Page 97 of One Last Thing
It has been quite an experience, all these activities and the festivities of the last few days, but at the core of it, Megan and I have found a connection I thought had ruptured too much to be repaired. I’ve seen in her a better person than I could ever hope to be. She is, surely, my single greatest achievement. I’d hoped to say goodbye to the man who made this all possible, a man I loved so very much, together.
But I’ve waited in reception all day for her to appear and she has not.
I understood that after the revelations of last night she might not want to see me, so I went home and to bed whereupon I did not get much sleep: I was so worried about whatshe was suffering. This morning, I waited until an appropriate time to knock on her door, but she didn’t answer. I tried several more times, I talked to her through the door, and then when housekeeping came to clean her room, I learnt that she wasn’t in there. The bed was made, so either she got up at the crack of dawn or she never came back to her room last night.
Surmising she’d be with Nico, and pleased that she had someone to look after her, I came down to breakfast, took a couple of pastries back to reception, sat in one of the chairs and ate there, waiting in the hope of talking to her whenever she came down.
Neither Françoise nor Nico have been around. I asked the lovely man behind reception if they’d be coming today and he said they had both taken the day off after all the hard work of the festival. My heart sinking, I returned to my chair and continued to wait.
I’m still waiting, hope fading, as Nico appears late in the afternoon.
He stops on the stairs as he sees me and then comes down the last few steps.
‘Hello, Dawn,’ he says in a kind voice.
‘Hi, Nico. Is she with you?’
He nods. ‘How long have you been here?’
‘All day. I hoped to speak to her.’
Hands emerging from his pockets, he comes to sit down on the chair next to me, tired and defeated. ‘She’s upset.’
‘I know. It’s confusing for both of you.’
‘You shouldn’t have lied.’
‘No. I’m sorry.’
His eyes search mine, his eyebrows knitted together in a mixture of what I think to be confusion and sympathy. ‘I’m sorry, too, for what you went through.’
I smile warmly, reaching over and patting his forearm. ‘Thank you. But it was a long time ago.’
‘Still. It must have been difficult.’
‘Yes,’ I say, nodding and pulling my hand back to my lap. ‘In some ways, it was truly awful. The most painful experience of my life. When you love someone and you find out that they won’t love you back in the same way . . . it’s a pain I wouldn’t wish upon anyone.’
He bows his head, eyes falling to the floor.
‘But I loved Henry completely,’ I continue. ‘Nothing could or ever will change that. Eventually I forgave him for the only thing he needed to apologise for, which was the cheating, and then we became closer than ever. No one knew me like he did, Nico, and aside from Megan and perhaps, for a time, Mathieu, I knew him better than anyone else, too.’
He looks pained at the mention of his uncle.
‘How could they have lied to us for so long?’ he asks hoarsely. ‘All of you knew this and you let us go on blindly.’
‘I don’t know how long Françoise knew, Nico. I never told her what happened between Henry and Mathieu,’ I inform him, forcing him to look up at me again. ‘Maybe she knew deep down and chose to ignore it. I don’t think he told her for years after my separation from Henry. She must have wondered why we never returned, why I never . . . spoke to her again.’ I lean back in my seat, thinking back on the state I was in back then. ‘I associated this entire place and everyone in it with the worst time of my life. I blamed Mathieu and, irrationally, resented Françoise for the connection.’
He swallows. ‘I need to talk to him. I have so many questions.’
‘I think that will be a good thing.’
‘Megan will never get to ask Henry questions, she won’t get answers,’ he says, his jaw twitching. ‘You took that from her.’
I don’t say anything for a moment, taking the hit. It is the truth and I must accept it.
‘Yes, we did,’ I finally manage to say, my voice wavering. ‘Henry wanted to protect her and I wanted to protect him. He grew up in a family that could never have accepted who he was. I did try to persuade him to tell Megan, Nico, I did. I knew it wouldn’t affect her love for him. It didn’t affect mine. But the shame was too embedded, it tore him apart.’ My voice finally breaks, a tear rolling down my cheek. ‘He was such a decent person, Nico. He deserved happiness. He deserved to love and be loved in the most dazzling romantic way. It’s so unfair that he fought so hard to hide it.’
Nico’s eyes glisten at me, his expression tight as he attempts to hold back tears himself. ‘Do . . . do you think he loved my uncle?’
