An Entre Nous Original Short Story
Paris, November 1961
The first time Madeleine Laurent saw Dr. Gabriel Moreau cry, she pretended not to notice.
It was nearly three in the morning, and the hospital had settled into the uneasy quiet that followed a difficult night. Somewhere along the corridor, a porter pushed a trolley across the tiled floor. The telephone at the nurses’ station rang twice before someone answered it, and beyond the tall windows, rain fell steadily over Paris.
Madeleine had been on her feet for fourteen hours. Her stockings were uncomfortable, several pins had worked loose from her hair, and she had a headache that no amount of coffee seemed capable of relieving. At twenty-three, she had already learned that nursing required a considerable amount of patience, although she had never possessed very much of it herself.
Particularly when it came to physicians.
Gabriel Moreau was among the worst offenders.
He was thirty-one, an exceptionally talented surgeon, and possessed the sort of confidence that Madeleine occasionally mistook for arrogance. He had dark hair, an attractive face, and an irritating ability to remain composed when everyone around him was exhausted. They had worked together for nearly a year, during which time she had developed considerable respect for his medical abilities and rather less patience for his personality.
Earlier that evening, they had disagreed over a patient.
Madeleine had noticed a change in the woman’s condition and requested that Gabriel examine her. He had been occupied with another case and initially believed the symptoms were less urgent than Madeleine suggested. By the time the seriousness of the situation became apparent, the patient required emergency surgery.
For three hours, the surgical team had attempted to save her.
They had failed.
Madeleine found Gabriel in an unused examination room, sitting on the edge of a narrow bed with his elbows resting on his knees. His white coat lay beside him, and his sleeves were rolled above his forearms. He was holding a surgical mask in one hand, turning it absently between his fingers.
She stopped in the doorway.
“Doctor Moreau?” she asked.
Gabriel looked up, evidently surprised to see her.
“Laurent,” he replied. “I thought you’d gone home.”
“I was about to. I came looking for a patient chart.”
He glanced toward the desk. “I haven’t seen it.”
Madeleine nodded, although she made no attempt to leave. His eyes were red, and there was something in his expression she had never seen before.
“Have you eaten anything?” she asked.
Gabriel shook his head. “Not since this morning.”
She looked at the untouched glass of water beside him.
“Stay here,” she said.
Before he could object, she disappeared down the corridor.
When Madeleine returned several minutes later, she was carrying a cheese sandwich wrapped in paper and two cups of coffee.
Gabriel looked at the food with mild astonishment.
“Where on earth did you find that?” he asked.
“The kitchen. Although I wouldn’t recommend asking how long it’s been there.”
He accepted the sandwich with a tired smile. “Thank you.”
Madeleine sat at the opposite end of the bed, leaving a little space between them. She unwrapped her own sandwich and began eating, deciding that if Gabriel wished to speak, he would do so when he was ready.
For several minutes, they remained silent.
Then Gabriel set his sandwich aside.
“Her husband asked me whether she was going to die,” he said quietly.
Madeleine turned toward him.
“He asked before we took her upstairs. I told him we were doing everything we could, but he kept asking whether I thought she’d survive.” Gabriel paused, looking down at his hands. “I knew what he wanted me to say.”
“You couldn’t have promised him that,” Madeleine replied.
“I know.”
He rubbed his eyes.
“When I came out of the operating theatre, he was still sitting exactly where I’d left him. He stood up when he saw me, and before I could say anything, I watched him realize she was gone.”
Madeleine remembered the man. She remembered how carefully he had folded his wife’s coat over his arm, as though he expected her to need it when they went home.
“I saw him afterward,” she said.
Gabriel nodded. “He asked whether she had been frightened. I told him she’d been unconscious.”
“She was, Gabriel.”
“I know she was.” He looked at her. “I just wish I’d had something better to give him.”
Madeleine set down her coffee.
“You told him the truth,” she said.
“It didn’t seem like much.”
“Sometimes it isn’t.”
Gabriel looked at her, surprised by the answer.
She considered him for a moment before continuing.
“In my first year here, there was a little girl who died of pneumonia. Her mother asked me whether she’d been calling for her. I told her she hadn’t, which was true, but I spent weeks wondering whether I should have said something different. Something that might have made it easier for her.”
“What would you have said?” Gabriel asked.
Madeleine shook her head.
“I never figured that out. I think that’s what troubled me most.”
He looked toward the window, where the rain had begun to slow.
“I should have listened to you earlier,” he said.
“Yes,” Madeleine replied.
Gabriel lowered his eyes. “I’ve been thinking about that.”
“So have I.”
“I wasn’t deliberately dismissing you, Madeleine. I genuinely thought there was time.”
