Theory of Remainders by Scott Dominic Carpenter Read Free Book Online Page A

them to have a twelve-year-old daughter.
The woman led him down a corridor, and Philip felt his chest tighten. Voices leaked out from the door of a meeting room, one of them a woman’s firm tone rising above the others, which he recognized at once. “Does everyone have a copy?” she was saying in French. And as he turned through the doorway, there they all were, the old cast of characters seated around a long, oval table. Dried up Évelyne was whispering to her skinny, balding husband, Sylvain. Next to pretty Flora sat the well-groomed Pierre. To the left Roger leaned back in his chair, his feet up on the table, his fingers pressed together, a half-amused, half-bored expression on his face. They looked the same, adjusted for age, having become somehow even more themselves.
A short, well-dressed man Philip didn’t know sat to the right.
But it was Yvonne who drew his gaze. She stood with her back to him, her tall form buttoned in a brown Chanel suit, a bundle of papers in her hand. “I said,” she repeated while brandishing the document, a hint of exasperation creeping into her voice, “Does everyone have a copy?” No one answered. Their eyes had all moved to the door, and now Yvonne turned. Her expression softened.
She was older now. Perhaps a bit weary. Yet still a handsome woman, square-jawed and erect. A smile came to Philip’s lips.
Roger was scrambling to his feet, grinning. “ C’est le retour de l’enfant prodigue ,” he roared. Broad-shouldered and sporting a moustache, he was dressed less formally but more richly than the others.
“Roger,” Philip said, stepping toward him, extending his hand.
“Bah,” Roger replied, continuing in French. “My dear Philip—Anglo-Saxon to the core. Don’t be ridiculous.” He ignored the outstretched hand and gripped his former brother-in-law by the shoulders. Before he could protest, Roger had planted a kiss on each of his cheeks. “Nice beard, Monsieur l’hirsute .”
The others around the table were less effusive. Yvonne’s sisters gave pinched nods of greeting, and their husbands acknowledged his presence with tight-lipped smiles. Sylvain was the first to break rank and reach a hand over the table. Soon Philip was making the rounds, shaking hands, kissing cheeks. Yvonne’s younger sisters didn’t seem overjoyed at this gesture of affection, but after all, they were, or had once been, family.
He took the long way around the table, postponing for a few instants the encounter with Yvonne. But then he ran out of hands to shake, and the room fell quiet.
“ Bonjour Philippe ,” she said.
Yvonne’s voice transformed his name into a familiar cluster of taut French I’s and pert consonants. He replied with a nod, clasping his hands, then wondering where to put them. The entire group was watching the spectacle of their encounter, but Philip didn’t know the script. Over the years he’d learned many of the nuances of French intimacy—whose hand to shake, whom to kiss, when to use the formal vous or the casual tu —but no one had covered this particular situation in his training. What was the appropriate salutation when greeting your ex-wife for the first time in thirteen years? He was about to extend his hand when Yvonne gave him a clue, lifting her chin and inching forward. He approached to kiss her on both cheeks, skin against skin. Her fragrance was the same. There were fine wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.
“How are you?” she asked in French.
“I’m . . .” he began, finding himself confronted with too many contradictory and yet correct answers to this simple question. He blinked and looked over the table toward the others. “Well, for one thing, I’m late ,” he said with a laugh. He struggled to formulate a sentence, but the French wasn’t flowing. “I’m sorry about missing the ceremony. But I suppose you’re used to my tardiness. Old dogs and new tricks, you know.”
“Old monkeys, you mean,” Roger called from his end of the table.