Chapter 12: The First Morning

Mathilde woke up because the rooster was broken.

Not broken. Wrong. It crowed at 4:47 a.m., then again at 4:52, then again at 4:58, like it had forgotten what it was supposed to be doing and was trying different approaches. She lay on the couch with a blanket pulled up to her chin, staring at the ceiling, counting the water stains. Seven. She'd counted them last night too. Still seven.

The couch smelled like dust and mothballs and something underneath that she couldn't name. Old fabric. Old house. She turned her face into the cushion and breathed it in. It wasn't unpleasant. Just unfamiliar.

Her back ached. The couch was too short. Her feet hung over the armrest. She'd slept in worse places—the floor of her mother's apartment during the winter the heat got cut off, the back seat of a borrowed car the week before she left for Paris—but her body didn't care about precedent. It just knew it hadn't slept well.

She sat up. The room was grey. Dawn coming through the windows, thin and watery. The photographs on the mantel were just shapes now. The letter was still in James's pocket, wherever James was.

She stood. Her knees cracked. She was twenty-three and her knees cracked like her grandmother's.

The kitchen was cold. She found a kettle on the stove, filled it from the tap, and lit the burner with a match from a box on the shelf. The flame caught blue and then yellow. She stood there watching it, her hands wrapped around her arms, until the kettle started to rattle.

Footsteps on the stairs. She turned.

James. Barefoot. Same clothes as yesterday, wrinkled now. His hair was doing something complicated on the left side. He stopped in the doorway and looked at her, then at the kettle.

"You found the stove," he said.

"Wasn't hard."

He walked past her to the cupboard. Opened it. Closed it. Opened it again. "There's tea. Somewhere. I saw it last night."

"Top shelf. Behind the flour."

He looked at her. She shrugged.

"I checked last night. Before I slept. Old habit."

He reached up and found it. A tin of loose tea, the label faded. He set it on the counter and looked at it like he didn't know what to do next.

"I don't know how to make tea," he said.

"You're joking."

"I've had people make it for me my whole life. I've never actually—" He gestured at the tin.

Mathilde took it from him. She found a teapot on the shelf, rinsed it out, dumped in the leaves. The water was boiling now. She poured it over and set the lid on.

"Give it three minutes," she said.

They stood there. The kitchen was small enough that they were almost touching without trying. James leaned against the counter. Mathilde leaned against the stove. Neither of them said anything.

The back door opened. Theo came in carrying an armful of wood. He dumped it in the box by the fireplace and dusted his hands on his pants.

"There's a shed out back," he said. "Full of tools. Rusted, mostly. But there's a saw and an axe and about forty years of spiderwebs."

"You went outside?" James asked.

"Couldn't sleep. Figured I'd see what we're working with." He looked around the kitchen. "We're working with not much."

"We have a roof," Mathilde said.

"For now. The chimney's cracked. There's a leak in the upstairs hall. And the back steps are soft. I put my foot through one."

James rubbed his eyes. "We'll fix it."

"With what money?"

Silence. The teapot steamed. Mathilde poured three cups without asking if anyone wanted any. She set them on the table.

Caspian appeared in the doorway. He was dressed—actually dressed, shirt tucked, hair combed. Like he was going to a meeting. He looked at the three of them, at the tea, at the small kitchen, and something in his face shifted. Not a smile. Not quite.

"Where did you find a comb?" Theo asked.

"Car. Glove box."

"Of course you have a comb in the glove box."

"I have a comb in every glove box. It's called being prepared."

"It's called being a control freak."

Caspian sat down. He picked up his tea and held it without drinking. "We need to make a list."

Theo groaned. "It's not even six in the morning."

"It's called being prepared."

"I hate you."

"No you don't."

Mathilde watched them over the rim of her cup. The tea was bitter. She'd used too many leaves. But it was warm and it was something to hold.

Élise came down the stairs. She moved slowly, one hand on the wall. When she saw them all at the table, she stopped.

"You made tea," she said.

"Mathilde did," James said.

Élise looked at her daughter. Mathilde looked back. Neither of them said anything. Élise sat down in the fourth chair. Mathilde poured her a cup.

The four of them sat there. The rooster crowed again, wrong and off-schedule. The light through the window got stronger. Dust floated in it.

Caspian put his cup down. "The lawyer called while I was in the car. He wants to meet tomorrow. There's paperwork. A lot of it."

"What kind of paperwork?" Theo asked.

