Odette followed Alfie to the sitting room where he offered her a drink and she accepted. When he sat in the wingback chair across from her at the sofa, he fixed his eyes on her. Odette tried to hold his eyes but dropped them under his inscrutable stare.
"You want to tell me why the fuck you waited so long to tell me about my son?" Alfie asked in English, his voice stern.
"I didn't think you would want him." Odette confessed to match his native tongue.
"You didn't think I would want my own son?" Alfie repeated, leaning forward and pinning her with his glare.
"There were plenty of women who became pregnant after the war. Most of them were rejected by their child's father. We did not know each other very well-" She paused, making a conscious effort to say "Alfie. I did not know if you were married and if you would reject him. I did not want to have to tell him when he was older that his father did not want him. This way if he were angry, he could be angry at me for not telling you. I didn't want you to have to-"
"Fuck off!" Alfie said angrily, causing Odette to jump. "You did it for yourself! Not for me, not for the boy! For you. Because you were afraid. And now see what its gotten you? Look at you! When was the last time you ate a meal? Hmm?"
Odette's lip trembled but she held her chin up. "Julien is healthy and fed. That is all that matters."
"Yeah? That's all that fucking matters? And what about when his mother faints from not eating? Hmm? What then when she gets taken to the fucking hospital? Who takes care of Julien then? Do you have family to care for him while you fight for your life because of your own fucking stubbornness?"
There had been times Odette had felt lightheaded and had to pause but she had always continued on.
"If you had written to me from the fucking beginning it never would have been like this." Alfie said in a calm but forbidding tone. "But no. You couldn't swallow your fucking pride and admit that you couldn't fucking do it alone! How long have you been without food Odette? Hmm? How bad did it have to get before you wrote to me? And what if that fucking letter hadn't arrived when it did? What was your plan then? You couldn't have lasted like you were for much longer by the looks of you."
Truth is, Alfie was angry. She had been starving herself just so her son could eat and here he was with the means to take care of them.
"What was your plan, Odette?" He pushed.
"I was going to take him to an orphanage." She answered in a small voice.
"A fucking orphanage?!" Alfie was standing now.
"I didn't know what else to do!" Odette said in French, giving up on English in her emotion. "I tried so fucking hard, but no one wanted to hire me! I couldn't afford enough food for the two of us, so I fed him what I could and ate what he had left over! I wanted a healthy and happy son, and you are right! I couldn't let go of my pride and admit that I had failed him!" Her voice cracked at the end of her sentence. "I just wanted to be a good maman… but I failed him." She repeated in a whisper before she buried her face in her hands.
"You didn't fail him." Alfie said after a moment, his anger still there but hidden under the surface.
"Yes, I did." She whispered in a voice so small that he could barely hear. "The day your letter came, I was getting ready to take him to Paris. To the orphanage. I thought your silence meant you didn't want him. And as I said, I didn't know you. I sewed your face together and a few weeks later we ran into each other during celebrations and had sex." She shrugged. "I couldn't feed my son, so I was taking him to someone who could. What mother cannot feed her son?"
"Well, you don't have to worry about whether or not he will have food on his table anymore." Alfie said when his anger had finally subsided.
Odette sniffed. "And for that I am grateful. I will leave before he wakes up."
"What?"
"It will be easier that way I think. You can tell him I went to the buy groceries or something and never returned." She shrugged again, her eyes on the rug. "Whatever you need to say to make it easier for him."
Alfie blinked at her before shaking his head in confusion. "What are you on about?"
Odette looked up, her watery eyes full of pain and it hit him.
"I'm not the type of man to tear a child from his mother. I sent for you both. I thought that was clear."
"You said you were preparing a room for him…" Odette said breathlessly, as if afraid if she spoke too loud, he would change his mind.
"And I did. The room he is in now." Alfie leaned forward, "And I have a house for the two of you just across the street."
Odette bit her lip to keep it from trembling. "Please do not play with my emotions."
"I'm not. I can take you to it right now. It will need furniture. We can go shopping tomorrow, find something you like."
At the matter-of-fact tone of his voice, Odette finally crumbled, bursting into sobs of relief and gratitude. Alfie stood and walked to her, sitting on the sofa and pulling her into his arms as she wept. She allowed him to wrap his arms around her and hold her while she cried, a motion no one had done since her father had disowned her for getting pregnant while unmarried. It wasn't until she had settled that she pulled away and looked at him. She searched his face before slowly dropping her eyes to his groin and moving from the sofa to the floor.
"What-?" He started she got on her knees in front of him on the sofa.
Odette reached for the button of his trousers and began to undo them when Alfie grabbed her hands.
"What are you doing?" He asked.
"I have to way to repay you for giving us this gift." She said. "But I can do this for you." She said as she rubbed a hand between his legs and felt his cock twitch slightly before he shifted his hips farther back from her.
"You said in your letter that you didn't want to be a whore." He pointed out.
"Everyone has their price, I suppose." She shrugged. " Let me thank you in the only way I know I can." She said as she leaned up to kiss him.
Alfie let her kiss him, not opening his mouth for her imploring tongue. When she pulled back and looked at him questioningly, he said, "You are the mother of my child. Not my whore. I will take care of you because it is the right thing to do. Not because you suck my cock." Then he stood and walked away, leaving her on the sofa.
Odette felt embarrassed at his rejection and wiped her mouth.
When he paused in the doorway he said, "There is a spare bedroom next to Julien's. You can sleep there tonight, and I'll show you your house tomorrow."