She studied his face.
“I know you did,” she answered. “So did I.”
For a while, neither spoke.
Then Gabriel leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“I don’t know how people become accustomed to this,” he admitted.
“I don’t think they do.”
“Doesn’t that frighten you?”
“Of course it does.”
He turned toward her.
“Then how do you manage?”
Madeleine considered the question.
“Some days I don’t manage particularly well,” she said. “You’ve probably noticed.”
A faint smile crossed Gabriel’s face.
“I have noticed that you’re occasionally difficult.”
“I’m trying to be kind to you, Doctor.”
“I know,” he replied, smiling properly now.
They remained in the examination room until nearly four in the morning.
As the conversation gradually moved away from the patient, Madeleine discovered that Gabriel was considerably more interesting when he wasn’t attempting to impress anyone. He told her about his sister Claire, who had once pushed him into a fountain after he’d informed their mother that she had been smoking. Madeleine admitted that, at eleven, she’d stolen a neighbor’s cat and hidden it beneath her bed for three days because she couldn’t bear the thought of its owners moving away.
“Did your parents ever find out?” Gabriel asked.
“My father discovered it when the cat scratched him and ruined the curtains,” Madeleine replied.
Gabriel laughed, a warm and entirely unguarded sound that she had never heard from him before.
Madeleine found herself smiling.
When they finally left the hospital, the rain had stopped.
Gabriel stood beside her beneath the entrance awning while she fastened her coat.
“Madeleine?” he said.
She turned, surprised to hear him use her given name.
“Thank you for staying.”
She adjusted her scarf.
“You looked as though you could use the company.”
“I could,” Gabriel admitted.
She smiled.
“Try to get some sleep, Doctor.”
“Gabriel,” he corrected gently.
Madeleine looked at him for a moment.
“Goodnight, Gabriel.”
“Goodnight, Madeleine.”
She began walking toward the street.
Gabriel watched her go, wondering why it had taken him almost a year to discover how much he enjoyed talking to her.
Paris, December 1961
By December, Gabriel had developed a habit of finding reasons to visit Madeleine’s ward.
He appeared with questions that could have been answered by telephone, borrowed pens he never returned, and occasionally lingered at the nurses’ station long after his business was finished.
Madeleine noticed, although she was reluctant to admit how much she enjoyed it.
One afternoon, she found him standing beside her desk while she completed a patient’s notes.
“Are you looking for someone, Doctor?” she asked.
“You, actually,” Gabriel replied.
Madeleine glanced up. “Has something happened?”
“No. I was wondering whether you were free on Saturday.”
She stopped writing.
“Why?”
Gabriel hesitated, and for the first time since she’d known him, Madeleine thought he looked slightly nervous.
“I’d like to take you to dinner,” he said.
She leaned back in her chair.
“Dinner?”
“Yes, Madeleine. Dinner.”
“Just the two of us?”
“That was rather the idea.”
Madeleine studied him, enjoying his discomfort.
“I thought you disliked me.”
Gabriel smiled. “I’ve never disliked you.”
“You once told Dr. Bernard I was the most argumentative nurse in Paris.”
“You are,” he replied. “But I’ve also come to think you’re rather wonderful.”
Madeleine looked down at her paperwork, suddenly uncertain what to say.
“Saturday,” she repeated.
“Eight o’clock, if that suits you.”
She considered making him wait a little longer.
Then she looked up.
“All right, Gabriel. Eight o’clock.”
His expression changed so quickly that she nearly laughed.
“I’ll collect you at eight,” he promised.
As he turned to leave, Madeleine called after him.
“And Gabriel?”
He stopped.
“Bring back my pens.”
He laughed and promised he would.
Their first dinner took place at a small restaurant near Saint-Germain-des-Prés, where the tables stood too close together and the waiter seemed personally offended by their indecision over the wine.
Madeleine wore a dark blue dress with a narrow waist and a pair of earrings she’d bought with her first proper wages. Gabriel arrived carrying flowers, looking unexpectedly nervous.
“You look beautiful,” he said when she opened the door.
Madeleine accepted the flowers with a smile.
“Thank you. You look as though you’re about to sit an examination.”
Gabriel laughed.
“I haven’t done this in a while.”
“Taken a woman to dinner?”
“Asked one I particularly liked.”
Madeleine felt herself blush and disappeared into the bedroom to collect her coat.
At the restaurant, they spoke for hours.
Madeleine learned that Gabriel’s father owned a small printing business and had never entirely forgiven his son for choosing medicine. His mother wrote to him every Sunday, usually to remind him that he was getting older and that hospital corridors were not an acceptable substitute for a home.
