Learning to Swim (24 page)

I needed to go for a ride. My bike is the one place I’m fully comfortable, where I own my space in a way I don’t on two feet, where the rhythm of pedals turning and wheels humming along the pavement lets my brain work smoothly and I can work out my problems. Usually.

I went out to the garage and lifted my bike into the work stand. It was gritty from my last ride down River Road at home, where sand spread for traction lingers long after the snow melts. I cleaned the frame, wiped the chain, scraped crud from the derailleur pulley wheels, and lubed the pivot points. I had disconnected the cables from the derailleurs and was dripping Tri-Flow into the housing when I heard a car door. When the connecting door into the house
opened I looked up to see Jameson, wearing jeans and a shirt open at the neck.

I stood up and wiped my greasy hands with a rag. “What are you doing here?” As I said it, I realized it sounded rude. He held out something black—the daypack I’d left on the Burlington ferry.

“How did you get this?” I asked in surprise. I had thought about asking Thomas to retrieve it, but that would have required explanations I hadn’t wanted to make.

Jameson reached out and lightly spun the front wheel of my Cannondale. The
tick-tick-tick
sound it made echoed against the walls of the garage. “We sent someone to Burlington. It was in the lost and found department.”

I nodded. “I left it on the deck when I jumped in.” So the Ottawa police were checking into things in Burlington. I unzipped the pack and peeked inside, wincing at the thought of policemen looking through my notebook, my toiletries, my change of clothes.

“You were on your way to see your boyfriend.”

“Yes. Well, the guy I was dating.” I didn’t try to explain why they weren’t the same thing. Or why I’d used the past tense.

“And you saw no one with Paul.”

I shook my head. “No. I told your guys. I just saw him falling toward the water. I never looked up toward the deck. I just dived in.”

He was watching me closely. “And Paul was where?”

I frowned. “He was on the back of the ferry going to Port Kent.”

At first I couldn’t figure out why he was asking, and then I got it: He thought Paul had been thrown in from my ferry—
and that I had seen it happen
. He thought I was shielding someone who would try to drown a child. For a moment I couldn’t speak.

“Look,” I said finally. “I was on the ferry to Burlington. Paul was on the ferry to Port Kent. I didn’t see anyone.”

He waited a long moment, and when I didn’t speak again, he pressed the button that opened the garage door and walked out.

I returned to my bike, moving by rote, reconnecting the cable housing and checking the shifting. So the police thought I’d happened to see Paul being thrown in and refused to tell them what I’d
seen. Or that I’d been involved with the kidnappers. I could see the logic: Kidnappers want to dump the kid, soft-hearted female accomplice revolts. Paul would have told them he hadn’t seen me before, but he was only six. And in theory I could have been involved without him ever seeing me.

So I was in cahoots with the kidnappers—but had rescued Paul and cheerfully returned him home? And now was living with father and kidnapped child? This made my head hurt.

I put the tools in my toolbox, washed up, and climbed the stairs to Philippe’s office. I turned his computer on. Maybe the police had read these emails, and something in them had made Jameson suspect Philippe. Or maybe something in them would help clear him.

I needed to know.

I took a deep breath, opened Outlook Express, and went to Madeleine’s emails. I clicked on the first and oldest one, and started reading. By the time I had read the first half dozen, my stomach began to roil, but by then I couldn’t have stopped, like not being able to look away from a car crash. Because many of the incoming emails quoted her emails and her Sent folder held outgoing emails, I could read ones she had written as well as those she’d received. Only about a third were in English, but I could read enough French to understand the gist of the others. I skimmed them, one by one, with a growing sense of nausea.

I couldn’t tell Philippe about these, not now, not ever. I hoped he had never seen them. Some of the emails, the ones written to people on committees or in Philippe’s business circle, were professional and polite, with a touch of humor. But the emails to her personal friends were entirely different. It almost seemed like reading a teenager’s diary. She spoke scathingly of Philippe and never mentioned Paul; she talked of shopping and vacations and made crass sexual jokes. Her tone with male correspondents was coy and suggestive.

I couldn’t reconcile these emails with the elegant, graceful woman looking at me from across the room.

How could Philippe have been with a woman like this? Had he known this side of her?

And the next thought followed immediately:
If he did, how could he not have wanted to get rid of her?

I wanted to try to forget I’d ever seen these emails, to hit Control A and the Delete button and empty the trash so they’d be gone for good. But they weren’t mine to delete.

Neither had they been mine to read, but that was done. And there could be something in these emails that would lead to the kidnappers: a name, a date, a hint of what Madeleine had done her last few days. Maybe the police had seen them, maybe not; maybe they had missed something in them.

I printed them out. I ran the French ones through an online translation program and printed the translations. I turned the computer off and went down and hid the stack of paper in the bottom drawer of my dresser, my stomach churning. I had crossed a line I’d thought I would never cross.

I went to ask Elise for something to quiet the turmoil in my gut. She gave me some Gelusil, a crunchy tablet that tasted like a Di-Gel. Then I went for my ride, and I rode hard.

Paul and Philippe were back from the psychologist visit and in good spirits when I returned. It had gone well, Philippe told me. The psychologist had said that Paul washing out his clothes and his reaction to napping showed he was processing what had happened to him and adjusting to his new environment. And Paul seemed okay with the idea of seeing his uncle tonight. Just not eager.

