My October Read Free Page B

shoulders, and he chastised himself for his indoor life. It was like summer. He should get out more. Just above him was the flat that Vien had once known so intimately. Vien had practically lived with Luc’s family during his unhappy years as a boarder at the school. Lyse had procured a letter from Madame Vien allowing him to have dinner with the Lévesques on weeknights. And most weekends too, Vien would be there, sleeping on an inflatable mattress beside Luc’s bed.
    At the second-floor landing there were two doors, one to Lyse’s place, one to Luc’s own home on the top floor. He opened the latter and took the indoor staircase two stairs at a time.
    Hugo’s scuffed shoes lay upended on different steps. Luc collected them, placing them neatly next to one another, removed his own shoes, and arranged them likewise. You have to stay calm, he told himself. And be firm. He turned his head sharply to the right and then to the left. Sometimes he could get it; there would be a satisfying little pop right up at the top, wherethe vertebrae connected with the skull. The axis vertebra. Wasn’t that the name for it? No pop today. He tried again. Nothing. He opened his front door and stepped into a din of gunfire.
    â€œHugo?” he called out. He stood for several seconds, listening. No answer. Only the guns.
    The place smelled of garbage. He had forgotten to put it out on Friday in the rush to get Hugo out of bed and ready for school. The truck would come again tomorrow, a fact that Luc had written in his agenda in bold red print. That was what turning fifty was about: writing things down in red ink.
    Hugo’s door was shut. A green copper cobra fanned its oxidized hood at the level of Luc’s hand. Rémi had bought this ancient ornamental door handle in India and given it to Hugo for Christmas. Luc knocked and the guns fell silent. There was some rustling. Luc reached for the snake’s head and pushed.
    The computer was dark. There was a house rule: Hugo wasn’t allowed to be at his computer until evening, and then only after his homework was completed. He was on his bed, scratching the plastic cover off The Guinness Book of World Records with his thumbnail. His school uniform—an updated version of the navy shirt and pants Luc himself had once worn—lay crumpled on the floor. He was wearing jeans now, his boxers exposed at the waist. Luc picked his son’s school pants up and folded them.
    â€œSo you made yourself faint.”
    Hugo’s eyes remained fixed on the book. His right earlobe was puffy and red. That had been their last fight. Hugo had visited a piercing studio on a dare with two of his friends. Hannah had been annoyingly calm about the whole thing. The school had not been so accepting; the stud had to go. Hugo had gotten rid of it, but, predictably, the hole was now infected.
    â€œYour ear’s red,” Luc said.
    The boy lifted his hand to touch it but still refused to look at him. His hair was shaved so close that Luc could see the bony ridges under his scalp. Pinhead pimples dotted his forehead.
    â€œHugo.” Luc turned his head away sharply, then turned it back. The crick still would not release.
    The boy didn’t move.
    Luc grabbed the book. “Look at me!”
    Hugo looked up, focusing over Luc’s right shoulder.
    Luc inhaled and lunged.
    His son’s bones felt like the bones of a bird in his hands. The boy struggled weakly. This was easy; easy and satisfying. Why was his heart beating so hard? He bunched the loose fabric of Hugo’s shirt in his fists and forced him down on the bed. He felt, rather than summoned, the grin on his face—an instinctive grin, a baring of teeth. What was happening? His mouth and hands seemed to have disconnected from his reason. He’d never let loose like this before. Never dreamed it was possible. Hugo went limp. There were tears in his eyes.
    Luc released him. A mistake, it turned out,