Gabriel learned that Madeleine had grown up in Tours, that her mother had taught her to sew, and that she had wanted to become a nurse since childhood.
“My father thought I’d change my mind,” she told him.
“Did he disapprove?” Gabriel asked.
“Not exactly. He thought I was too sensitive.”
Gabriel considered her for a moment.
“Were you?”
“Probably,” Madeleine admitted. “I still am, really. I’ve simply become better at hiding it.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed.”
“That’s because you’re not particularly observant outside an operating theatre,” she replied.
He laughed.
Later, as they shared a dessert neither had intended to order, Gabriel told her about a woman he’d once nearly married.
“What happened?” Madeleine asked.
“She decided she didn’t want to spend her life waiting for me,” he replied.
Madeleine looked at him.
“Were you in love with her?”
Gabriel considered the question.
“I thought I was. But looking back, I think I was more interested in the idea of being married than in the marriage itself.”
Madeleine rested her chin against her hand.
“What do you think marriage ought to be?”
Gabriel looked at her for a moment.
“I suppose I’d like to find out.”
Something in his expression made her look away.
When he walked her home, Paris was cold and quiet. They stopped beneath the entrance to her building, neither seeming particularly eager to say goodnight.
“I had a lovely evening,” Madeleine said.
“So did I,” Gabriel replied.
She smiled.
“Thank you for dinner.”
He reached for her hand.
“May I see you again?”
“I’d like that.”
Gabriel leaned closer, hesitated, and kissed her cheek.
It was a gentle, almost formal gesture.
Madeleine found herself disappointed.
She was halfway through the doorway when she turned back.
“Gabriel?”
He looked up.
“Are you always so terribly polite?”
For a moment, he seemed confused.
Then he understood.
He came back toward her, smiling, and kissed her properly.
Paris, February 1962
By February, Gabriel had begun spending more nights at Madeleine’s apartment than his own.
Her rooms were small, with pale curtains, uneven floorboards, and a kitchen barely large enough for two people. There were flowers on the windowsill, books stacked beside the bed, and an old radio that required a firm slap before it would play properly.
Gabriel loved the apartment, although he complained frequently about the plumbing and the fact that Madeleine owned six vases but only four dinner plates.
He particularly loved Sunday mornings.
Madeleine usually slept later than he did. He would wake to find her curled beside him, one hand resting beneath her cheek, her dark hair spread across the pillow.
Sometimes he lay awake simply watching her.
It astonished him how quickly she had become part of his life.
He had spent years believing that happiness would arrive after some professional achievement: a promotion, a better appointment, the completion of another exhausting year.
Now he found himself happiest in a small apartment, listening to Madeleine complain that he’d stolen the blankets.
One Sunday, she was standing at the stove wearing his shirt when he came into the kitchen.
“Good morning,” Gabriel said, coming up behind her.
Madeleine turned and smiled.
“You’re awake. There’s coffee on the table.”
He kissed her shoulder before glancing into the pan.
“What are you making?”
“Breakfast,” she replied.
Gabriel examined the contents with mild suspicion.
“Are you certain?”
Madeleine gave him an indignant look.
“Would you like to make it yourself?”
“No, darling. I value my life.”
She laughed and nudged him away.
Gabriel poured himself some coffee and sat at the table.
For a while, he watched her move around the kitchen, humming softly to the radio.
Then he set down his cup.
“Madeleine, can I ask you something?”
She glanced over her shoulder.
“Of course.”
“Are you happy?”
Madeleine turned from the stove, surprised by the question.
“Of course I am,” she replied. “Why would you ask me that?”
Gabriel looked toward the window before answering.
“I suppose I’ve been thinking about how different my life has become since you came into it.”
Madeleine set down the wooden spoon and approached the table.
“Different in a good way, I hope,” she said, smiling.
Gabriel reached for her hand.
“In every way that matters.”
She leaned down and kissed him, lingering for a moment before resting her forehead against his.
“Then yes, Gabriel,” she whispered. “I’m very happy.”
He drew her onto his lap and held her there for several minutes, while breakfast continued burning on the stove.
Their happiness was not without difficulties.
Gabriel worked long hours, and Madeleine sometimes found herself waiting for him with dinner growing cold on the stove. Once, after he’d failed to appear for an evening they’d planned for weeks, she arrived at the hospital the following morning and barely spoke to him.
He found her alone near the linen cupboard.
“Madeleine, are you angry with me?” he asked.
She continued sorting supplies.
“What do you think?”
Gabriel sighed.
“There was an emergency last night. I couldn’t leave.”
“I know there was an emergency,” she replied, turning toward him. “I’m not angry because you had to work.”
“Then what is it?”
Madeleine put down the sheets in her hands.
