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He'd said he was going for a walk, and he supposed it wasn't a lie. He was walking. To the nearest bar.
She had gone running down the steps after him—he knew because she shouted his name into the otherwise quiet night—but he disappeared from view just as quickly as he'd walked out. Hiding around a corner, René held his breath until he heard the door click behind her.
Cloaks, backup plans, quick getaways; it was just like him to remove himself from a situation at the first sight of it going bad. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat and hid behind the collar, despite it being the middle of spring. He needed to hide. He fell back on the habit of staying unseen because if he could obscure himself from the world, maybe he could obscure himself from the problem, too.
The problem. He kicked himself for thinking of it that way, but any alternative eluded him. He didn't remember entering the bar, nor did he remember ordering a bourbon, but the barkeep slid a glass to him and seemed to include some pity for free.
"If you don't mind me sayin', you look like shit," the man said in a thick Bostonian accent.
"That is likely because I feel like shit," responded René. His first sip of liquor warmed his throat, but it wasn't all that comforting.
The place wasn't terribly busy. It was a random Wednesday night, far past the threshold of when most people went to bed. There was a quiet chatter at a booth across the room where a group of men played poker, and a handful of lonesome stragglers who looked like they needed the buzz just as much as René. He wondered, only for a second, what had happened to these poor saps, if they had just found out, too, that they knocked up their girlfriends at the ass end of a global war. He was then burdened with the picture of his Josephine crying back at home and he quickly throttled it out of himself.
He pulled a coin from his pocket and tossed it onto the counter. "Another, s'il vous plaît."
The barkeep nodded and reached to refill his glass. "Frenchie, huh?"
René looked up peculiarly at the man. "Yes."
"What brings you to the States?"
"Work," he said reluctantly.
"That what brought you to this place, too?"
The barkeep leaned on the counter and René sighed into his glass. "No."
There was a heavy pause as the man just looked at his patron and rubbed away a stain on the bar with a damp cloth. René could at any second have told him to fuck off, but the longer the silence got, the hotter the back of his neck became, so maybe he ought to take the opportunity to bend an ear.
"I made a very big mistake," he decided to say. "And… I think my only way out is to make a much worse one."
"Hmm."
"Hmm, indeed." He finished off the second helping of bourbon.
"So you can't fix it," said the barkeep.
René shuddered at the memory of her face when he asked what she was going to 'do about it.'
"No," he replied.
The other man sighed. "That's tough."
René just grunted weakly.
"I can tell you this, though: two wrongs don't usually make a right."
Staying wasn't an option. He'd realized it the moment the words fell from her mouth. The little time he spent here in Massachusetts already put him at risk of being identified—trying to make a home in this place would surely get him caught, not to even mention Josie and her boys becoming collateral damage. And what kind of home would it be, anyway? He would still have to travel constantly. He would disappoint her over and over, just like he always had.
But the more René thought about it—attempted to convince himself that it was his only option—a horrible question crept slowly up his spine: was he a martyr, or was he just a coward?
He scooted his empty glass closer to the attendant. "I will take a double shot of the strongest liquor you have."
"Uh, are you sure?" the man hesitated.
"Do I look like I am not being serious?"
Taking the hint that he was probably not going to win that standoff, the bartender reached for a bottle of absinthe and poured while René rifled around for more money. The exchange was made and the atrocious drink was soon, regrettably, down the hatch.
Without so much as a farewell he left the bar and stumbled back out onto the streets of Boston, his head fuzzy and swirling. He simply walked. See—not a lie at all.
The absinthe only did so much. He realized fairly early into his stroll that all it really did was make the street lights above him hurt to look at. As hard as he tried, he failed at leaving his problems behind at the bar, and a cascade of thoughts collapsed on top of his muddled brain. He didn't want to leave because it was better for her—he wanted to leave because he was fucking scared.
He didn't know the first thing about fatherhood; his own père was nothing but an angry and pathetic drunkard. The majority of the memories René had of his father were poor, and if he was anything like him, as he often feared he was, a child of his own would be better off not having a father at all.
Josephine was a crackerjack, already a mother of seven, and he knew she would be fine. He hoped. He prayed.
With so few people around and such a quantity of alcohol in his body, he found a bench and began to quietly snivel. If he left, he would lose the most important thing in his world, and oh, he loved her. He wanted to sprint back to her home and fall asleep in her lap, waking up tomorrow to find it was all a nightmare. A scale deep within his conscience teetered back and forth, one side containing his desire to leave the whole world behind and love her forever, to love their child, to find the strength within himself to not become his father and to keep them safe.
But the scale's other pan was full of fear. And it tipped.
He tried the front door and it opened. She had left it unlocked for him, hoping he would return to her. He felt sick.
Using the carefully honed skills of his trade, he managed to navigate the bedroom and pack his things into his luggage without waking her, though every lurching beat of his heart left him ragged.
René stood over her for a minute or so as if he were paralyzed. Something was screaming at him to just crawl into bed and hold her like she deserved. All he could do was stand there and watch her breathe.
He left without a sound.
. . .
The light of early morning floated through the moth-bitten drapes and over Josephine's face. With a deep breath, she opened her eyes, still swollen from all of the weeping. She was afraid to move.
Maybe she would roll over and René would be there beside her. Maybe he could defy his nature for her—he loved her, didn't he? He could do this for her—right?
She reached to the left side of the bed and met a cold quilt.
"Damn it."
Josephine sat up. Her heart stopped when she saw a note on the other nightstand.
Josie,
I am so sorry, but I must leave.
I have put you at risk from the
very beginning. If I were to stay
you and your children would be
in danger. I could not live with
myself if something happened
to you or your family.
I promise I will send money
when I can.
Je suis navré et je t'aime
René