My October Read Free Page A

from between Hannah’s legs, covered in blood and wax, he hadn’t felt anything even approaching love. After the doctor had cut the cord and the nurses had cleaned him, after Hannah had taken him in her arms and held him, crooning, against her breasts, Luc was offered the chance to hold him too. Hugo had looked up at him with enormous, worried eyes. His brow was mottled yellow and pink, the skin wrinkled like an old man’s. He had resembled in that moment the poster of Franz Kafka hanging above Hannah’s desk: saucer-eyed and Semitic. Not a trace of the Lévesque bloodline to be seen.
    Vien’s chatter brought Luc back to the present. He was describing the details of his life: the house in Longueuil on the South Shore; the daily drive over the crumbling Champlain Bridge; the wife who had walked out a year ago. He still lived in the bungalow by the river they had owned together.
    â€œYou’re lucky to have this,” Vien said, motioning at the room with both hands. “Not the office,” he clarified, following Luc’s eyes. “I mean Hugo. Your wife. A family.”
    Luc didn’t answer. Vien had always been a sentimentalist. Playing father to a fourteen-year-old son and husband to a woman you’d lived with for over twenty years wasn’t unadulterated bliss, not that he was about to go into it.
    â€œWell,” said Vien, as the silence grew uncomfortable.
    They walked to the door.
    â€œHe’s a good kid,” said Vien.
    Again, Luc said nothing.
    â€œBoys go insane at that age.”
    Luc shrugged and shook Vien’s hand, which felt surprisingly spongy. Too many years at a desk marking papers. He watched him walk to his car, a Toyota with a rusting hole above the rear wheel. Vien’s back was slightly bowed, his step small. At fourteen, he used to bound down the stairs, taking them two at a time, kicking at the chestnuts that littered the front walk. Life had done its work. Vien was freighted now, slow. He walked by the chestnuts without even seeing them. Luc tucked in his chin, threw back his shoulders, and pulled himself to his full height. He hoped to God he didn’t look like that from behind.
    Vien’s horn tooted twice as he drove off, back to the Collège Saint-Jean-Baptiste. Where he worked, teaching Hugo. It was hard to fathom.
    A memory came floating to the surface, a cellular memory of the scratchy ill-fitting uniform Luc had been forced to wear for five years. Luc had not liked high school. He’d had reasons, not all of them related to Collège Saint-Jean-Baptiste itself. The face of his old principal, Monsieur Hervé, rose up in front of him. A fierce, pockmarked man. Or was the fierceness, like Vien’s lazy eye, like the honking laugh, just a distraction from the good man underneath?
    Luc put away his notes. Too bad it was Monday—a short day might set the tone for the whole week. Where was Hannah, anyway? It had been four days, but it felt longer. If she’d been here, he would have been spared all this. Or maybe not spared, not utterly. He would have wanted to see Serge Vien again, even though it made him sad. Those soft fleshy hands. He took oneof his own hands in the other and squeezed. He could still feel his bones.
    His wife should be here. This was her responsibility: Hugo, school, health. Especially health. She would have reacted strongly. Dragged Luc into a long, unnecessary discussion about the risks Hugo had just taken, with her father skulking in the shadows behind every word. Maybe it was best she was away.
    Nothing bad had happened, after all. Hugo was his usual sullen self. He seemed fine. It had been a stupid, juvenile prank, that was all. Luc put on his outdoor shoes. He wouldn’t get angry at his son, even if the boy had cost him a day of work. He opened the front door and stepped outside into the blazing sun. As he climbed toward the second floor, where Lyse lived, the rays felt good on his