“I sat there for three hours, Gabriel. I kept thinking something had happened to you.”
His expression softened.
“I’m sorry.”
“You could have asked someone to telephone me,” she continued. “I know what your work requires. I do the same work. But I need to know that you haven’t forgotten I’m waiting for you.”
Gabriel reached for her hand.
“I should have sent word. You’re right.”
Madeleine looked up at him.
“Thank you.”
He squeezed her fingers.
“I’ll remember next time.”
“There had better not be a next time,” she replied, although she was beginning to smile.
Gabriel smiled too.
“I’ll do my best.”
That evening, he arrived at her apartment with flowers and a bottle of wine. He insisted on cooking dinner himself, despite Madeleine’s objections.
He burned the onions, broke one of her plates, and eventually admitted defeat.
They ate bread and cheese at the kitchen table.
Madeleine laughed until her stomach hurt.
Gabriel watched her, smiling.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he replied. “I like seeing you happy.”
She rolled her eyes, although she was blushing.
He reached across the table and took her hand.
“Madeleine, have you ever thought about getting married?”
She looked up.
The question was so unexpected that she nearly dropped her glass.
“Married?”
“Yes.”
“To whom?”
Gabriel laughed.
“In general, darling.”
Madeleine studied him for a moment.
“I suppose I have.”
“Would you like children?”
“Someday,” she replied.
“How many?”
“Two, perhaps. Three if I felt particularly brave.”
Gabriel smiled.
“I’d like children.”
Madeleine’s expression softened.
“Would you?”
“Very much.”
She looked down at their joined hands.
“I wouldn’t want to stop nursing.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to.”
“Some men would.”
Gabriel lifted her hand and kissed her fingers.
“Then it’s fortunate you’re not considering marrying one of them.”
Madeleine laughed.
They spoke for another hour about houses, families, and the kind of lives they hoped to have. Neither mentioned marriage directly again.
But that night, while Madeleine slept beside him, Gabriel lay awake imagining a future in which she would always be there. He pictured children running through a garden, Madeleine calling them inside for supper, and himself arriving home from the hospital to find her waiting. For the first time in his life, the future seemed less like something he was working toward and more like something he wanted to share.
Paris, May 1962
Gabriel received the letter on a Thursday.
Madeleine found him reading it in his office, his expression unusually serious.
“Bad news?” she asked, taking a seat opposite him.
Gabriel folded the paper.
“Not exactly. A colleague has contacted me about a medical assignment in Algeria.”
Madeleine looked at him.
“Algeria?”
He nodded.
“There are hospitals struggling to cope with the violence. They need surgeons.”
“How long would you be gone?”
“Six weeks. Possibly eight.”
Madeleine studied him.
“And you’ve agreed?”
“No,” Gabriel replied.
She was surprised.
“Why not?”
He looked down at the letter.
“Because I have responsibilities here. And because I have you.”
Madeleine was silent.
Gabriel leaned back in his chair.
“I don’t want to leave you.”
She moved her chair closer.
“Do you want to go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Gabriel.”
He sighed.
“Yes. Part of me does.”
“Then perhaps you should.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“You don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“I’m not asking you to do anything,” Madeleine replied.
“Madeleine, it’s dangerous. I could be gone for months.”
She looked at him carefully.
“Do you think I don’t understand that?”
Gabriel reached for her hand.
“I’ve spent years putting work before everything else. For once, I don’t want to.”
Madeleine felt a sudden tenderness for him.
She knew how much he loved his work, and she knew how difficult it had been for him to imagine a life beyond it.
But she also knew that he would regret refusing an opportunity to help people who desperately needed him.
“Gabriel,” she said quietly, “I fell in love with the man who couldn’t bear to leave someone suffering. I wouldn’t much like the man who could.”
He looked at her.
“You make it sound very simple.”
“It isn’t,” Madeleine replied. “I’ll be frightened. I’ll probably be miserable while you’re away. And I shall complain about you to everyone who’ll listen.”
Gabriel smiled faintly.
“That sounds familiar.”
“But if you stay because you’re afraid of leaving me, I think you’ll regret it.”
Gabriel stood and drew her into his arms.
“You are an extraordinary woman,” he murmured.
Madeleine rested her cheek against his chest.
“I’m aware.”
He laughed softly.
“Eight weeks,” he said.
“Eight weeks,” she repeated.
They both wanted to believe it.
A week later, Gabriel took Madeleine to dinner at the same restaurant where they’d had their first date.
He was unusually distracted.
“Are you ill?” she asked.
Gabriel looked up.
“No. Why?”
“Because you’ve been staring at the waiter for ten minutes.”
He smiled.
“I’ve been thinking about September.”
Madeleine set down her glass.