"The kind that takes a long time and costs a lot of money." Caspian paused. "He also said the press is still outside the château. They're calling it a 'family siege.' Someone leaked the video from the press conference. It's everywhere."

Mathilde's hand tightened on her cup. The heat bit into her palm. She didn't let go.

"Let them talk," Élise said. Her voice was quiet. "They'll get bored."

"People don't get bored of this," James said. "They get invested. They pick sides. They decide who the villain is."

"And who do they think the villain is?" Theo asked.

Caspian didn't answer. He didn't have to.

James stood up. He walked to the window and looked out at the yard. The grass was long. There was a fence at the back, half-fallen, and beyond it, trees. Just trees.

"I'm going to fix the steps," he said. "Theo, you said there's a saw?"

"Yeah. And a hammer. And about a thousand nails."

"Then we have everything we need."

Theo looked at him. "You've never fixed anything in your life."

"First time for everything."

Caspian stood too. "I'll call the lawyer back. See what we're actually dealing with."

They moved. Not fast. Not with purpose. But they moved. Theo followed James outside. Caspian went to find his phone. Élise stayed at the table, her hands wrapped around her cup, staring at nothing.

Mathilde stayed with her.

"You okay?" Mathilde asked.

Élise didn't answer right away. She took a sip of tea. Made a face. "You used too many leaves."

"I know."

"I used to make it this way. When you were little. Your father hated it."

Mathilde's father. She didn't remember him. He'd died when she was four. All she had was a photograph and the way her mother said his name—soft, like it hurt.

"He never told you," Élise said. "About Julien. About what he was."

"He didn't know."

"Maybe. Or maybe he did and he was afraid to say." She set the cup down. "I should have seen it. I should have asked more questions. I was just—" She stopped. Her fingers found the edge of the table and traced it. "I was tired. I was so tired. And he was there, and he was kind, and I thought—"

"Mom."

"I thought I deserved it. A nice house. A man who wanted me. I thought I'd earned it after all those years." She looked up. Her eyes were dry. "I didn't earn it. I just got lucky. And then I got unlucky. That's all it was."

Mathilde reached across the table and took her hand. Élise's fingers were cold. The skin was thin. Mathilde could feel the bones underneath.

"You didn't do anything wrong," Mathilde said.

"I brought you here. I put you in that house."

"I chose to stay."

"Because I asked you to."

"Because I wanted to." Mathilde squeezed her hand. "You're not responsible for what he did. You're not responsible for what happened. You're only responsible for what you do next."

Élise looked at her for a long time. Then she nodded. Once.

Outside, a hammer started hitting wood. Steady. Rhythmic. Theo's voice, calling something to James. James's voice, calling back. The sound of two people doing something small and ordinary.

Mathilde stood up. She took the cups to the sink. Washed them. Set them on the rack.

"Come on," she said. "Let's go see what they're doing."

Élise stood. She followed her daughter outside.

The air was cool and smelled like cut grass and wood shavings. James was on his knees on the back steps, prying up a rotten board. Theo stood over him with the saw, looking useless. They were arguing about something—the proper angle, the right tool, whether or not it mattered.

Caspian came out of the house, phone in hand. He saw Mathilde and stopped.

"The lawyer wants to know about the house," he said. "He says if we're going to claim it, we need to file paperwork. If we don't, it goes to the state."

"We're not going to claim it," Mathilde said.

Caspian blinked. "What?"

"We're just going to live in it. For now. Claiming it can wait."

"That's not how this works."

"That's exactly how this works." She looked at the house—the small, crooked, honest house. "This isn't a legal problem. It's a place to sleep. Let's just sleep here. And tomorrow, we'll figure out the rest."

Caspian opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked at the house. Looked at his brothers.

Theo had put down the saw and was now trying to pull a nail out of the board with his bare hands. James was telling him to use the hammer. Theo was telling James to use his face.

Caspian turned back to Mathilde. Something in his shoulders loosened. Just a little.

"Fine," he said. "But we're making a list."

"Tomorrow."

"Tonight."

"Tomorrow."

He shook his head. But he was almost smiling.

The rooster crowed again. Wrong. Off-schedule. Nobody cared.

Mathilde walked over to the steps. She knelt down next to James and picked up the hammer.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Helping."

"You don't know how to fix steps."

"First time for everything."

James looked at her. Then he handed her the hammer.

She hit the nail wrong. It bent. Theo laughed. She hit it again. It went in.