Asylum by Jeannette de Beauvoir Read Free Book Online Page A

He threw his arms around my waist.
    I gave him a hug and a kiss, then slid out of my shoes and jacket, dumping them both in the foyer along with my briefcase, and started toward the back of the house. “Your dad making dinner?” I asked hopefully.
    “More like being an umpire,” said Ivan, emerging from the kitchen. He hugged me, whispering, “I think they’re scared about Margery, but they’re taking it out on each other.”
    Lovely. I forced a smile and went past him into the kitchen, the biggest and brightest of the rooms in our apartment, where the family seemed somehow to spend most of its time. Claudia was perched on one of the high stools at the island, doing her nails. What business a nine-year-old has in growing and maintaining long fingernails is a battle I’d long ago given up fighting, since it was clear that Claudia was going to do whatever Claudia chose to do. There were more important things in life to fight over.
    Lukas had disappeared into his room.
    I ignored her as I went across to a glass-fronted cupboard, took down a wineglass, and filled it with Merlot. The sun was most definitely over the yardarm after the day I’d had, and besides, I had a feeling I was going to need the sustenance. “Claudia,” I said conversationally, sipping, “nice to see you, too.”
    An exaggerated sigh, which was apparently the current preadolescent response to anything or anyone. “Hello, Belle-Maman ,” she said, her accent slightly worse than her brother’s had been. When Ivan and I married, I resisted having his children call me by my first name. “I just don’t see it as respectful,” I’d told him. After a night of argument, we settled on belle-maman , which literally means “beautiful mommy” and can be used (because French sometimes is a very odd language) to refer either to one’s stepmother or to one’s mother-in-law. As it had no connotations to either the kids or their mother, the name stuck.
    Claudia had more to say. “Daddy says I have to set the table, and I’m not going to do it. It’s not just that I don’t want to, either. It’s illegal. There are child labor laws, you know.”
    I looked over her head at Ivan, now back in the kitchen and with a dish towel slung over his shoulder. That meant that he was, at least, preparing to cook. He was trying to hide a smile, though.
    “Not in Canada there aren’t,” I told Claudia cheerfully. Well, no labor laws that prohibited the setting of the table, anyway. “Have you heard anything about your mom yet?” That was the real issue here; might as well get right down to it.
    “No!” she wailed, and with a sweeping gesture, spilled the nail polish all over the countertop, jumped down from the stool, and ran from the room. Ivan and I stared at each other in dismay.
    “Well,” he said, opening the refrigerator, “that went well.”
    “Yep,” I said, taking a hefty swallow of the Merlot. The smell of the nail polish was bringing on a headache, and the chances of getting Claudia in any state to clean it were nil. I got nail polish remover and pulled out some paper towels and started mopping the noxious stuff up. “What time did you guys get here?”
    He was laying chicken breasts in a pan, assembling olive oil and rosemary. Did I mention that my husband is a brilliant cook? Nights like this, it’s what keeps him alive. “Late. Sylvie picked them up at the airport this morning, and she said traffic at of the airport was horrible, both ways. You’d think on a Friday people would be trying to get out of the city, not into it. And then tonight, traffic from the casino was worse.”
    I shook my head, disposing of the last of the nail polish as I did so. At least she wouldn’t be wearing any of it this weekend. “Montréal’s a tourist destination,” I reminded Ivan. “That’s why I’m gainfully employed, remember?”
    “Speaking of which,” he said, putting the pan into the oven and turning to face me, “what happened today? Are you