Part of me wanted to meet a relative of Madeleine’s, but part of me didn’t. Maybe Philippe had had the right idea moving here: new house, new town, new school, new friends—even new language. Let the past go. Unfortunately the part of Philippe’s past known as his brother-in-law had moved with him.

After lunch Philippe headed to work, and Paul went off for a nap. I agonized over what to wear. Shopping is one of those girl skills left out of my DNA. This is where I need friends like Kate, who can effortlessly find great clothes at bargain prices and could have had me
outfitted in no time. I settled on my cord slacks and a pullover from among the stuff Zach had brought up. I tried to iron the slacks, but Elise appeared and took the iron from me. Whenever I try ironing, whatever I’m working on ends up more wrinkled than when I started. I should call it wrinkling instead of ironing.

“So Paul’s uncle lives here in Ottawa,” I said as Elise deftly wielded the iron. She gave me a quick look that somehow said that Claude wasn’t her favorite person, then nodded.

“He and his sister were very close?”

Another nod. “Mostly,” she said, and the tone of her voice told me she wasn’t going to say more. Good nannies did not gossip, and she was a good nanny.

“So does Paul have other aunts and uncles?” I asked.

This Elise answered readily enough. “No, Monsieur Philippe is an only child, and there were only Claude and Madeleine.” She handed me a crisply pressed pair of slacks, and I thanked her.

Philippe got home a scant fifteen minutes before Claude arrived, with just enough time to greet us and go change. By the time he reappeared, Claude was there. My heart was hammering—I felt as I were going to meet a part of Madeleine.

But if Claude resembled his sister, I couldn’t see it, except his hair color. His features were indistinct, and he was good-looking in a careless way, with wispy blondish hair and a diffident manner. He was flawlessly polite, shook my hand briskly, and presented Paul with a small stuffed dog that talked when you squeezed it. Paul accepted it with equal politeness and said in careful English, “Thank you, Uncle Claude.”

Not even a hug, for a child who had been gone for months. But somehow I wasn’t surprised.

It wasn’t a scintillating evening, to put it mildly. Paul was dressed neatly with his hair carefully combed, and Tiger banished to the kitchen. The food was exquisite. But Paul was listless and answered in monosyllables. Philippe’s manners were impeccable, but he wasn’t what you could call relaxed. Me, I’m not that comfortable in new social situations in the first place, and this was particularly awkward.
You couldn’t discuss Madeleine or what had happened to Paul, and you could only say so much about the weather and how good the food was. It didn’t help that Claude occasionally lapsed into French he assumed I couldn’t understand, although Philippe steadfastly responded in English. The meal dragged interminably, and Paul asked to be excused before dessert.

“He starts school tomorrow,” I offered, trying to fill the silence.

Claude was taking tiny precise bites of his cheesecake when Philippe rose. “Excuse me for a moment, please. I just need to check on Paul.” I nearly panicked that Philippe was leaving me alone with Claude, whom I disliked without entirely knowing why.

Then Claude turned to me, and my hackles went up. “I’m rather confused about your connection,” he said pleasantly.

“Connection?”

“To the family.” He sipped his coffee and eyed me, almost mockingly. “Are you working here?”

“Oh, no, just staying awhile, until Paul is settled in. Just to help out.”

“How amazing that he turned up, so long after he was taken. So you found him?”

I nodded. “Yes, I did.” I watched for a reaction, but his face remained blank. I know statistically it’s usually family members who commit violence against each other, and Claude made me uncomfortable.

He went on. “My little nephew seems very attached to you.”

“Yes, well, I’m very fond of him.”

“And Philippe, too.” He smiled.

The innuendo was apparent now. Gloves off.

I reminded myself this man’s sister had died tragically. I reminded myself he was Paul’s uncle. I forced a smile. “Yes. Philippe, too.”

Philippe returned at last. “So sorry it took so long. Paul’s rather excited about school tomorrow.” He and Claude chatted about work, while I tried not to let my eyes glaze over. At last Claude rose to leave, and on his way out said something in French I didn’t catch. After the door shut behind him, I sighed. Philippe laughed.

“I’m sorry.” I was aghast that I’d made my relief so apparent.

“No, no, it’s all right. Claude isn’t a wonderful conversationalist, unless it’s a business deal, and he was beside himself trying to figure you out. And losing Madeleine has been very hard on him. They were very close—they lost their parents when they were quite young. I’m sorry it was uncomfortable for you.”

Of course sitting at a table with his brother-in-law, nephew, and me, with his sister gone, had been difficult. Of course it was worse because they had no other family, and I felt a pang of regret for my lack of compassion. For Claude’s first meeting with Paul, I should have been absent. On this, I think, Philippe had been wrong.

But this was the most I’d heard Philippe say about his wife.

That evening Paul had a nightmare, screaming,
“Non, non, non!”
Philippe was doing some work in his office; I was reading in my room and reached Paul first. He was still screaming when I grabbed him into my arms.

“Baby, baby, it’s okay, everything’s all right,” I murmured, rubbing his back while his cries died away into a damp whimper against my neck.
“C’est seulement un …
 nightmare
 … un cauchemar.”

“Maman,”
he whispered brokenly. I felt a sharp pain. He wasn’t mistaking me for his mother—he was calling to the woman who would never hold him again. I’d been wrong to assume that he hadn’t been missing his mother.