“What about it?”
“I’d like to take you somewhere when I return.”
“Somewhere expensive, I hope.”
Gabriel laughed.
“The Mediterranean.”
Madeleine raised her eyebrows.
“The sea?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve never been.”
“I know.”
She smiled.
“It’s terribly hot, isn’t it?”
“In summer.”
“And there’s sand.”
“Usually.”
Madeleine made a face and Gabriel laughed.
“We’ll find you a beach without any.”
She reached across the table for his hand.
“I’d like that,” she said.
Gabriel smiled.
“Good.”
Madeleine never knew that earlier that afternoon, Gabriel had visited a jeweler on the Rue de la Paix.
He had spent nearly an hour examining rings, rejecting several as too elaborate before choosing a slender gold band set with a small diamond.
He had carried it in his coat pocket for the rest of the day.
And when he kissed Madeleine goodnight, the little velvet box had been only inches from her hand.
Gabriel left Paris on June 3, 1962.
At the railway station, Madeleine fussed over his collar, his luggage, and whether he’d packed enough clean shirts.
“You’ve forgotten your gloves,” she said.
Gabriel smiled.
“It’s June, darling.”
“Your good fountain pen?”
“In my pocket.”
“The book Claire gave you?”
“In my bag.”
Madeleine looked at him.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“A little,” he admitted.
He drew her closer.
Around them, passengers hurried toward the platforms. A child was crying. Somewhere nearby, a porter shouted for someone to move their luggage.
Madeleine suddenly wished the entire station would fall silent.
Gabriel touched her cheek.
“Look at me,” he said gently.
She did.
“I’ll write.”
“You’d better.”
“Every chance I get.”
“And you’ll be careful?”
“As careful as I can.”
Madeleine hated the qualification.
Gabriel seemed to understand.
“Madeleine,” he said softly, “I’ll come home.”
She pressed her lips together.
“You promise?”
Gabriel kissed her.
“I promise I’ll do everything I can.”
She held him tightly.
For a moment, he buried his face against her neck.
Then the final call sounded.
Gabriel stepped back, took his suitcase, and climbed aboard.
Madeleine remained on the platform as the train began to move.
He leaned from the window.
“Madame Laurent!” he called.
She looked up.
“Don’t burn down the apartment while I’m away!”
Madeleine laughed through her tears.
“Don’t forget your way home, Monsieur Moreau!”
Gabriel raised his hand.
She waved until the train disappeared.
Then she stood on the platform for several minutes, feeling rather foolish.
It was only eight weeks.
She would see him again before the summer ended.
Paris, June 1962
His first letter arrived eleven days later.
My dearest Madame Laurent,
I regret to inform you that the coffee here is dreadful, the heat is unbearable, and not one person has yet appreciated my considerable charm. I have therefore concluded that Paris has spoiled me.
The work is difficult, although I’m learning a great deal from the physicians here. Dr. Benyamina, with whom I’ve been working most closely, has informed me that I possess the bedside manner of an irritated schoolmaster. I told him my patients in Paris consider me delightful. He was unconvinced.
I miss your kitchen. I miss the sound of your ridiculous radio. I even miss being informed that I’m wrong about everything.
Most of all, I miss you.
Until September, Madame Laurent.
Yours, Monsieur Moreau.
Madeleine read it three times.
Then she sat at her kitchen table and wrote six pages in reply.
She told him about a patient who had proposed marriage to her, an argument she’d had with the hospital administrator, and the fact that the neighbor’s cat had begun visiting her windowsill.
She described the weather, the flowers she’d bought, and the dreadful dinner she’d prepared the previous evening.
At the end, she wrote:
I love you, Gabriel. Please don’t make me wait too long to say it to your face.
His next letter arrived nine days later.
Then another.
He wrote about long days, shortages of supplies, and the kindness of the people he worked alongside. He described a young Algerian nurse named Samira who had taught him several phrases in Arabic and delighted in correcting his pronunciation.
He wrote about children who had lost their homes, about patients arriving frightened and exhausted, and about the difficulty of knowing whether the next day would be quieter or worse.
Madeleine noticed that he was becoming less inclined to make jokes.
She wrote more often.
Sometimes she sent photographs.
In one, she stood outside her apartment wearing a pale summer dress, her hair pinned loosely at the back of her head.
Gabriel replied that he’d shown it to Dr. Benyamina, who had expressed astonishment that a woman so lovely would willingly associate with him.
I told him you were extraordinarily intelligent, Gabriel wrote, but that your judgment in men was regrettably poor.
Madeleine laughed aloud when she read it.
She placed the photograph of Gabriel she’d kept beside her bed in a new frame.
Then she counted the days until September.
