Aimée hurried up the Métro stairs at Sully–Morland in the sunshine. Ahead on her right nestled a vestige of the Bastille prison in the wedge-shaped square Henri-Galli. Daffodils blossomed around the lichen-encrusted stone tower base. Spring was here.
Across the quai lay ?le Saint-Louis. Children’s laughter drifted, the khaki-green Seine rippled. The fragrance of blossoming chestnut trees overlay the diesel fumes from the Number 67 bus. She headed into the square and the play structures inside.
She pictured Chloé and Gabrielle by the slide, Babette pulling out their snacks and juice from a baby bag on the stroller. Pictured taking Chloé home to play with Miles Davis, a long nap.
But neither Chloé nor Gabrielle were by the slide. She jumped at a sudden, loud buzz: a hard hat wearing earphones was using a chainsaw to cut branches off a fallen tree trunk behind a barricade. Sawdust flecks fluttered in the air.
Parents were packing up, enticing toddlers off swings. The irritating whine of the saw was prompting an exodus. At the far end of the park, Babette was reaching down to settle Gabrielle in her baby backpack. Aimée started to wave but realized Chloé’s stroller wasn’t there. Nor was Chloé in Babette’s other arm. Where was she? Alarmed, she looked around.
Melac and Donatine sat on a bench by the Ping-Pong table, Chloé beside them in her stroller. What was Babette thinking? Livid now, she stomped across the sandy gravel toward them. Babette had strict instructions … and that snake Melac had somehow talked her into handing Chloé over?
She’d give Melac and Donatine more than a piece of her mind. She got caught behind two women, who obstructed her view, then a boy riding his bike wove in between them, blocking her way.
Furious now, she contemplated getting that expensive lawyer, who’d done nothing for her so far, on the line to issue a restraining order against these two. Calm down, she needed to calm down before she made a scene at the park.
All of a sudden, she heard screeching brakes as the boy’s bike skidded. Gravel sprayed, hitting her calf, as the boy swerved to avoid a dog on the path. He veered, lost control and crashed into the flimsy barricade around the fallen tree.
Right where Chloé had been sitting in her stroller. Panic hit her. She broke into a run before she could think, before she could scream a warning to Melac, who was headed toward the garbage can with a diaper. The barricade collapsed against the hard hat, knocking him forward with the chain saw. Mon Dieu, the saw, Chloé’s stroller! Screaming, she was screaming now. “Chloé! Watch out! Chloé, my baby!”
Donatine, who was sitting on the bench opening a juice carton, looked up when she heard Aimée’s screams. In a split second, registering the danger, she shoved Chloé’s stroller. But the brakes locked, frozen in place. Time slowed as Aimée saw the chain saw flying through the air toward Chloé’s yellow bunny cap. Nothing to stop it. Aimée’s heart pounded in her chest. “Non, non!” How could this happen?
Donatine bounded off the bench, batting her arms at the saw blade and knocking the stroller over.
A sickening whine. A scream. Chloé’s cries. Melac was running and shouting, “Oh, mon Dieu!” It all happened so fast: Melac grabbed and switched off the grinding saw, pulled Donatine off Chloé’s upset stroller. She heard Chloé’s cries and it tore her heart.
Blood dripped from Donatine’s sweater, the torn flesh of her arm. Melac whipped Chloé from the stroller.
“Is Chloé all right?” Donatine gasped.
In Melac’s arms, Chloé’s tear-stained face broke out into a smile.
LATER, AFTER DONATINE was loaded into the ambulance, Aimée persuaded the attendant to let her in for a moment. Bandaged and connected to an IV, a pale-faced Donatine sat propped on the stretcher. “Chloé’s safe, thank God. I’m so sorry. We pressured Babette … I crossed the line.”
Aimée nodded. “Still, if you hadn’t done what you did, Donatine—thrown yourself in the way …” said Aimée, taking her hand. Her throat caught.
“This was our fault. How terrible it would have been if …” Donatine erupted in tears. “We put Chloé in danger. I didn’t have the maternal instincts to protect her. Destroyed any trust we wanted to build, any hope for custody. Alors. Please forgive us. Me.”
“Mais non, what are you saying, Donatine?” Aimée shook her head. “All right, you made a mistake. But your quick reaction saved Chloé. Accidents happen. Freak ones.”
Melac, holding Chloé in his arms, joined them. Chloé drooled and fussed. “I think she needs her maman,” said a shaken Melac, a lost look on his face. Chloé mewled, gumming his finger. “Oww.” Melac winced and pulled out his finger.
That’s my girl.
Aimée managed a grin. “I think your daughter just bit you with her first tooth.”
Once Chloé was back in her arms, safe and warm, she nuzzled her ear. “I can see Chloé would be safe with you.”
Melac looked at Donatine and then back at Aimée. “I’ll go with whatever you want, Aimée. But please, it’s important I recognize her, put my name on her birth certificate. She’s my daughter. Legally it’ll give her protection, benefits if something happens to me. The rest, you decide.”
Aimée thought back to Nicu’s birth certificate, wondering whether having Pascal Leseur’s name on there would have changed Nicu’s life.
“Then let’s forget the lawyers, Melac,” she said. “Work things out ourselves.”
Aimée reached out for Donatine. She couldn’t quite hug her yet, but she squeezed her bruised hand.
IN HER APARTMENT, Aimée settled a freshly changed Chloé on the duvet and kicked off her heels, about to join her for a nap. Miles Davis’s ears perked up.
“What’s up, Miles Davis?”
He scampered off the bed and beelined it to her desk. Yelped. A low beeping came from her answering machine, which she’d turned down so as not to wake Chloé at night.
The red light blinked. A message. She hit PLAY.