Still With Me by Thierry Cohen Page A

nothing.
    “Me, I’m a little lost. And you—what do you think?”
     
    The child had to have an opinion of his own.
    “You’re not very good and…you’re gone a lot.”
    “I work too much?”
    Thomas nodded. “You’re never there. And Mom says you don’t take care of her anymore.”
    “You think she’s right?”
    “Yeah, she’s right. And you don’t take care of us either.”
    “Are you mad at me too?”
    The child nodded.
    “You know, I’m going to try and change. I promise.” Jeremy had barely finished making the promise before regretting it.
    I’m stupid for giving him hope. The man I am seems to care only about leaving unhappiness in his wake. My children, my wife, my father, my mother …
    “I have to call Grandma and Grandpa,” he said to Thomas. “Do you have their number?”
    The boy looked at him in surprise. “Yes, I have it. But…”
    Seeing the look on Thomas’s face, Jeremy knew he was in for another disappointment. “But what?”
    “Nothing…I’ll call them.” The child hadn’t looked up.
     
    “Grandma? It’s Thomas…I’m at the hospital…No, no, here’s Dad. He’ll explain.” Thomas handed the cell phone to Jeremy.
    “Mom?”
    “Yes…What happened? Did something bad happen?”
    Jeremy felt his heart tighten when he heard his mother’s voice. He described the incident and reassured her of Simon’s health.
    “Why didn’t Victoria call me?” she asked more firmly.
    “She’s not here. She’s at her parents’ house.”
    “And she left you with the kids?” she said bitingly.
    “We’re in a bit of a fight, I think…”
    “You think?”
    “But we’ll work it out. And you? How are you?”
    “How am I? You’re worried? You’re interested today? Because you were afraid for your son? The ambulance, the hospital, the fear that eats away at your stomach…It’s traumatizing, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, it is.”
    “It’s the kind of anguish that reconnects us with reality. And the reality is you’ve forgotten your parents. Yourparents whom you haven’t spoken to in six years. And today you call me because you feel alone, desperate. Because you’re afraid.”
    Jeremy was demolished. It was almost unbearable to hear his mother speak to him so harshly.
    “Is Victoria going to be joining you?”
    “Tomorrow.”
    “So tell her to call me.”
    “Mom, I wanted—”
    But she had already hung up. The dry clack of the handset was like a slap on the face. Jeremy closed his eyes, ready to break down when his son spoke to him.
    “She wasn’t happy?”
    Jeremy, haggard, unable to reply, shrugged his shoulders.
    “Mom says we’re always aware of our problems, even if we’d rather ignore them.”
    “Yes…to the point of forgetting them. But you, you can give me your opinion. You can tell me everything.”
    Thomas hesitated a moment, then replied in a voice filled with despair. “You never go see Grandma and Grandpa. You won’t talk to them on the phone. When we go visit, you’re never there. Sometimes Grandma cries whenwe talk about you. Grandpa, he says he doesn’t have a son anymore. He took down all the photos of you. He doesn’t want us talking about you when he’s around. So if you want to patch things up, it’s going to be kind of hard. But it might work. Look at us. This morning I hated you, and now…now it’s better.”
    Each of these words, delivered with sincerity by his son, upset Jeremy and made him start to cry. Thomas reached his small arms around his father and held him tightly. “It’s okay, Daddy, it’s okay.”
    When the surgeon returned, the two of them were almost asleep. He looked like a doctor in a made-for-television movie: deliberate gaze, snappy walk, open coat, sleeves rolled back. He had the manners of a man without time to waste. A serious man, decisive with his patients, authoritative with his colleagues.
    “Mr. Delègue?”
    Jeremy looked up.
    “Everything went fine. One of the cuts was ugly, but he’ll only have a