no sign of anyone at home. I figured both Gautier and Pascal would be at work, which will make this so much easier. If Camille is out, even better. I would only have to deal with my mother.
“We’re here,” the driver says to me in broken French. I get out of the car, and as he hands me my suitcases from the trunk, he says something to me about being lucky.
This has nothing to do with luck.
I chose to do this.
I chose to return here.
For eight years I have done my best to try to right the wrongs that were done to me, to no avail. The fact that I’m here is probably a sign that I should have stayed in therapy instead of bailing after one session, but it doesn’t matter in the end. This was a choice, and I have to see it through.
Once I make up my mind about something, I don’t back down.
Even if I should.
Even if my mind might be questionable at times.
Besides, my mother deserves to be liberated. I’m not sure many would agree with me on that front, especially after what happened. She chose her employer over her own daughter.
But blood is a funny thing. She’s really all I have left in this world, and she’s just a victim when it comes down to it. I can free her, though. I can help her discover how wrong she was to stay. At the very least, I can try.
And when I leave here, I’ll know I did all I could.
The driver drops my suitcases off at the front door and then tells me, “Good luck,” as if he knows I’ll need it. He doesn’t drive away, though; instead he waits. He wants to make sure I go inside, either for my own protection or to ensure that he’s not just dropped off a crazy person at the Dumonts’, though the latter would not be a stretch.
I ring the doorbell, and the moment I hear the familiar chime, I immediately want to be sick.
Hold it together, I scold myself, swallowing down bile. You won’t last long here if you don’t.
It feels like forever before the door opens and I’m face-to-face with my mother.
My first reaction is one of shock.
She is so much older, it nearly shatters my heart on the spot. It’s as if fifty years have passed by, not eight.
“Mama,” I cry out softly, shocked at my own reaction. I wanted to remain levelheaded and calm and impersonal, at least at first, at least until I knew what I was up against. But the moment I see her with thick bags under her eyes, the lines between her brows, the hollowness of her cheeks, I know that being here has ravaged her more than I imagined.
And even if it hadn’t taken a toll on her skin, even if Camille had sprung for some surgeon’s skilled hands to do their magic on my mother, you could never hide the emptiness in her eyes.
“Gabrielle,” she says and gives me a shaky smile. “It’s really you.”
For a moment we stand there, staring at each other in shock and awe until we finally snap out of it at the same time, coming forward in an embrace. It’s light at first, but then she holds me tight and I have to breathe deep through my nose, all the way to the back of my lungs, to keep the tears at bay. I’ve refused to cry about what happened to me, and I’ll be damned if I lose it now.
I’m not sure how long we hug for, but it’s enough so that the driver pulls away and disappears down the driveway, and then I know, then I really feel it, that I’m here.
But it’s not home. It has never been a home.
“Oh, my darling,” she says to me, kissing me on both cheeks and holding me at arm’s length. At least her hands are stronger than they look. “I didn’t think you’d show up.”
“Well, I’m here,” I tell her. I’m about to crouch down to pick up the suitcases when I hear the clack of heels on the tile floor and see Camille appearing behind my mother. She’s wearing a flowing white caftan, her hair perfectly done, her face stretched beyond recognition. Her arms are out, and she practically shoves my mother aside to kiss me on the cheeks.
“My goodness, Gabrielle,” she says, and I nearly choke on her Dumont perfume. She looks me up and down. “Look at you.