josephine.” I paused to drag in a lungful of air. “I loved Arriette.” My throat moved to close, the words ending before I was finished.
“I know.”
“No. That’s not …” My hand came to my neck like I could ease away the blockage. “I had already moved into the guest bedroom. Your bedroom,” I added to give context, “before she died.”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“No. I do. I want to. I should have moved her things out. From the boat. From our house. And I did not. I’ve been avoiding it. But it is not for the reason you think. I loved Arriette. I loved her because I still loved the woman she was when we met. And I loved her because she was the mother of my child. A child I adore. I will always be grateful to Arriette for giving me Dauphine. I can never regret my marriage even while I regret I was unable to keep Arriette from her demons. But there was not much of a marriage at the end. I couldn’t reach her. She broke my heart long before she left us. And since then, I’ve been … frozen.”
Josephine’s soft breaths in the silence were the only indication she was still there. But she said nothing, allowing me space to find my words.
“I didn’t see it coming. And I’m not talking about her death. That too. I thought I’d be able to save her and I failed. I hate that I failed. But what I really mean is I didn’t see that our love was not real. My love was. But it was mine, not ours. It was like waking up from a dream into a nightmare. Waking up to realize your person, the keeper of your heart, your secrets, your fears, everything that allows you to walk this earth with the knowledge that you matter, that the earth beneath your feet is solid because someone loves you … realizing none of it was ever real. And maybe even if it was, that you were not enough to keep it. Not enough to deserve it, perhaps. And you doubt yourself. The ground beneath your feet is gone. The weight of the hollowness inside you makes you think you’ll never catch your balance again. You wonder. How did I miss this? Does everybody know that love is not permanent, and they did not tell you? Or was it just me that failed to keep it? The cruelty of the betrayal is everywhere, in all you do. Other couples on the street are just illusions you can see with clarity now. With sneering callousness. They’ll learn, you think. They will learn the hard way.” I took a deep breath. I couldn’t be sure I was making sense and had a feeling I may have devolved into French every now and again when I couldn’t think of the English words, but I was sure the gist was intact.
I lapsed into silence, my breathing heavy, raw. For all I knew the call had been dropped. Or she’d hung up. But I was talking now. And I couldn’t stop, whether she heard it or not.
“The way Arriette died was horrible. Awful. She overdosed at a nightclub in Paris. She’d wanted me to go with her. I refused. I had a big day the next day. Every day was a big day, of course. The real reason was I didn’t want that life anymore. We fought. She went without me. I got the
