PART 1
— Get out of my house.
The sentence fell in the middle of the living room like a broken glass. Marc Delcourt had pronounced it loudly enough for the 60 guests gathered around the bay window to hear it, between the champagne glasses, the violins and the large white cake placed under the chandeliers.
Élise Moreau Delcourt remained motionless, soaked by the November rain. Water dripped from her coat onto the polished parquet floor of their villa in Saint-Cloud. To her right, Hugo held her hand. To her left, Jules kept his eyes fixed on the three suitcases placed near the entrance.
She hadn’t done them.
Opposite her, Marc wore a black tuxedo, his face impassive, like a man annoyed at being disturbed in his carefully constructed image. Beside him stood Clara Beaumont, in a red dress, with glossy lips and a diamond bracelet on her wrist.
Elise’s bracelet.
Above the fireplace, the family photos were gone. In their place, a portrait of Clara smiled in a gilded frame. On the coffee table, a sign read:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY CLARA.
Elise had only just returned home two days earlier than planned because Jules had forgotten a school project in his room. She had planned to surprise her sons with pancakes. Instead, she found valets waiting at her gate, flowers in her entryway, and her husband’s mistress being celebrated in her home.
She looked at the suitcases.
— Have you had the children’s things prepared?
Marc adjusts his sleeve.
— For a few days. You’ll go to the hotel with them until everything is sorted out.
– Ruler ?
His voice was so calm that several guests stopped breathing.
— You’re organizing your mistress’s birthday party in the house where your sons had breakfast yesterday. You’re taking down our photos. You’re giving her my jewelry. And now you’re asking me to leave?
Clara gave a little laugh.
— Elise, don’t make a scene. Everyone knows your marriage was already over.
Elise slowly turned her head towards her.
— Nobody asked you to speak.
Clara’s smile faded.
Marc took a step.
— That’s enough.
— No, said Elise. Not yet.
She noticed a cardboard folder on the side table. Divorce papers. Marc’s signature was already at the bottom. Marc Delcourt, strategy director of the Vallier Group, the man she had supported for 14 years, the man for whom she had sold her mother’s ring so he could finish his MBA.
She took the papers, put them in her bag, then looked at her sons. Hugo blinked to keep from crying. Jules stared at his shoes.
It wasn’t the red dress that broke something inside her. Nor the flowers. Nor the bracelet. It was that little boy who bowed his head because his father had just made him a stranger in his own home.
— Answer in front of everyone, Marc. Do you chase them away too?
The silence became heavy.
Marc looked at his sons. For a second, he hesitated. Then Clara placed a hand on his arm.
“They’re leaving with you,” he said. “The lawyers will discuss custody.”
Elise nodded.
– GOOD.
Marc frowned.
– GOOD ?
— Yes. That way, I won’t spend my life wondering if I misunderstood.
She grabbed a suitcase. A waiter offered to help her. She refused. The moment she opened the door, the cold rushed in with the rain.
Then two black cars slowly passed through the gate.
A murmur rippled through the room.
— These are cars from the Vallier Group…
Clara sat up immediately, convinced that her gift was arriving. The first door opened. A woman in a grey suit got out, followed by two assistants carrying a dark wooden box tied with a midnight blue ribbon.
Clara stepped forward with a victorious smile.
— Master Lenoir, are you here on behalf of Antoine Vallier? You shouldn’t have come all this way for my birthday.
The lawyer walked past her without even looking at her.
She entered the living room, glanced around at the guests, then asked:
— Where is Elise Moreau?
All eyes turned towards the soaked woman, standing between her 2 sons and 3 suitcases.
– It’s me.
Master Lenoir seemed relieved.
— Thank God. Mr. Vallier asked me to give you this this evening. And no one but you has the right to open it.
Gérard Beaumont, Clara’s father, turned livid near the bar.
Elise saw it.
Without yet understanding why.
PART 2
Elise untied the ribbon under the frozen stares. Marc, who had wanted her to leave 10 minutes earlier, had suddenly moved closer as if he was afraid she would escape him.
“A little space, Mr. Delcourt,” said Master Lenoir.
— That’s my wife.
“For now,” replied Elise.
She lifted the lid.
Inside were an old brass key, an envelope bearing her maiden name, and a black and white photograph. Three young men posed in front of a small Parisian desk. Antoine Vallier. Gérard Beaumont. And the third face made Élise waver.
His father.
Paul Moreau.
— Did my father know Antoine Vallier?
Master Lenoir replied softly:
— More than that. He participated in the creation of the group.
Elise felt the living room spin around her. Her father had died when she was 21, ruined, humiliated, portrayed as a man who had embezzled money. She had grown up with that name whispered like a source of shame.
She opened Antoine Vallier’s letter.
“What I’m giving you tonight isn’t a gift. It’s the beginning of a reconciliation. Your apartment in Paris is ready. Your sons’ expenses are protected. Come see me tomorrow at 10 a.m. The story told about your father was incomplete.”
Marc turned pale.
— Elise, we should talk tomorrow. The children are tired.
She stared at him.
— 15 minutes ago, they weren’t too tired to be put outside in the rain.
In the office, Clara led her father away.
— Why are you afraid of her?
Gérard closed the door.
