And then it stopped working altogether. I stopped going over to Laurent's. I stopped going to the cops. Now I send Paul texts, I have his number. Sometimes he replies, sometimes he doesn't. I'm getting better at crawl, I'm working on my breathing, holding my breath for 3, 5, 7 strokes, I'm working on my push offs, I can go for 12 meters, I have a lot more power now, I've even started doing butterfly, it opens up the lungs, you feel like you're flying. It's summer again and summer always agrees with me. It was yesterday, while I was riding my bike, that something dawned on me. I was coming home from Belleville, crossing Paris. I realized that the sadness was over. Not the kind of sadness that comes and goes, of course, but the kind that consumes you, that sadness has gone. I realized I'd finished grieving for my son. I said to myself, That's it now, the grieving's over. I felt good. I hadn't felt that good in years.

It came out of nowhere. Like when you wake up one day recovered from the flu. And when I thought about it, it'd been months since I last dreamt of him. I almost called the lawyer to say I didn't want anything anymore. Not even weekends or vacations. Then I realized there was no point even bothering because none of it was working anyway. There was nothing left to say. Nothing left to do. We barely see each other anymore. We have lunch together, once in a while. We don't know what to say to each other anymore. We're becoming strangers. Things are deteriorating. They're bound to. The memories from my life with him are fading. Or perhaps they're still there, but they don't knock the wind out of me like they used to. I can see other children without thinking about him. I think they're cute. It's not sad anymore. It doesn't feel like such a blow. Soon he'll be old enough to decide whether he wants to see me anymore at all. I'll let him do what he wants. Or maybe he'll get sick of his dad and want to move into my apartment with me. You never know with teenagers. And when I say my apartment, maybe it'll be our apartment, because we're talking about moving in together, S. and I. S. is the new one. We've been seeing each other for four months. It was when I decided to stop thinking about Paul all the time that things started moving forward with her. It's nice to have someone around who loves me. I've thought about it. There aren't that many different solutions.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Constance Debré left her career as a lawyer to become a writer. She has written four other novels, Play Boy (Prix de la Coupole 2018), Un peu là, beaucoup ailleurs (winner of the 2005 Prix Contrepoint), Manuel pratique de l’idéal Abécédaire de survie, and Nom.