I flop down on the sofa next to Lisbet, who asks for a sip of my mulled wine. “Just one,” I say, passing it to her. Looking at my little sister I remember how angry I was the day on the train platform about how we all call her Betty-bun. “Lisbet. Do you mind us calling you silly nicknames?”
She looks at me in surprise. “Why would I mind?”
“Well, we’re treating you like a baby, and you’re not.”
The mulled wine tasted, she passes it back with a grimace that says, Could use some more sugar. “I never really thought about it. I like them.”
“You tell us if you ever don’t like it, all right?” I feel my phone buzz in my pocket. Pulling it out, I glance at the screen.
And then stare at it. Frederic d’Estang.
“I got an email from Frederic,” I say automatically to the room. Mona turns away from the Christmas tree and Therese looks up. Silence stretches, long and tense.
“Well? What does he say?” Mona asks. She was so smug when I came back from nursing Frederic in Paris, saying she knew it would be cathartic for me. Rubbish. She just enjoys bossing people around and playing devil’s advocate. Though she’s right, it did help. Saying what I needed to say to Frederic helped me more than I thought possible. I didn’t get anything in return, but I find I haven’t needed it.
Looking at my phone, though, I realize his name still has power over me. A lot of power. I open the email with a shaking finger and see that it doesn’t contain anything but Frederic’s email signature and an audio file labeled Udolpho. My heart thumps a little faster. The Mysteries of Udolpho was one of the Gothic romances I left with him in Paris, a story of sweeping continental landscapes, a forbidding castle, a malevolent villain. Snatches of Frederic’s music play in my head and I feel myself grow excited. Yes, it could fit.
I explain what it is and Therese holds her hand out for my phone. “Give it here. I’ll plug your phone into stereo so we can all hear it.”
I hesitate for just a moment, and then hand it over, and the first haunting bars of piano music fill the air. I close my eyes, remembering Frederic sitting at the piano, head bowed, hands roaming over the keys, the sweet sounds filling a hot Parisian night. It’s so vivid I can taste it. I can taste him.
The music rolls dramatically onward, building and building, characters and settings emerging one by one, and though they’re formed only by notes I recognize them immediately: the heroine, Emily, graceful and brave; the ominous Montoni; the forbidding, lonely castle. It’s good. It’s very good. It could be a film score or the basis of a musical theater production—
But then the music suddenly cuts out. I hear a crackling, and then a woman say, “Je pense qu’il est temps d’essayer. Là...peux-tu me dire quell que chose, Frederic?”
Therese, who studied French a lot longer than the rest of us, translates. “She thinks it’s time to try and is asking him to speak. Who’s that, Evie?”
My mouth feels very dry. “It’s Giselle, Frederic’s voice coach.”
There are a few seconds of dead air and we hear someone breathing. They clear their throat, and then I hear Frederic, his voice raspy, say, “Evie.”
Mona and Therese dart looks at me, their eyes wide and wary. I find I’m gripping the arms of my chair.
“Evie, I’m sorry.” These are his first words since his operation. He’s recorded them for me.
Giselle sounds uncertain now. “Jeté laisse tranquille.” There’s the sound of footsteps receding.
“I’ll leave you alone,” translates Therese.
I’m rooted to my seat, not knowing if I want to laugh or cry. He can speak again. He’s halting and hoarse but it’s unmistakably his beautiful voice. I know he’ll never sing again but he can speak, and I selfishly, desperately, have craved the sound of his voice.
“I’m sorry and I miss you.” He sighs, exasperated. “I feel stupid talking to a microphone like this. I don’t like being recorded. Not without music behind me and words to follow.” He pauses to clear his throat. “I haven’t been able to speak for weeks so you’d think I have something more profound than this prepared, wouldn’t you?” There’s a long silence, and then another sigh. “Merde, je me sens comme un idiot.”
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“He feels like a fool,” Therese whispers.
I got that one, more or less.
There’s a crackle on the recording, and then we hear, in a slightly clearer voice, “It’s four days later now. I had to stop. Do I sound better?” I hear a hesitant smile in his voice, but then he covers it with a cough. When he speaks again it’s all in a rush. “Evie, chérie, I didn’t think you couldn’t handle it. It wasn’t that. Please don’t think that. It was me. I didn’t think I’d be strong enough to do what I thought I needed to do if you told me to give up, too. But I should have known that you would never have thought less of me because of the truth.”
Another long silence. Frederic clears his throat. Mona and Therese aren’t looking at me now, and Lisbet on my lap is chewing her lip.
“I never gave you a chance, and I should have. But encouraging you to be little and inno—”
“Turn it off!” I leap off the couch and grab for my phone, ripping the auxiliary cable out of the phone jack. Mona and Therese stare at me, startled. I should have known he’d start talking about that stuff. Hugging my phone to my chest like I’m covering an open wound, I run from the room.
“Are you going to call him?” Therese yells after me.