Houseguest. The words bore themselves into my body and settle in my chest, heavy and sharp, as I allow myself to be led closer to the man I had thought was dead.
“How do you like Nice?” Ansel asks. His words are weak and breathy, and he pauses in the middle of the short sentence, as though he’s run out of air. It’s then that I notice something strange attached to his neck with tape. It’s a round plastic thing with a tube that connects to a whirring metal machine hung from the back of the wheelchair. It’s a respirator. Ansel can’t breathe without a machine.
I have to speak. Ansel is waiting. Tearing my eyes away from his throat, I answer.
“I love Nice,” I stammer. I flush immediately. My words are hardly recognizable, even to my own ears. “That is, well . . . it’s so full of color,” I add with a rush.
“I knew,” Ansel says, his liquid dark eyes never leaving mine, “that you would love it. The Cote d’Azur is the perfect place for an artist.” He smiles once more and his face is radiant with a pure joy. “And I cannot wait to see some of your work.”
Sylvie moves in to fuss over her son and arrange the collar of his shirt, and I step back.
“He’s coming home,” I murmur to no one in particular. émile hears me and chuckles. When I look at him, I know shock is etched on my face.
“Yes, we were surprised as well,” he tells me with a grin, misreading my expression, “but his doctors and therapists believe he is ready. At first, we wondered how we could get him up the stairs, but we think we have found a solution.”
émile turns back to his son, and I turn away. I clear my throat several times, trying not to cry. After all these weeks, sharing meals and washing dishes and laughing together, after the painting lessons and the little chats, after Sylvie’s suspicions about Thomas, after all my hints, I’m still not part of the family. How could I have ever thought I would be? Even if I tell my “story,” it won’t matter. I feel so stupid.
“Isn’t it wonderful, Rosie?” Sylvie says. She steps away from her son and twirls like a dancer, her tangerine-colored skirt billowing around her. Ansel laughs again. “My baby is coming home. I know you will love him, my Rosie! Perhaps you will both paint together some time! C’est merveilleux!”
I can’t help it. My eyes immediately fly to where Ansel’s stiff hands rest on his lap, curled like claws. I look away, ashamed. Did he see me? Did he know that I was looking at him?
émile opens my tote bag, and we have our picnic at La Chance. Bread and fruit, chocolate, and cheese. Bubbly Orangina. I taste nothing, but chew and swallow because that’s what I’m supposed to do. Ansel’s useless arms remain resting in his lap. Sylvie feeds him baby-tiny bites. émile helps his son drink, holding a straw to his lips. I try not to watch, but can’t help stealing glances. Ansel can eat, but not breathe? And how is it that Sylvie said he could paint?
“A wonderful surprise, yes, Rosie?” Sylvie asks me suddenly, with twinkling eyes. She looks away before she sees my slight nod. And émile fusses with something on Ansel’s chair, and then he places the bright chrysanthemums in a vase beside the bed, and Sylvie continues to feed her son, chattering and smiling. I feel like an object in a still-life painting. There really isn’t any room for me in the family I thought I’d found for myself. I’m the houseguest, like Sylvie said. And suddenly, the tears I’d been trying to keep hidden course down my cheeks.
“Mais, Rosie, qu’est-ce que tu as?” Ansel says. “What’s wrong?”
I gulp and swipe at my wet cheeks, turning my face away. I feel the gentle pressure of émile’s hand on my shoulder. Hot tears fall even faster. Kind, soft-spoken émile. He is who I had chosen to be my father. And part of me still wants to turn to him and feel his arms around me, but I don’t. The painting I’d started this afternoon comes suddenly to my mind, sharp and clear. I’m the figure from my painting, surrounded by the menacing, black sludge. I imagine that dark cloud engulfing me, invading my body. I feel it pouring inside, poisonous, acidic, eating away at everything inside. I’m drowning. I’m dissolving. I am nothing.
I wrench myself away from émile’s gentle hand.
“How will you paint?” I blurt, gesturing in Ansel’s direction. Ansel turns his head toward me, his dark, beautiful eyes meet mine, and I read the hurt that fills them. It’s etched onto his face.
Sylvie’s head whips around toward me, and she opens her mouth to speak, but I can’t stop the words that keep falling from my mouth.
“How are you going to paint? You can’t even hold a paintbrush!” The words slur as they leave my lips. I turn.