Oran, July 1962
The final letter was dated July 2.
My darling Madeleine,
I received your letter yesterday and was very pleased to learn that the neighbor’s cat has finally accepted your hospitality. I confess I am slightly jealous of the creature, which has apparently been permitted to sleep in my usual place on the sofa.
Things remain unsettled here. There has been more violence, and everyone is tired. Dr. Benyamina tells me I must stop attempting to work through the night, although he is just as guilty of it himself. There are days when I feel we accomplish very little, and others when one patient leaving the hospital seems enough to justify everything.
I have been thinking about September. We ought to go away somewhere neither of us knows anyone. I intend to spend an entire week doing absolutely nothing, although I suspect you will find some reason to scold me before the first afternoon is over.
I have something I want to ask you when I come home. Nothing dreadful, I assure you, although I expect you’ll make a considerable fuss.
Be good, darling. Or at least be careful.
I love you.
Gabriel.
Madeleine read the final paragraph several times.
Something he wanted to ask her.
She wondered whether he was planning another holiday, perhaps somewhere in the countryside.
She considered writing to demand an explanation, then decided she would rather hear it from him in person.
She folded the letter and placed it in the drawer beside her bed.
It was the last letter she ever received from Gabriel Moreau.
At first, Madeleine was not particularly alarmed.
Letters had arrived irregularly before. The postal service was unreliable, and Gabriel’s work often kept him away from his accommodation for days at a time.
She wrote again.
Then again.
By the middle of July, she had begun telephoning the office that coordinated his assignment. The woman who answered was sympathetic but unable to provide much information. There had been serious violence in Oran. Communication with some personnel had been disrupted. They were attempting to account for everyone.
Madeleine asked whether Gabriel was among those unaccounted for. There was a pause.
“Yes, Mademoiselle Laurent,” the woman replied.
Madeleine gripped the telephone.
“What does that mean?”
“It means we haven’t yet been able to confirm his whereabouts.”
“But he’s a physician,” Madeleine said. “He was working at a hospital.”
“We understand.”
“Then telephone the hospital.”
“We have made inquiries.”
“And?”
“I’m afraid we don’t have anything further to tell you.”
Madeleine thanked her.
She put down the receiver.
Then she picked it up again and called Claire. Within two days, Gabriel’s family had begun making inquiries of their own. There were conflicting reports.
One colleague believed Gabriel had left a medical facility to assist with an emergency elsewhere in the city. Another remembered seeing him near a vehicle transporting patients. A third thought he might have been detained during the unrest.
None could say with certainty. His passport and some personal belongings were eventually recovered from the accommodation where he’d been staying. There was no confirmed record of his death.
No reliable account of his whereabouts.
No body.
Madeleine wrote letters to officials, humanitarian organizations, hospitals, and anyone she thought might have information.
She supplied photographs and descriptions.
Gabriel Moreau. Thirty-one years old. French. Dark hair. Brown eyes. A surgeon.
She included a small scar near his left eyebrow, acquired when he’d fallen from a bicycle at eleven.
She wrote that he was approximately six feet tall, although she wasn’t certain of the exact measurement.
She hated that uncertainty.
She had slept beside him, washed his shirts, and memorized the shape of his hands, yet she could not remember how tall he was.
At night, she lay awake imagining possibilities.
Perhaps he had been injured.
Perhaps he’d been taken somewhere without identification.
Perhaps he was lying unconscious in a hospital, waiting for someone to recognize him.
Perhaps he was dead.
She found that last possibility almost impossible to think about.
There were days when she felt certain he was alive.
Then there were mornings when she woke with the dreadful conviction that something terrible had happened, and that everyone knew except her.
Claire visited often. Sometimes they talked about Gabriel. Sometimes they sat in silence. His mother began attending church every morning. His father wrote letters to government offices and became increasingly angry when their replies offered no answers. Madeleine returned to work because she could not bear remaining at home.
The hospital had never seemed so cruelly ordinary. Patients arrived. Physicians argued. Nurses hurried along the corridors. People complained about the food, the weather, and the length of their stay.
Once, she heard a young doctor laugh in the corridor and turned so quickly that she dropped the papers she was carrying. For a fraction of a second, she had thought it was Gabriel.
She went into the linen cupboard and cried. Then she washed her face and returned to her patients.
In September, Madeleine took two weeks of leave. She had originally requested the time for their holiday. She did not go to the Mediterranean. Instead, she remained in Paris, visiting offices, writing letters, and waiting for the telephone to ring.
On the final day of her leave, she stood at her kitchen window and watched the rain. The neighbor’s cat was asleep on the sofa. Gabriel’s place on the sofa.
She began to cry so suddenly that she frightened the animal.
