Даниэла Стил - Turning Point

—

On Friday, Bill left from the office to take the Eurostar to London to see his girls. They’d all had a hard week in Paris, and were hoping to get some downtime on the weekend. Marie-Laure and Wendy were planning to visit some of the injured children, and were going to have dinner afterward. Marie-Laure’s mother was helping with her children for the weekend, which gave her some free time.

Valérie was meeting with various groups in the counseling program, and she wanted to visit Solange to see how she was. She hadn’t been to school since the shooting, and her grandmother had told Valérie that she was very depressed about her father’s death. Tom was trying to get Valérie to take an evening off and have a quiet dinner with him. He was worried about how hard she was working. She was running all the counseling programs, visiting victims, meeting with bereaved parents, and had been on TV twice that week in draining interviews about the shooting and the loss of so many children, a first in France. She had a lot of weight on her shoulders, and Tom wanted to help her as best he could. He put aside his own plans to be available to her, and she was grateful to him for it. A new man had emerged from the joker he’d been when he arrived.

It meant Paul was on his own to cruise the bars, but after what they’d been through that week, he wasn’t in the mood anyway. No one was. There was a pall over the whole city, and all of France. Gabriel was planning to stay at the apartment with Stephanie. They were inseparable now. In less than two dizzying weeks, Gabriel had become her life.

Chapter Ten

Valérie’s weekend was as busy as her week had been, and after half a dozen phone calls and as many texts, she let Tom join her for part of it, particularly the visits to the injured children. He was great with them. She did her visits to the bereaved parents alone, which was more delicate and part of her job.

Her visit to Solange Blanchet was heartbreaking, and she told Tom about it afterward. The girl was going to be marked for life. She was wearing a heavy mantle of guilt for her father, which Valérie tried to lighten for her, but it would take time, and a lot of help. With Valérie’s advice, she agreed to change schools, and she and her grandmother decided that she should start using her mother’s maiden name, which was the same as her grandmother’s. Her father’s name was too hated now in France and throughout the world, a mass murderer of children and adults was too great a burden for Solange to bear. But Valérie knew these were only the first baby steps for Solange. She had a long road ahead of her to be free of the past. Possibly a life’s work, maybe until she had a family of her own.

Valérie met up with Tom again after meeting with Solange, and they had dinner together that night. Inevitably, they talked about the injured children, and the extensive surgeries they would have after the damage of the Kalashnikovs to their limbs. They had grueling years ahead, which seemed incredibly unfair, but at least they were alive.

After dinner, they went for a long walk, which led them to the rue du Bac where she lived. He remembered how pleasant her apartment was from the night she’d had them all to dinner, but she didn’t invite him upstairs, and was honest about why.

“I don’t want either of us to make a mistake, in the aftermath of the shooting and all the emotions it lays bare. We experienced some terrible things together this week. It would be easy to fall into bed to comfort each other, and I’m sure it would be well worth it.” She smiled at him. She had the feeling he would be an incredible lover, but she didn’t want to find out yet. “I want to keep things real between us, if that’s all right with you. Not a game, not a joke, not a crutch for both of us to use and then throw away. I have this crazy feeling now that we could be important to each other, and I don’t want to spoil that, or waste it, or use it up too soon. I hope that doesn’t sound frightening to you. I know you’ve never had a serious relationship and you’re proud of it. And I don’t want to be another notch on your belt. We’re both too old for that,” she said, and a tremor went down his spine as she said it.

“Maybe not as proud as you think. My pride in never having been in love is more of a cover for not having the guts to try.” She knew that, and nodded at what he said. She loved that he was honest with her and Tom liked what she had said. Whatever they shared now, whether friendship or romance, he wanted it to be real too. It was what he liked best about her, that she was so real, and not afraid to be. He had been afraid to be that open all his life, except in his work, which was the serious part of him.

She allowed him to kiss her on the lips and they stood together for a long time, and then she smiled the mysterious smile that turned his insides to mush and vanished behind the heavy door. He walked home alone after that, thinking of everything she’d said.

And when he got to his apartment, he didn’t call Paul, his bar buddy in Paris, to carouse with him. He didn’t have a drink. He went straight to bed, with Valérie on his mind.

—

The weekend in London with Pip and Alex was exactly what Bill needed. He didn’t see their mother when he picked them up. She and Rupert were away for the weekend. And he explained the school shooting in Paris to the girls as simply as he could, particularly to Pip, who asked him a lot of questions about it. They had talked about it in school. Alex knew of it too, but was still too young to say much on the subject. Bill was thoughtful and sad as he discussed it with them. He told them about the children they’d been able to save.

“You’re a hero, Daddy!” Pip said, impressed and proud of him.

“No, I’m not,” he denied it, thinking of all the children who had died. “Everyone worked really hard to save them. We were a team. There were a lot of heroes.”

For the rest of the weekend, they turned their minds to other things. He took them to a children’s art exhibit. They went ice skating, and the production of Annie was fantastic. The girls loved it and so did he. Being with his own children gave him back a sense of normalcy. They had a big room-service breakfast on Sunday, went for a long walk in the park, had a quick lunch at a pizza parlor they loved, and he took them home. The time always passed too quickly, but was well filled, with activities they all enjoyed. He was good at keeping them busy.

They were sad to see him leave on Sunday afternoon, but were looking forward to meeting him in Paris the following weekend. And Euro Disney was still the plan. He’d had some qualms about it being dangerous, if there were any copycat events by other madmen, which inevitably one thought about now. Anything was possible. But the security at Euro Disney in Paris was so extreme that he had decided it would still be safe to take his children there, as safe as any place was in today’s world, where anything could happen, anywhere, at any time. Even Athena had agreed and said she wasn’t worried.

He was peaceful and happy, as he always was after he saw them, on his way back to Paris on the train. He was back in the city at seven o’clock, and ran into Wendy as they walked into their building at the same time.

“How was London?” she asked him with a smile.

“Terrific. We went to a new singalong version of Annie . My girls knew all the words, and so did I.” He looked mildly embarrassed when he said it, but it had been fun. “What did you do this weekend?” He chatted with her as they walked up the stairs side by side.

“I saw Marie-Laure, and then we went to her apartment and saw her kids. I was going to see Valérie, but she was swamped.”