She was smart, this woman, inserting herself into the equation like this. Persistent.
“I’m sorry he never RSVP’d and that he’s ignored the baby—your beautiful Chloé,” said Donatine. “In your place I’d feel threatened, too.”
Threatened. That about summed it up. And maybe a little jealous, too, though she’d deny it. The best defense was a good offense, her father had always said.
Aimée attempted to hold her tone even. “You’re a stranger to me. Désolée. As I’ve said twice now, we can’t be in contact.”
And if you keep pushing me, I’ll kick your kneecaps and ruin those ugly boots.
Donatine’s pink-glossed mouth quivered. “It would mean so much to me if we were friends.”
“What do you want, Donatine?”
Besides my baby.
“Melac’s determined to reach a custody arrangement. Instead of tearing Chloé’s life apart, let’s discuss this together.”
Together? A stranger, a desperate woman unable to have a child and glomming onto Aimée’s? She’d neatly inserted herself into the equation again.
“Isn’t it up to Melac to try to make things right with me?”
Why are you here instead of him?
“This doesn’t have to go the legal route, Aimée. I tried to persuade him that you’d listen to reason, want the best for Chloé.”
Fear flared up her spine. This Donatine spelled more than trouble. Determined, intent, single-minded—Aimée could relate.
Be smart for once.
Think, think. In less than six months, the woman had met and married Melac, who had been on the rebound and gutted after his daughter’s death.
Yesterday, life had been good apart from puréed carrot spit-up on her shoulder; then Melac had barged in with a barren wife, claiming rights to Chloé. No leg to stand on, she’d thought, but now she wasn’t so sure. Then Nicu and her father’s murder resurfaced … all at once.
“Aimée? Aimée?”
She came back to her damp courtyard and this grasping woman as she felt a package shoved into her hand.
“I don’t want your gifts,” she said. “Or for you to contact me again, Donatine.”
“Then I’m sorry, Aimée. I wanted you to understand. I was hoping we could avoid the difficult route,” she said. As she left, she added, “It’s not my gift, but one from a Monsieur Dussolier. I found it under your mailbox.”
Monday, Late Afternoon
RENé LOCKED THE Citro?n’s door and trudged up the cobbled passage, cursing the humidity under his breath. He winced at every step on the uneven, rain-slicked cobbles. Damn dysplasia flared up every wet spring. This season was the worst yet.
A baby’s cry pierced his thoughts. Chloé? Brought back to earth, he turned around and saw a man soothing a little bundle in a stroller, tucking in a blanket.
Little Chloé took his breath away. The first time she’d clutched his thumb with her tiny fist, she stole his heart. All he wanted to do was protect this tiny thing, hold her and hear her gurgles. When she spat up banana on his new suit, he’d worn it like a badge of fatherhood. At the dry cleaner’s, pride filled him when the owner smiled knowingly. “Ah, babysitting your goddaughter, Monsieur Friant? Nothing to fear—we’re used to this kind of thing. I’ll have your jacket looking like new tomorrow.”
So many recollections of his childhood had surfaced in his mind—normal, according to the American parenting book: your new baby brings up primordial instincts and memories that you relive to relate to your growing infant. He kept a baby book for Chloé, as the American book suggested—even gave one to Aimée for Chloé’s milestones: her first real smile that didn’t come from gas, when she took a bottle instead of the breast, her first solid food.
A car horn blared in his ear. He almost jumped out of his skin. Stupid, he’d been daydreaming in the middle of the street.
He should forget these feelings, move on with his own life instead of helping Aimée live hers. But much as he tried, he couldn’t get past them. Like his feelings for Aimée, which she’d never reciprocate. He was nothing but a best friend to her. And now the godfather of her child. Her child with damned Melac.
By the time he found Cirque Gitane in the large lot up the hill behind Place de Clichy, his hip was throbbing. The large blue circus tent took up more than half of the empty lot. Caravans were parked, surrounded by wall remnants from a Paris long past, lines of washing flapping between them in the breeze. The odor from a steaming pile of fresh horse manure made it feel, for a moment, like a countryside fair. The long, unsmiling look he got from a middle-aged manouche, who stood smoking and polishing the fender of a Mercedes, didn’t make him feel welcome.
Why had he agreed to Aimée’s plea to search out the Gypsies? But he knew why—between her guilt over Nicu’s murder and this loyalty to her father’s old promise, she’d risk getting herself into even more dangerous situations. Not if he could help it. And he relished the challenge of this Drina puzzle—if he could solve it, maybe Aimée would stop being so distracted and get back on track.
René made his way through the caravans. The smells of cheap oil and frying onions emanated from one of the small caravans gathered around the Cirque Gitane tent. Two young boys with curly black hair ran around yelling, playing tag. A young woman wearing a pink jogging suit and a red scarf barked something at them. The boys, ragged pant cuffs trailing on the wet dirt, laughed. She filled a pail with water from the outdoor water tap, a green metal robinet by a wall.
“Excusez-moi,” he said. “I’m looking for Radu Constantin.”
The two boys smiled at him and he was sure he saw them eyeing his cuff links. Little thieves. He pulled up his arms before they could get at them.
“Shouldn’t you be helping your mother?” he growled and shook them off.