Page 43 of Still With Me

You know you can count on me.

Thinking of you,

Clotilde

The letter was dated June 3, 2012. The next one was written two years later.

Jeremy,

You’ll probably hate getting this letter. I don’t care. I need to write. You cut off all communication with me, and I don’t understand. It’s torture.

When I heard about your conviction, I was crushed. Met with psychiatric opinions, this time your intelligence wasn’t enough. Quite the opposite—it irritated the prosecutor. He knew it was a dangerous weapon that you used to play games with the people around you. I won’t disagree with him on that point. He thought your spontaneous confession was a way to get jail time and avoid other consequences. Then you’d get yourself out by relying on your psych file. Pierre says your high-court appeal has no chance of success. I hope you know what you’re doing.

I haven’t left Pierre. Not yet. Not while I’m so unhappy. You’ll t

hink it’s a very selfish position, Machiavellian even, and you’ll be right. I’m not brave enough to be alone. The contract stays the same: my presence for his support.

Pierre still takes care of Victoria. I, however, almost never see her. I use jealousy as an excuse to avoid her. It’s true. I don’t know if Pierre’s friendship with Victoria is more tinged with sympathy or love. She’s doing much better. She’s moved beyond her depression and started working again. She came a month ago for lunch at our place with the kids. They love Pierre, and they even call him uncle. As far as I’m concerned, I categorically refuse to be called Auntie Clotilde! In any case, I don’t think they would.

Thomas is very reserved. He plays the little gentleman, always serving his mother and brother. He’s grown up a lot and looks even more like Victoria. Simon is livelier and has a happier disposition. I have a hard time looking at him because of how closely he resembles you. Victoria, as I’m sure you know, is an excellent mother. She lives for them and through them. Pierre tries to convince her to start over, go out, meet new people, but she won’t have it. Fact is, they were made for each other! Those two are so much alike and so different from who we are—you and me.

Tomorrow I’ll regret this letter. I know you’re deathly afraid of emotional displays and you’ll probably hate me even more after reading it. But believe me, I haven’t said anything about how much I went through and all I felt. There’s nothing in this letter but the impulse of a moment. The desire to bring a few images of me to life in the depths of your soul.

Thinking of you,

Clotilde

The third letter had arrived only two months prior.

Jeremy,

Your letter really surprised me. To think that after years of indifference, I’ve come to the fore-front of your thoughts again. You made a good argument: you wanted to break off our relationship to keep me from knowing the torments of a prisoner’s wife. Such a noble soul, Jeremy! But you know what? I sincerely believe your intelligence must’ve gone soft after too much time behind bars. Did you think I’d be fooled? Do you really think I’m that stupid?

You need me? I needed you, Jeremy. I realized I was in love when I thought I was just an accomplice. I loved your way of looking at life, seeing it as a challenge that time throws before the appetites of man. I loved your idea that by casting off all moral judgment, it was possible to live every minute with such intensity that you’d forget all the ones that came before, already so wonderful. I was the one you opened up to about the burdens of friendship, loyalty, and codes of social and moral propriety. I loved being the one who helped you live your rebellious life. But I was lying to myself. I was in love. Classic, boring love.

But you—you already knew that. It’s what earned me that pitiful letter in which you manipulate so well the artifices of romantic sensibility. Ready to betray yourself in service to your cause.

That, I think, is what hurt me the most. Knowing that because I loved you, I deserved no more than the rest: the saccharine drivel of artificial love, an elixir meant to drug me and make me useful to you.

So there you go, Jeremy. I don’t love you anymore. I find you pathetic, behind bars, trying to weave words into a poorly aimed rope to throw across the wall.

And it’s because I don’t love you anymore that I’ll help you.

When I was in love, I was satisfied knowing you were locked away with only your fondest memories to distract you. Memories that, without any vanity on my part, put me at the center of the fantasies of a man in the throes of sexual misery.

But today, I can imagine your release from prison calmly without thinking of the disdain you rewarded me with or of the person who would take my place in your arms.

Once you’re free, you can do whatever you want. Maybe I’ll even agree to sleep with you again. Or maybe I won’t want to anymore. But it’ll be my decision and not a response to your desires.

Right now, ironically, I can help you get what you want.

My position gives me access to certain valuable pieces of information. Victoria and Pierre are going to testify against you during your next parole hearing. I know what they’re going to say. I’ve gotten a little closer to Victoria since Thomas’s bar mitzvah. I gave her a hand with the preparations, and we reconciled. She confides in me and even goes so far as to want to share “girl stuff.” I’ll put up with it until I have the strength to decide comfort and laziness don’t justify everything. Long enough to believe that happiness can exist in another form for me somewhere else.

Betraying them by confiding in you certain information that might serve your purpose would be a good way to get things going. Especially since I have no qualms about it. I left the last remnants of my integrity somewhere between the sheets of your bed.

I’m going to think about your request for a visit. I’ll decide whether to help you or not based on my own requirements and expectations.

—Clotilde

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