I dropped the charger in my bag.
As soon as I did, there it was again. And this time I saw it clearly: a twitch of her littlest finger, tiny, but definitely a movement. And then a twitch of all of her fingers, as if she were clutching at the sheets.
“Sister Eglantine,” I called.
She didn’t answer, so I called louder, my voice hoarse with excitement. It had worked. Her P300 wave or whatever was responding to meaningful stimulus, which meant she could wake up.
Sister Eglantine came in and I hurriedly explained. She summoned the doctor. They prodded and poked and checked the machines, but when they saw nothing, the mood turned into one of vague disappointment. Eglantine smiled apologetically. The doctor cautioned me not to feel too hopeful.
Like all relatives, of course I did secretly feel hopeful: that she would wake. And unlike relatives, I secretly worried: that she would wake.
JULY 15, 2015
Blog Entry
This morning Émilie announced that it was a beautiful day and we were going to the beach. All fine and well, except that Noémie hadn’t spoken a word to me since she saw me with her brother yesterday. That, and I got to the car to find that Freddie was coming, too. Far from being considered a creep by everyone, he turns out to be some sort of universal family favorite, like the sex-pest equivalent of a Disney movie. Needless to say, it was the car trip from hell.
It wasn’t just that Freddie’s thigh was pressed into mine the whole time. His actual breathing made me to want to barf. I refused to look at him, even when he asked me something nice like did I want the window open or closed. I kept trying to move further across the seat, but how could I when beach towels and sun cream and plastic-wrapped sandwiches were packed in around us like Styrofoam peanuts? And despite how I felt, I didn’t want to seem or even be a bitch. So the whole time I just played nervously with my phone, avoiding the Snapchat app, but at the same time wanting to ward off anything that might’ve crept up behind me while I wasn’t looking, virtually speaking.
“Merde, Quinn. You look at it every one second,” says Noémie in disgust.
“I’m checking for messages,” I say lamely, ashamed to be caught out.
“Why? Nobody ever calls you. Do you have friends at home?” She wipes away pretend crybaby tears with her fists.
“Noé! Leave her alone,” says Raphael, sitting shotgun next to his mom. He smiles into the little mirror on his sunshade, catching my eye.
I smile back. At least he’s on my side.
“Maman, tell him to stop picking on me,” Noémie whines.
“Noé. Raffi. Quinn. All of you can stop it,” says Mme B brightly. “I need to focus, children.” She launches into a cheery round of “Joe le Taxi” and insists that we all sing along.
A graphic image of Émilie chaperoning a zillion saggy school bus trips fills my head. I crane my neck, trying to look out the window, embarrassed to have caused more conflict. When I look past Freddie to get a view of the white-powder-dust road, the blue zipper of sea just out of reach, Freddie grins goofily and blocks my view. I stare straight ahead to where Raphael is playing air guitar to “Hotel California” and I notice some new things about him—the little silver scar on the tanned nape of his neck, how he smiles to himself sometimes and his cheeks dimple. I tell myself to pack it in. Of all people to have a crush on, my French exchange’s brother is clearly the worst.
Madame Blavette swerves into the half-empty parking lot of a river beach we’ve been to before. She disapproves of sandy beaches, with their turning tide of tanned flesh—“like a roasted chicken on a spit,” she says. A pebble-filled clamshell at the foot of an aqueduct, this beach has pretensions, is within a hollering distance of culture. People read on it, quote Latin on it. Noémie hates it. She throws open the door with a disgusted sigh and steps out. I un-peel my bare thigh from Freddie’s and head out after her, standing for a dazed moment in the pure midmorning light to taste the salt air and let the heat drench me in a new slick of sweat.
Mme B fusses around happily, singing under her breath, flapping the beach towels out in a neat square of faded tropical colors, laying out her picnic of crackers and homemade pâté and cold 7UP and petits fours. When she unfolds her deck chair, a paperback falls out.
She picks it up, smiling fondly. “Have you read this, Quinn?”
I shrug. “What is it?”
“It is a romance novel by my dear friend Stella, racy in places,” she says with a giggle. “It’s written so simply, though. It is not so interesting. I could lend it to you later if you want to practice your French comprehension?” She hands me the book.
I look at the illustration on the well-thumbed cover: a kneeling woman, naked save for a choke collar. “Um, my mom always said romance novels were the opium of the domestic slam-hound, one of the tools of patriarchal subjugation. I’m pretty sure it’s one of the few issues my parents agreed on, so, um, no thanks.”
Frowning, Émilie strips off her floral halter dress, revealing a pink one-piece. “You know, Quinn, I may be in my forties, but I still get looks from guys, very young men sometimes, younger than Raphael. Probably more than you do, in actuality. Ah, what a beautiful day at the beach with my babies!” Smiling, she settles into her deck chair and puts the book over her face.
Okay, well … awkward. Her kids seem to think so, too. In order to avoid the moment, Freddie and Raphael break the volleyball out and start punting it around. Noémie, having basted every inch of herself, lies facedown to roast where no familial eye contact can harm her. In the midst of everything, I am alone, like Camus or something. I find myself missing Mom, who couldn’t have been more different from Émilie.
When I was little, Mom was always aiming her old Leica at me, calling me into the under-stairs cupboard she’d fitted with two big Belfast sinks for developing photos to watch ghostly reflections of myself appear under the flicker of red lights. Or she’d be baking bread, her hands callused with drying dough. When I hugged her, she’d smell of garlic and thyme from the garden and her long hair and fragile features reminded me of the pictures of Joni Mitchell on the vinyl albums she always played. Dad wasn’t there much and I didn’t like it when he was. He made fun of her photographs, her cooking, never letting her forget he was the important one. I know she wanted to get back to selling her art, maybe after I went to college.
I wish I could have a final memory of her happy at the opening of her very own exhibition instead of the one I do have: my dad’s book launch, the glasses of champagne clinking, the New England literati circulating. Mom in the corner with bandaged wrists, avoiding talking to any of Dad’s guests because he’d already made her feel ashamed of what she’d tried to do.
My nostalgia soured, I snap back to the present. Freddie’s phone is lying on the towel right next to my hand. I pick it up, all sleight of hand. I mean, wouldn’t you look? Come on. Be honest. It’s a fucking BlackBerry. God, I hate those things. No password, though. I look at his apps. Snapchat? Bingo! Username? Hmm, Lapinchaude. Well, that could still come up as “unknown” if he hid it somehow, some clever little hack. I have that feeling again—someone watching. Looking up, I see him staring straight