Paris, March 1965
Claire arrived on a Sunday afternoon carrying a small parcel. Madeleine had not seen her for several months. Their friendship had survived Gabriel’s disappearance, although the years had made their meetings increasingly difficult.
Claire had married young and had two children. Her life was full of schoolbooks, appointments, dinners, and the ordinary obligations of motherhood.
Madeleine had become a senior nurse. She had moved to a slightly larger apartment and begun taking occasional holidays with friends. She still wrote inquiries about Gabriel, though less frequently now. Most received the same answer.
No new information.
Claire accepted a cup of tea and sat beside the window. They spoke about the children, the hospital, and Madeleine’s plans to visit Lyon. Then Claire became quiet.
“There’s something I’ve wanted to give you,” she said.
Madeleine looked up. “What is it?”
Claire placed the parcel on the table.
“I wasn’t certain whether I should.”
Madeleine untied the string. Inside was a small velvet box. She looked at Claire.
“What’s this?”
“Open it,” Claire said softly.
Madeleine lifted the lid. A gold ring lay against the dark lining. For a moment, she did not understand. Then she looked up.
“Claire?”
Her friend was crying. “Gabriel bought it before he left,” Claire explained. “He asked me to keep it for him. He was going to give it to you when he came home.”
The room seemed to become very still. Madeleine looked down at the ring, “He was going to ask me?”
Claire nodded, “He’d been talking about marrying you for months.”
Madeleine pressed her fingers against her mouth, “He never said.”
“He wanted it to be a surprise.”
She laughed once, an unfamiliar sound, “Of course he did.”
Claire reached across the table, “He was terribly nervous about it.”
“Gabriel?” Madeleine asked, looking at her through tears. “He wasn’t nervous about anything.”
“Oh, he was. He asked me whether I thought you’d say yes.” Madeleine began crying harder.
Claire squeezed her hand, “I told him he was an idiot for even asking.”
For several minutes, neither spoke. Then Madeleine whispered, “I would have.”
“I know,” Claire replied.
“I would have married him.”
Claire’s face crumpled, “I know, darling.”
Madeleine took the ring from its box. It was slightly too large for her finger. Gabriel had guessed incorrectly. That made her laugh again, and then she was crying so hard she could scarcely breathe. “He was always so certain he knew everything,” she said.
Claire laughed through her tears, “Yes, he was.”
Madeleine turned the ring between her fingers, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Claire looked down. “At first, I thought he’d come home and tell you himself.”
“And afterward?”
“I couldn’t bear to give it to you,” Claire admitted.
Madeleine understood. For Claire, giving away the ring meant acknowledging that Gabriel might never return to claim it. For Madeleine, accepting it meant receiving a proposal from a man who might still be alive somewhere in the world.
She closed her hand around it. They sat together until evening. When Claire left, Madeleine remained at the table. She opened the box again.
Then she went to her bedroom, took Gabriel’s last letter from the drawer, and read it. I have something I want to ask you when I come home. She pressed the paper against her chest. For three years, she had wondered what he meant.
Now she knew.
It was the first answer she had received about Gabriel in a very long time and somehow, it hurt almost as much as having none.
Paris, October 1972
Madeleine Laurent was thirty-three years old when she realized she could no longer remember the exact sound of Gabriel Moreau’s laugh.
It happened on a Sunday morning.
She had been preparing lunch for a friend, and the radio was playing softly beside the kitchen window. Rain had begun to fall over the courtyard, where a woman was attempting to rescue her washing from the line.
Madeleine watched the struggle with mild amusement. Gabriel would have had something to say about it. He had always been particularly entertaining when someone else’s misfortune involved the weather.
She smiled. Then she tried to remember his laugh.
She could recall the way his shoulders moved when something genuinely amused him. She remembered the crease beside his left eye, the slight tilt of his head, and the way he sometimes covered his mouth when he was trying not to laugh at something inappropriate.
But the sound itself would not come.
Madeleine stood at the window for several minutes.
She remembered him laughing in her kitchen after he’d broken a plate. She remembered him laughing in bed one morning when she’d accused him of stealing the blankets.
She remembered how happy she’d been to hear it.
But she could not hear it anymore. She turned away from the window. Ten years had passed since Gabriel disappeared. She had spent those years learning how to live with questions that had no answers.
She had visited offices, written letters, and followed rumors that led nowhere. She had met people who claimed to have seen him and others who insisted he must have died.
She had learned that uncertainty could be exhausting in ways grief was not. There was no funeral, no grave, and no date upon which she could say her life had changed forever.
There was only the morning she’d received his last letter, and all the mornings that followed. Yet her life had continued. She had become an accomplished nurse. She had traveled, made friends, and fallen in love once more, briefly, with a kind man who had never asked her to forget Gabriel.
