Theory of Remainders by Scott Dominic Carpenter Read Free Book Online

been works of art, filled with fine, rounded cursive, her ink color-coded to signal key vocabulary words and quotes. In the family lore, Yvonne was the one who, at age ten, trained the Aubert family dog. At twelve she announced her plan to become a professor, and when her mother humored her and asked if she had anything specific in mind, Yvonne had proclaimed matter-of-factly that she would be a specialist of Italian literature. Her father had roared, but sixteen years later that prophecy came true. As it turned out, she learned a number of languages, even studying abroad in England and Germany, but Italian remained her favorite. Her doctoral thesis had dealt with renaissance poetry, leading to her first position at the Paris III campus.
As he drank coffee in the cramped breakfast room at La Cauchoise, Philip felt a rising tide of apprehension, and it occurred to him that it might not be too late to vanish into thin air, to return to Boston without seeing anyone. Wouldn’t that be the best for all concerned?
He knew the idea was preposterous, entirely irrational.
Though he used to know the center of Yvetot reasonably well, the law office was several blocks away, on a street he’d never heard of. Monsieur Bécot provided directions, which Philip retained well enough to make it through the second turn, but then his internal map blurred. None of the roads in this town were straight, and they had a nasty habit of changing names every fifty or hundred yards.
He stopped twice for directions, and every time he parted his lips his accent betrayed him, unmasking him not just as a stranger, but worse, a foreigner. He’d come to the language too late, had never mastered the vowel sounds, the slide of the R, the disappearing H and S. Long ago, back when he’d traveled with Yvonne or Sophie, the escort of natives had eased his passage. Now, his accent drew him sidelong stares, as if he were a disfigured man.
 
 
The rue Launay proved to be farther away than he thought, and he arrived late at the brick building where the notary’s shield hung over the paneled door. Before entering, he straightened his jacket and tie, but still felt rumpled. For Yvonne he’d been an attractive project, a handyman’s special. When he arrived in Paris for his residency, both orphaned and freed by his parents’ deaths, Yvonne had served as the principal architect of his reinvention. She bestowed upon him innumerable linguistic corrections while coaching him in manners and dress. She introduced him first to her friends, then to her siblings, and finally to her parents. She fashioned the two of them into a couple, and then by alchemical transmutation transformed that couple into a family. Only occasionally had he felt a twinge of anxiety, the way a magician’s dove must sometimes wonder how long the spell will hold before it reverts to an ordinary handkerchief.
Such had been Yvonne’s reputation for accomplishing whatever she set her mind to that it had come as a shock when the ultrasound suggested she was carrying a girl, despite her professed preference for a boy. Philip had half expected her to produce, by sheer willpower, a little member between the legs of the embryo. It turned out he wasn’t far from wrong. Thanks to her mother, Sophie had grown into an independent, confident, and assertive girl, one who felt she could do anything. Which had been wonderful. But also part of the problem.
He rang the bell at the door and waited for the electric click of the lock. Inside the notary’s office, the receptionist looked him up and down, her eyes stopping at the tuft of loose threads on his jacket cuff. He clapped his other hand over his wrist.
“Monsieur Adler,” he said. “I am here to meet with Maître Caumartin. And Yvonne Adler.” He corrected himself instantly. “Aubert. Yvonne Aubert.”
“You mean Madame Legrand?”
Of course. He hadn’t much practice with her new name. Although it wasn’t new. She’d been remarried long enough for