The road to Chemin des Ormes took twenty-seven minutes.
I counted because I needed something ordinary to focus on.
Élodie drove.
I sat in the passenger seat with the wheelchair folded in the back.
The November sky was pale and low.
Fields passed beside us, stripped after harvest.
Every few minutes, I touched the inside of my coat where my phone rested.
The recorder was running.
I could not hear it.
But knowing it was there steadied me.
Élodie spoke casually.
“Do you remember coming here with Pierre?”
“Yes.”
“He loved this area.”
“Very much.”
“He was lucky.”
I turned toward her.
“How?”
“To die quickly.”
My stomach tightened.
She kept her eyes on the road.
“That sounded cruel,” she added. “I only mean he didn’t suffer.”
“No.”
“You’ve suffered.”
“Yes.”
“So has Thomas.”
There it was again.
The way she spoke about my injury as something I had done to him.
“He chose to move in.”
“Because he loves you.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I watched bare branches flick past the window.
“I used to.”
She looked at me sharply.
I turned toward her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
We drove the rest of the way in silence.
Chemin des Ormes had once been busier.
A newer road had been built farther east, leaving the old route mostly to walkers, cyclists, and residents of a few scattered houses.
The upper section ran between abandoned orchards.
Beyond them, the road narrowed as it descended toward the wooded valley.
There was no pavement for pedestrians.
No guardrail on the steepest stretch.
Only a low stone boundary near the curve.
When Pierre and I came years earlier, we had parked near the lookout and walked.
That day there was no one else.
Not one car.
Not one cyclist.
Not one distant figure.
Élodie parked near the top.
She unfolded my wheelchair.
“Cold?”
“A little.”
She tucked a blanket over my legs.
The tenderness of the gesture almost made me sick.
She pushed me slowly along the flat portion of road.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
Leaves scraped over the asphalt.
Somewhere in the trees, a bird called once.
The silence felt staged.
Then the road began descending.
I placed my hands lightly on the wheels.
Élodie noticed.
“Relax.”
“I am.”
“You always hold the rims on hills.”
“Pierre taught me never to trust slopes.”
She laughed.
“Pierre taught you a lot of things.”
“Yes.”
“Did he teach you not to trust your family?”
I looked ahead.
The first curve was still some distance away.
“Should he have?”
Her hands tightened on the chair.
“You’ve been telling Claire things.”
“Have I?”
“You know you have.”
“What things?”
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Pretending you don’t understand.”
For a moment, I almost admired the accusation.
Pretending.
That was exactly what I had been doing.
Just not in the way she thought.
She pushed me farther down the road.
“Thomas is terrified,” she said.
“Of me?”
“Of what you’ll do.”
“Why would he be afraid if he’s done nothing wrong?”
Élodie stopped the chair.
Wind moved through the orchard.
I could hear my own breathing.
She walked around and stood in front of me.
“You know about the money.”
It was not a question.
“Yes.”
“And the house.”
“Yes.”
Her face went pale.
There.
At last.
No more games.
I said, “How long did you think you could hide it?”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”
“What way?”
“You weren’t supposed to notice.”
The honesty was almost more shocking than denial.
“You stole from me.”
“Thomas borrowed money.”
“With my forged signature.”
“He was desperate.”
“For what?”
“For a life.”
I stared at her.
“He has a life.”
“Living in his mother’s house. Managing his mother’s bills. Waiting for his mother to need help. Waiting for his mother to die.”
The words entered the cold air between us.
I felt strangely calm.
“Is that how he describes it?”
Élodie’s jaw tightened.
“Thomas would never say what he really feels.”
“And you would?”
“Someone has to.”
I looked up at her.
“I treated you like a daughter.”
Her expression shifted.
For the first time, pain appeared.
Real pain.
“I know.”
“I trusted you.”
“I know.”
“I loved you.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
She turned away.
“Because love doesn’t pay debts. Love doesn’t give you a future. Love doesn’t change what happens when one person owns everything and everyone else has to wait.”
“The house would have gone to Thomas eventually.”
“Eventually.”
She spat the word.
I thought of Claire warning me to leave.
I thought of the locked bedroom door.
I thought of Thomas standing at the kitchen sink that morning.
“Did Thomas know you brought me here?”
Élodie looked back.
“He knew we were going out.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
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