Dust hung in the air, dancing in the weak winter sunlight filtering through the dirty windows of his father’s apartment.
It felt strange to be back here, and yet he’d only been gone two months. The whole world had shifted in that time.
His father was dead.
He still couldn’t quite believe it. Ten weeks ago, Alain Laurent had succumbed to a bout of pneumonia, a constant hazard for quadriplegics. After a week-long battle, he’d died quietly in his sleep. Max had been out of the room, taking a phone call at the time. After eight years of constant care and devotion, after being there for so many of the major crises of his father’s illness, Max had missed the most important moment of all.
Had his father known that he was alone? Or, as his sister contended, had his father chosen that moment to slip away for good, sparing his son the anguish of witnessing his final moments?
“Stop giving yourself a hard time,” Charlotte said from across the room.
He frowned. “What?”
“You heard me. Don’t pretend you weren’t sitting there, thinking about Dad again. You did everything you could. We both did,” Charlotte said firmly.
He made a dismissive gesture and packed more books.
“It’s true, you know. What you just said. You are gallant. Which is charming on one level, but bloody infuriating on another.”
He smiled at his sister’s choice of words. They were half-Australian, half-French, but he always thought of Charlotte as being essentially European, with her dark hair and elegant fashion sense. Then, out of the blue, she’d toss out a bit of Aussie slang and remind him that they’d spent their teen years in Sydney, Australia, swimming and surfing and swatting flies away from backyard barbecues.
“I’m serious, Max,” she said. “You’re always riding to the rescue, thinking of everyone else except yourself. You need to learn to be selfish.”
He made a rude noise and continued to work.
“The day you think of yourself first, I’ll give it a go.”
Charlotte pushed her hair behind her ear, frowning. “That’s different. I have a family. I gave up the right to be selfish when I became a parent.”
Max dropped the book he was holding and pressed a hand to his heart. Moving with a quarter of his former grace and skill, he half staggered, half danced to the side wall, playing self-sacrifice and martyrdom for all he was worth.
“Very funny,” his sister said.
He dodged the small book she flung his way.
He tossed the book back and she shook her head at him. They packed in silence for a few beats, busy with their own thoughts.
He wondered who was looking after Eloise and Marcel today, Charlotte’s children with her merchant banker husband, Richard. He knew Charlotte was between babysitters at the moment. It was hard finding people competent to deal with Eloise’s special needs, but having them here hadn’t really been possible. Any disruption to Eloise’s routine inevitably led to distress.
“I never really thanked you, did I?” Charlotte said into the silence.
He pushed the flaps shut on another full box of books. The secondhand dealer was going to have a field day with their father’s collection. Everything from 1960s dime-store novels to Proust and Dante.
“That’s because there’s nothing to thank me for.”
“Do you miss it? Dancing?” Charlotte asked quietly.
He started assembling another box.
“Sometimes. Not so much anymore. It’s a long time ago now.”
“Only eight years. Perhaps you could—”
“No,” he said, more sharply than he’d intended. “Eight years is a lifetime in dance, Charlie. I’m too old now. Lost my flexibility, my edge.”
And he’d moved on, too. When the call had come through eight years ago that his father had been in a car accident, Max had flown straight from Sydney to Paris in the hope that he’d be able to say goodbye before nature took its course. As it turned out, he’d had eight years to say his goodbyes.
As soon as it became apparent that their father would survive his injuries but be confined to a wheelchair, Max had made the changes necessary to ensure his father’s comfort. He’d resigned from the avant-garde Danceworks company where he’d been earning himself a name in Australia and arranged to have his belongings shipped to Paris. Then he had moved into his father’s apartment in the genteel, refined arrondissement of St. Germain and started the renovations that had made it possible for him to care for his father at home.
It hadn’t been an easy decision and there had been moments—especially at the very beginning when he and his father had been acclimating to their new roles—when Max had bitterly regretted his choices. He’d left so much behind. His career, his dreams, his friends. The woman he loved.
But Alain Laurent had been a generous and affectionate parent. When their mother had died when Max was ten years old and Charlotte just eight, Alain had done everything in his power to ensure they never felt the lack of a mother’s love. He had been a man in a million, and for Max there had never been any doubt that he and Charlotte would do whatever was necessary to make the remainder of his life as rewarding as possible.
“You could have left it to me. Thousands of men would have,” Charlotte said.
“On behalf of my gender, I thank you for your high opinion of us,” he said drily.
“You know what I mean.”
He stopped and faced his sister.
“Let’s put this to bed, once and for all. I did what I wanted to do, okay? He was my father, too. I loved him. I wanted to care for him. I couldn’t have lived with it being any other way. Just as you couldn’t have lived with having to choose between Richard and your children and Dad. End of story.”
Charlotte opened her mouth then shut it again without saying anything.
“Good. Can we move on now?”
Charlotte shrugged. Then, slowly, she smiled. “I’d forgotten how bossy you can be. It’s been a while since you read me the riot act.”
“Admit it, you miss it,” he said, glad she’d dropped the whole gratitude thing.
Of course, willingly supporting his father didn’t stop the what-ifs from leaking out of his subconscious in the unguarded moments before falling asleep at night.
What if he’d been able to follow his dream and dance in London, New York, Moscow, Paris? Would he have made it, achieved soloist status and seen his name in lights?
And what would have happened with Maddy? Would he ever have told her how he felt? How much he loved her—and not just as her reliable friend and sometime dancing partner?
As always when he thought of Maddy, he pictured her on stage, standing in a circle of light, her small, elegant body arched into a perfect arabesque. Then came the memories of her as a woman, laughing with him on the ratty couch in the dump of a house they’d shared with two other dancers, or lounging on the back porch in the hot evening air.
False memories, he knew. Gilded by time and distance. Maddy couldn’t possibly be as funny, as warm and beautiful and sensual as he remembered her. He’d turned her into a symbol of everything he’d given up.
“So, what are you going to do now?” Charlotte asked as she slid a box across the worn parquetry floor to join the others he’d stacked against the wall.
He deliberately misunderstood her.
“Finish packing these boxes, then find someplace warm to have a cold demi of