I thought I’d sink to the bottom of the tub. The significance hit me like a ton of bricks. I began by reassuring Sébastien with banalities like, No, I don’t hit you and I never will, get that out of your head and never mind what Uncle Paulot said . . . but as I spoke I felt choked by the other implications of the word: somewhere, someone thought that because I was homosexual I was a danger to the child! I wanted to scream, to storm out of the tub and kill that son of a bitch who, on top of everything else, had had the gall to make such allusions to a four-year-old!

Sébastien was aware of my discomfort.

“Are you sick, Jean-Mak?”

“No, I’m not sick . . . but we’re getting out of the bathtub, I have to take you to Mummy’s . . .”

I packed his suitcase like a zombie. I’m sure I forgot half the things I should have put in. I was furious and at the same time I felt abandoned, as you do after a separation. Something had just broken in me, I didn’t yet know what, but a muted pain had me almost bent double. Maybe it was my disappointment at seeing everything crumple all at once after so much effort. I’d wanted to love that child, in fact I was beginning to, and now with a single word some son of a bitch was destroying everything!

Would I have to struggle against accusations like that as long as I kept seeing Sébastien? And where would they come from? Would everybody suddenly start asking these questions? Paranoia wasn’t far away.

Sébastien was quiet. I’m sure he thought I was mad at him, but I couldn’t find a way to reassure him as I’d always done before: I was imprisoned by a pain that kept me from thinking, from acting rationally. I started going around the house in circles, as if I were looking for something. I think I was afraid.

I cried my eyes out in Mathieu’s arms. It was the first time I’d broken down before someone with such generous ­abandon, if I can put it that way. I’d suffered attacks of ­jealousy before, of course, I’d even come crawling to Luc when I found out I was the biggest cuckold in Montreal, but I’d never let myself go before another person to express my pain with such rage and despair. Not even Mélène, though I told her everything. (Especially not Mélène, because with her I’ve always tended to laugh at my troubles, not make a big deal of them . . . )

There was absolutely nothing I could do to resolve the problem that had overwhelmed me, nothing but wait. But how can you wait when you’re furious?