Author's Note: I just want to thank everyone for the reviews. I'm glad you're enjoying the tale. That said, on with the story :

Chapter Six

Christine's treatment changed me, though not in the way she'd intended. Perhaps she'd imagined that I would one day emerge from my cocoon of sadness and distance to be the happy, cheerful man I'd always been deep down. This did not happen. I fell into a rather depressed slump, during which I scarcely ate, scarcely slept, only laid in my bed and felt.

Christine brought me my breakfast, lunch and dinner each day, and each day I consumed only a fraction of the large, appealing dishes she prepared for me before instructing her to take it away. Once a week, when she brought in my lunch, she always wore a bit of makeup and her best frock. I couldn't help but wonder why all the fuss, since she was only going to the market after she tended to me, but I never bothered to ask.

She worried about me, I knew, and sometimes when she came to collect my luncheon tray and thought I was sleeping, she would take a seat upon the edge of the bed and simply watch over me. If she ever regretted subjecting me to this, she never said anything of the sort.

We did not speak much when she was with me in general. Mostly the only words exchanged between us were questions such as "How are you feeling?" or "Did you rest well?" Always it was her inquiring. Sometimes I did not reply, when I did, I was vague and evasive.

The collapse of stability and upkeep which had been coming to me for some time had finally occurred, leaving me drained, weak and contemplative. I could not compose, nor focus my mind enough to read. All I could do was lie there and think of my wife and son, how their lives had been robbed, and so abruptly. What haunted me perhaps the most was that at the beginning of the day, they were alive and healthy, and by that day's end, they were gone, no warning. The regret would overtake me, and I would torture myself over not telling them I loved them, or how much I appreciated Amelie for being my wife, or how precious Georges was to me.

I'd wonder how I could construct a satisfying future for myself while still respecting their memories, how I could go on to be content for the remainder of my life while they lay dead in their graves, barely having the chance to begin. My days were dark, dull, and quiet. I never shed a tear. On some days when I was feeling stronger, I would dress myself in lounge-wear and gaze out my window onto the street, but this did not happen very often.

As Christine had told me, grief was like a sickness, and it had rendered me quite weary. However, I found that the more I lay and thought, the more I came to understand, and accept, as I'm sure she'd planned all along. But this enlightenment did not simply hit me one day, it came in tiny, immeasurable steps, all leading up to the point where I would finally be at peace with myself, but that day was far from me.

One morning I woke especially early to the sound of Christine quietly clanking around in the kitchen, making my breakfast, I assumed. Suddenly I was struck with the awesome realization that the girl cared for me, truly cared, not in a shallow, evanescent manner as I'd previously dismissed it, but in a deep, substantial way. Certainly not just any maid would tend to her employer with such tenderness and care. No, I really and truly had a place in her heart, finally someone cared for me, and finally I cared for someone. She was my maid, true, but friendship was friendship, and caring was caring. Finally, I was loved.

When she came in to serve me my breakfast, she was surprised that I was already wide awake, but even more surprised, I knew, to find that I was crying, sobbing. Her mission shifted from routine to urgent as she set the tray down and rushed to my side.

"Monsieur!" she said, sounding concerned, and somewhat frightened, "what is wrong?"

I could not speak, the tears simply rolled down my misshapen cheeks beneath my mask as I thought of my lost family and lost lifestyle, and yet at the same time I considered my immense luck that this girl should care for me so, what with how I looked… I did not deserve this in the slightest.

Once more I was thrust from my body and was suddenly watching as she took me in her thin, feminine arms and held me, the weeping child against her maternal breast, soothing me as I wept, stroking my back, resting her soft cheek against my thinning hair.

"It's alright, monsieur," she whispered as my shoulder shook with sobs. "This is how it is, you know," she continued wisely though patiently. "If one holds things in for so long…they come out somehow." Vaguely I wondered how she, no older than eighteen, could know so much. It never once crossed my mind how undignified this position could be considered, nor how embarrassed both of us could potentially grow afterward whenever we thought of this moment. None of it mattered. All I could do was lay in her arms and weep, and I did not cease until all my sadness, bitterness, and indifference had been drained.

"You must let go and accept, monsieur," she whispered after a long interval of silence. "Not forget, never forget, but move on." I knew she was right.