She had been happy. Not always, and not in the same way, but genuinely happy. She had learned that loving Gabriel did not require her to remain the woman he’d left behind. Still, there were moments when she wondered what he would have thought of the person she’d become.
Would he have liked her new apartment?
Would he have teased her about the expensive curtains?
Would he have been proud of her work?
She had once known exactly how he would answer those questions. Now, she could only imagine. Madeleine opened the cupboard and took down two plates. Her friend would arrive soon.
She had promised to make lunch, and there was still bread to collect from the bakery. On her way to the bedroom, she passed the small writing desk beside the window. Inside its upper drawer, beneath several letters and an old photograph, lay Gabriel’s ring.
She had worn it occasionally over the years, usually on a chain beneath her blouse. She had never called herself his widow. She had never been his wife. Yet, there had been a time when he had intended to ask her to become both.
Madeleine opened the drawer. She took out the little velvet box and held it for a moment. Then she placed it carefully beside the photograph. Gabriel was smiling in the picture.
He had been standing outside her apartment on a Sunday afternoon, wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She remembered taking the photograph, and remembered telling him to stop looking so pleased with himself.
He had laughed. She knew he had laughed. She simply could not remember how it sounded. Madeleine sat at the desk. For years, she had been afraid that forgetting even the smallest part of Gabriel meant losing him again.
But she was beginning to understand that memory was not a place where a person could remain unchanged forever.
She had forgotten the sound of his footsteps on the stairs. She could no longer recall precisely how he smelled when he came home from the hospital, or whether he took his coffee with one sugar or two.
There were entire conversations she knew they had shared but could no longer reconstruct. Still, she remembered the way he had looked at her in the kitchen that February morning. She remembered the warmth of his hand against her cheek. She remembered the quiet certainty with which he had told her he wanted a family. She remembered being loved.
Madeleine touched the photograph. For a moment, she allowed herself to imagine the life they might have had. Gabriel would be forty-two now.
Perhaps his hair would have begun to gray at the temples. Perhaps he would have become a distinguished surgeon, forever arriving home late and apologizing for the inconvenience. They might have had children. A daughter, perhaps, with his dark eyes and her terrible temper.
There would have been arguments about money, about holidays, about the proper way to raise children and whether Gabriel worked too much. There would have been birthdays, illnesses, ordinary disappointments, and years in which they scarcely noticed how fortunate they were.
They would have grown older together. She imagined him standing in the kitchen, reading the newspaper while she prepared breakfast. She could almost hear him complaining about the coffee.
Almost.
The clock struck eleven. Madeleine closed the drawer and stood. Outside, the rain had stopped. She collected her coat, checked her reflection in the mirror, and went downstairs to buy bread. The streets were damp, and the air smelled of autumn.
At the bakery, she joined the queue behind an elderly couple. The man was carrying a shopping basket. His wife was speaking to him in a low, affectionate voice, scolding him for forgetting something she’d asked him to buy. He smiled and kissed her cheek.
Madeleine looked away. For a moment, she wondered whether she and Gabriel might have become like them. Whether they would have learned to forgive each other’s habits, whether they would have grown impatient with one another, whether they would have spent their Sundays shopping for bread and arguing over nothing.
She wondered whether he would still have called her Madame Laurent. The woman behind the counter asked for her order. Madeleine bought a loaf of bread and stepped outside. She stood beneath the awning for a moment, watching the clouds break over the rooftops.
Somewhere in the world, Gabriel Moreau had either grown ten years older or had not grown older at all. She would never know which. Although she had spent a decade imagining every possible explanation for his absence, she had never discovered a way to imagine a world in which he had simply ceased to exist.
Madeleine tucked the bread beneath her arm and began walking home. She had a friend coming for lunch. There were flowers on the table, a bottle of wine waiting to be opened, and an afternoon ahead of her. She would laugh. She would tell stories. She would speak about the hospital and the places she hoped to visit next summer.
Somewhere, beneath all those ordinary hours, she would carry the memory of a man who had once loved her enough to imagine a lifetime. A man who had promised to take her to the sea. A man who had bought a ring and never had the chance to ask his question.
Madeleine crossed the street as the church bells began to ring. For the first time that morning, she smiled. Not because she had stopped missing him. But because, for a brief and precious moment, she remembered what it had felt like when he was coming home.
-Makena A. CraigFor those who waited for someone who never came home.
For the letters never delivered, the promises left unfinished, and the lives that history interrupted.
And for those who never learned what happened to the person they loved, but carried that love with them for the rest of their lives.
Some love stories do not end. They simply run out of time.