– You’re right.
It was perhaps the strangest sentence she had ever heard come out of his mouth.
Julien, on the other hand, disappeared for almost two months.
He did not respond to any of Camille’s messages.
She only sent 2.
The first one concerned the insurance procedure.
The second is the timeline for replacing the windshield and the damage to the bodywork.
Then she stopped.
One Tuesday evening, his phone rang.
JULIEN.
She hesitated before answering.
– Yes ?
Silence.
— I found a job.
Camille sat down on her sofa.
– Or ?
— In a garage in Beaucouzé.
She closed her eyes.
The irony was almost too perfect.
— Do you repair cars?
— You can laugh.
— I was thinking.
— It’s worse.
A brief silence passed between them.
“I start at 7 a.m.,” Julien continued. “The boss doesn’t care at all who the father is.”
— That’s probably a good thing.
— It’s horrible.
Camille smiled in spite of herself.
Then Julien took a deep breath.
— I sold my console, my screen and a few other things.
– For what ?
— To advance the repayment of your car.
Camille did not reply.
Julien continued very quickly:
— I’m not calling you to get you to withdraw your complaint. I know it’s too late anyway. And… I don’t want you to do it anymore.
This sentence surprised her.
– For what ?
— I saw the video.
Camille’s smile disappeared.
— Which video?
— The one from the phone. My lawyer showed me a copy.
His voice changed.
— I looked like a madman.
Camille stared at the wall.
— Mom was smiling.
She felt her chest tighten.
— Dad was laughing.
Julien sniffed.
— I watched the video 4 times. Each time, I waited for one of the two of them to come and take the tool from my hands.
Camille remained silent.
— Why didn’t they do it?
She thought for a long time before answering.
— Because stopping you would have forced Mom and Dad to admit that saving you all the time wasn’t doing you any favors.
Julien didn’t speak anymore.
Then :
— And why did you keep paying?
That question hurt.
Camille rested her head against the backrest.
— Because I thought that if I was useful enough, you would eventually love me the way I needed to be loved.
She heard her brother crying.
Not loudly.
Julien had always hated showing that he was suffering.
– I’m sorry.
Camille closed her eyes.
– I know.
— No. Before, I would say “sorry” so that someone would fix the problem. Now… I’m just sorry.
— Then prove it by changing.
He breathed with difficulty.
– All right.
It was not a reconciliation.
But it was the beginning of something.
Mireille took much longer.
For several months, she told aunts, cousins and neighbors that Camille had “turned a brother-sister dispute into a legal case”.
According to her, it all stemmed from money.
Camille had become cold.
Ungrateful.
Obsessed with her accounts.
Camille almost never defended herself.
When a cousin called to tell her that she should “think from a mother’s heart,” she simply replied:
— You know part of the story. I’m not going to plead my life in front of the whole family.
Then she changed the subject.
At Christmas, for the first time in 32 years, she did not return to her parents’ house.
She spent New Year’s Eve at Elodie’s house.
There were no comments about his salary.
No request for assistance.
No one criticized him for choosing an overpriced bottle while asking him to pay for half of the meal.
At midnight, Elodie’s daughter fell asleep against her arm in front of a cartoon.
Camille realized that she hadn’t thought about her family for almost 2 hours.
And above all, that she felt no guilt.
Two days later, Mireille called.
His voice was weak.
— Christmas was awful.
Camille watched the rain against her windows.
— I’m sorry.
— Your father spoke for 10 minutes in total. Julien came, brought a pie and left before coffee.
Silence.
Then Mireille breathed:
— I think I’ve broken up our family.
The former Camille reportedly responded immediately that she did not.
She would have reassured her mother.
She would have found an excuse.
Instead, she said:
— You helped build something unhealthy. That’s not the same as destroying everything. But that won’t change if you keep pretending that everyone except you is exaggerating.
Mireille pleura.
— How can I fix this?
— By ceasing to confuse love with control.
— I don’t know how.
— Then learn.
Mireille hung up shortly afterwards.
Camille thought that she had probably just lost her mother for a long time.
She was mistaken.
It took months.
Mireille started seeing a psychologist.
Then Alain agreed to a few sessions with her.
They established a proper budget.
They stopped paying for Julien’s expenses.
Mireille even took a part-time job in a garden center.
When she told Camille, she added:
— I think I forgot that a €50 note represents someone’s lifetime.
Camille didn’t reply.
But she kept that phrase.
Fourteen months after the windshield was broken, someone knocked on the door of his apartment.
Julien was standing on the landing.
He had shorter hair, a dark work jacket, and a black mark under his thumbnail.
He handed her an envelope.
Camille looked at her suspiciously.
— If there’s still a family secret inside, I’m going to live in Belgium.
Julien burst out laughing.
— I promise.
She opened it.
The check corresponded to the last amount he owed her for the damages.
— You finished earlier.
— Overtime.
— You hate overtime.
Julien shrugged.
— I hate owing you something even more.
Camille looked up.
That sentence almost made her cry.
They walked down to the parking lot together.
The car had been repaired a long time ago.
Julien stopped in front of the new windshield.
