four

I woke up the next morning with a terrible migraine that lasted all day. I had spent the night tossing and turning, thinking over everything Claude Dupontel had told me. Was I really a victim of acute routinitis? Did the anxiety that had held me in its grip for several weeks now really mean I had to embark on a course of counseling? What, in fact, did I really have to complain about? I had a husband and a son and a job that offered me security. Maybe I just needed to pull myself together and stop wallowing. And yet my thirty-something middle-class discontent wouldn’t let me go. I had tried often enough to sweep it under the carpet, without success.

I did occasionally try to put things into perspective. To “see the bigger picture,” as they say in women’s magazines. I ran through the whole gamut of human misery in my mind. People in war zones. People with serious illnesses. The homeless, jobless, loveless . . . Compared to them, my problems seemed so petty. But as Claude Dupontel had said, there was no point comparing what couldn’t be compared. The scale of happiness or misery isn’t the same for everyone. I didn’t know him, and yet he seemed so well-adjusted, so centered. Yes, “centered” was the word. Of course, I didn’t believe in miracle cures that transform your life with the wave of a magic wand. But he seemed so convincing when he said that things really could change. He insisted that feeling down and stuck in a rut was not inevitable, that you can choose to be someone who does not allow daily existence to grind her down, but who lives life to the full. To turn your life into a work of art . . . It was a project that seemed pretty unrealistic at first, but why not at least try to aim toward it?

In theory, I was all for it. But in practice? “One day I’ll go to live in Theory, because in Theory everything is wonderful . . .” So, how to get started, to get beyond the stage of shoulda coulda woulda? With all this playing on my mind, I struggled out of bed. I felt as though I’d been beaten black and blue during the night. To top it all off, without meaning to, I put my left foot on the floor first. I know it’s a silly superstition, but I immediately saw this as a bad omen: the instinctive reaction of a brain swamped with negative vibes. The day was off to a bad start.

Sebastien, my alleged nearest and dearest, hardly even bothered to say good morning. He wrestled with a disobedient tie, and in between his stifled swearing I thought I made out that he was late for a meeting. So he wasn’t going to be taking Adrien to school today, either. Sigh.

Adrien, my son, is nine years, six months, ten days, and eight hours old, as he would be only too happy to inform you. I found his rush to grow up both touching and slightly terrifying; it was all moving so quickly. Too quickly. Adrien had always done everything faster than usual. The only way to have stopped him would have been to tie him to a chair. We soon had to get used to the idea that our son was an “Energizer bunny”: he never wore out.

But I did. Even though I loved him more than anything in the world, there were days when I thought he must have a mini energy-sucking vacuum cleaner under his T-shirt.

Of course, we were modern parents—we’d practically been weaned on the belief that the child is a fully-fledged individual with a right to be heard. But experience had taught us that our way of bringing him up had been far too liberal. By sticking to the ideals of dialogue and respect for a child’s personality, we had given our son far too much freedom.

“Boundaries!” my mother never stopped yelling at me.

She was right, of course.

Boundaries: that was what I had been trying to establish for several months now, in an attempt to correct our overlax attitude. I had done a U-turn and gone from one extreme to the other. No doubt I was now being too tough on him . . . but you just do your best, don’t you? I was constantly whining at Adrien in an effort to keep him in line. He would whine back but comply in the end. In spite of his rebellious side, deep down he was a good kid.

I knew I was on his back a lot—for his own good, I was sure, although at times I felt I was turning into a real nag. I hated being like that. “Tidy your room, take a shower, switch the lights off, do your homework, put the toilet seat down . . .” I had exchanged my “good” mom approach for the “bad” mom one. And everything I had gained in neatly folded socks had been lost in terms of my relationship with him. There was a tug-of-war going on between us. We were cat and dog, as if we no longer understood each other. Then again, how could he act like such a teenager when he wasn’t even ten yet?

All this was going through my head when I walked into his room. We had to leave the house in ten minutes, and he was playing ping-pong against the wall, only half dressed. He had put on odd socks, hadn’t bothered to comb his hair, and his bedroom looked as though a bomb had gone off in it—not that he had noticed.

He looked at me with his chestnut-brown eyes and their astonishingly long lashes, as enchanting as ever. I paused for a moment to consider his round face and strong features, his well-defined mouth, which was now stuck in a stubborn pout. Even when it was this untidy, his hair was so lovely and soft it made you want to stroke it. He was a gorgeous little devil. I resisted the temptation to go and hug him and smooth it down, the rascal. I was the drill sergeant, determined to make sure he was in step.

“But, Mommmmm! What’s your problem? Stay cool. Chill out,” he replied, underlining his words with a Zen rapper hand gesture he’d learned from the latest YouTube clip.

That drove me crazy. I yelled at him and then slammed into the bathroom for a shower. I washed hastily, already dreading what was on the day’s to-do list.

As I stepped out of the shower, my reflection in the mirror only made me frown more. A deep furrow was plowed across my forehead.

I stared at this face that used to be pretty—and maybe still could be, if my skin weren’t so sallow and the bags under the green eyes that had once been so seductive weren’t so dark. Just as could my blond silky hair, when I found the time to style it properly to frame my round face. A little too round these days, due to the weight I had put on after my pregnancy and the sweet treats I had given in to in the years since then. Annoyed, I grabbed the lifeline of mother’s little helpers and swallowed far too quickly, considering their expiration date. By now I was in a thoroughly bad mood.

As I rushed back into the bedroom to get dressed, I carelessly knocked over the photo frame on the bedside table. I picked it up to put it back. It was a great photo of me and Sebastien at a time when we would stargaze and laugh all night long . . . What had happened to that handsome man with flashing eyes who knew just what to whisper in my ear to make me go weak at the knees? How long had it been since he had made the slightest attempt to seduce me? And yet, he was a good, kind man. Really kind. Thinking about the tenderness that had slowly and subtly replaced the passion of our early days, I felt vaguely sick . . . Over the years the once wild, lush jungle of our love for each other had been transformed into a formal French garden: everything neat and tidy, with not a single blade of grass out of place.

Shouldn’t love spill out, burst into flame, boil over, erupt uncontrollably?

Anyway, that was how things were now. What had been the tipping point? When Adrien had come on the scene? When Sebastien had been promoted? Who knew? Whatever the reason, the outcome was the same. Stuck in this marital mud, hemmed in by an existence that ran along too smoothly, I realized that our life as a couple had, like a piece of chewing gum you’ve chewed for too long, lost all its flavor.

Chasing away these unpleasant thoughts with a wave of the hand, I threw on the first thing I could find. Who cared about grace or elegance? Who would they be for, and why? Ever since I’d entered into a partnership for life, I was no longer of interest to anyone. Might as well be comfortable.

I dropped off my son at school, nagging him all the way to hurry. Hurrying was the huge bugbear of all our lives. It laid down the law, punished us like an all-powerful tyrant, and made us submit to the crushing power of the hands on the clock face. You had only to look at those people ready to crush others in order to cram onto an already packed Métro car because they can’t bear to wait for the next train in three minutes, or who run a red light to save a few seconds at the risk of a serious accident, or talk on the phone while they are tapping away at a computer and eating at the same time . . .

I was no different. Since I had no car after the accident, I ran to the Métro and almost went flying down the stairs.

Great idea, Camille. Break a leg just so you don’t miss your train.

Out of breath, sweating freely despite the cold, I collapsed onto a seat, wondering how on earth I was going to get through the day ahead of me.