Half Life by Jillian Cantor (easy to read books for adults list txt) 📕

thoughts of work and the lab and even teaching behind us in Paris. We while away the days soaked in sunshine and lake water and happiness.

Everyone is in high spirits and healthy, and Pierre is feeling well enough to ride bicycles with me again. We go out in the morning, pedaling toward the Alpilles, until they are closer and closer, almost close enough to touch those stunning brown hills. We return to the cottage sweating and a little sunburned on our faces, and ravenous for the eggs Dr. Curie and the girls have cooked fresh from the chickens while we were riding.

In the afternoon, we lie out on the grass in the sun, in front of the cottage. Pierre and I hold hands, watching the girls. Irène dances around, picking flowers. Ève has somehow managed to remove her dress and runs topless in only a pair of knickers, trying to keep up with her sister.

I roll on my side to look at Pierre, and he turns to look at me. His beard is grayer than when we first met, but his eyes just as blue, just as filled with light. The sun streams across his face, turning his features yellow and radiant, reminding me of the phosphorescent radium tube he made for my nightstand at home. “Mon amour,” he says softly, reaching his other hand up to touch my hair, to stroke my forehead with his thumb. “I love our life together,” he says. “How did I ever get so lucky?”

“There is no such thing as luck.” I smile at him. But even my scientific mind now understands a little what he means. The strangest way we came together by chance, the way our children, these particular children, came from us, and now they run around before us perfect and healthy and undamaged. The way we have been touched by phosphorescent light and love, professional success, and even money.

“Everything we have,” I finally say. “It is because we have made it so, together.”

“Together,” he echoes back.

IN THE CITY THE NEXT WEEK, THE WEATHER TURNS. ON Wednesday, as the children and I return, the winds roll in and the sky grays, and by Thursday morning it is chilly and rainy. I move about that morning, sluggish and out of sorts, trying to dress the children, ready them for the day, when Pierre calls out to me from downstairs that he is leaving for the lab.

“I have that lunch,” he calls up. I recall vaguely what he means. A newly formed association of science professors he’s been invited to be a part of, and that they have called a lunch meeting today. It is not so long ago that Pierre was not included in such things, and I remember now that they have specifically requested Pierre’s presence at the lunch. I smile. They still haven’t included me, as a woman, but I don’t care. I much prefer the lab to socializing anyway.

“I’ll see you in the lab afterward,” I yell back. I have errands to run this morning, food to buy for the house after having been away in the country for days, and then in the afternoon I will settle back into the lab myself. I close my eyes and wish I were there now, with Pierre, instead of suffering through the next hours of household duties and errands.

Ève hands me her sweater, interrupting my thoughts. I sigh. She dislikes it and has already pulled it off twice. “You’ll be cold without it,” I tell her as sternly as I can manage. I put her arms through the tiny sleeves once more.

Irène lets out an exaggerated sigh. “Why must she make everything so difficult, Maman?”

“Why indeed?” I say, as Ève is taking off her sweater again. The day is gray and cold and wet, and I am so sluggish. “Why indeed.”

PIERRE NEVER MAKES IT INTO THE LAB AFTER HIS LUNCH, AND I leave early myself, allowing extra time to walk home in the rain. The streets are flooded, and I walk slowly, worrying about Pierre. If he did not come to the lab, his rheumatism must be acting up again. He seemed so good last weekend, so healthy, that it was easy to forget my worries about his health while we were away. But the dampness today must be affecting him. It always does. I long for more sun-filled days in Saint-Rémy. Even the lab hasn’t cheered me up today, and by the time I walk inside the front door of our house, I’m soaked and chilled and feeling as gloomy as the weather.

I lay my umbrella out in the foyer, take off my wet boots. “Pierre,” I call out, and when he doesn’t answer I try again.

“Marie.” Dr. Curie walks in from the dining room. He’s a tall man, and despite his age, his white hair and beard, his wrinkled skin, I always believe I am seeing him in my mind the way he must’ve been when he was young. He usually walks gracefully, his voice filled with light. But now from the way he is hunched over, the way he has just said my name . . . His face is pale, expressionless. Something is wrong.

“What’s happened?” I ask. “Is it his legs again? Have you called for the doctor?” I hang up my coat and move to walk toward the steps, to check on Pierre in our bedroom.

“Marie.” Dr. Curie says my name again, more sharply. He reaches his hand out to catch my arm, to stop me from going upstairs. Dr. Curie has never grabbed me in anything but a hug before. My heart suddenly pounds in my chest. I look back at him and now he is crying. “The gendarmerie are in the dining room. They want to talk with you.”

The gendarmerie? In my house? “The children?” I gasp, suddenly panicked.

“They’re fine. They’re at the Perrins’.” Irène is often next door, playing with her little friend when I arrive home, and that in itself is not unusual. It is