1. Two hours of family
The man who was to play Nina’s father asked her if she preferred a funny or moving childhood memory.
He had asked this question with the seriousness of a professional who chooses the right dimension of tablecloth. In front of him, a notebook was waiting for directions. Nina looked at his hands: clean, wide, a little stained by age. Credible hands. She immediately hated using that word in her head.
— “None,” she said. You won’t have to tell my childhood story.
— In this case, we avoid the problem of details.
They were sitting in a cafe near the station. On her phone, Nina still had the announcement: comedian, private ceremonies, personalized interventions. Gaspard Lenoir, sixty-two years old, had answered in twelve minutes. He asked for three hundred and fifty francs for two hours, including rehearsal, travel in addition. So a family could get for less than the flowers.
The civil wedding would take place on Friday, with their witnesses. On Saturday, Nina and Samuel were organizing a party in the old orangery of an estate. Someone had to accompany the bride between the chairs arranged in the garden. It was a symbolic ceremony, with no papers to sign. There was no need for anyone to be his father. Nina herself had repeated this evidence to three friends before looking for the announcement. Patrick received the same invitation as the others. She continued to watch for confirmation while preparing how she would hide her absence.
— "Does your future husband know?" asked Gaspard.
— - Yeah.
— What if your father comes?
— He wrote that he would try. That’s what he writes when he doesn’t want to say no.
— This is not an answer to my question.
Nina looked at the ad on her phone.
— You will be presented as a friend. If he comes, you won’t play anything. I'll pay you anyway. I'm not asking you to convince people that you're him.
— "You only want a man of his age to be in the photograph.
She nodded without looking at him.
— What about your mother?
Nina looked at the rain outside.
— "Not yet.
Gaspard closed the book.
— I can go with you. I can say a few words. But if people start asking me why I wasn’t on your 10th birthday, I won’t know what to say.
— Those who know me will ask for nothing. They will understand that you are a friend of the family.
— Why did you write “Father’s Role”?
She could have told him about Patrick, who lived forty minutes away from home and had found this impassable distance for eight years. She could have told of her unanswered messages, birthdays moved, money sent instead of apologies. But she didn’t want this café to become another place where she justified her father.
— “Because I’m tired of being the one you look at carefully.
Gaspard opened his notebook. He did not write any memories.
2. The Photography that is Missing
Samuel was peeling potatoes when she came home. They had decided to eat normally during the last days, as if this tiny rule could prevent their marriage from taking over the entire place.
— "How is he?"
— - Punctual.
— It’s better than the violinist.
Nina put her bag on a chair. In the mirror of the entrance, she saw their two coats hanging on top of each other. They had been living together for five years. They had gone through work, a period of unemployment, the two operations of Samuel's mother's knee. She knew she wasn’t building their lives by choosing who would walk next to her for thirty meters.
Why then did these thirty meters seem to him more fragile than everything else?
— "You can still change your mind," said Samuel.
— You think that's ridiculous.
— “I think you spend a lot of energy producing an image that may not do you any good.
She took a knife to help him, then rested him.
— I don’t want him to be thought of during the entire ceremony.
— Neither do I.
— If I walk alone, we’ll think about it. My mother and I will think about it too. Same with Romain. At least with someone they don’t know.
— They will ask questions.
She knew. The solution she had chosen did not remove the absence. She only hoped to move it out of the frame.
They ate on the couch, in the middle of the folding menus. Samuel did not return to the subject. When Nina asked him to look at a photograph of Gaspard, he looked at it seriously, without laughing or sighing.
— He looks like a man who knows where to put his hands during a speech.
— That’s exactly what I said.
Later, his mother called to check the time of the rehearsal. Nina told him about the actor by putting away the plates, as one would announce a modification of the bouquets. At the end of the line, Élise remained silent.
— “I can understand that you do not want me to accompany you,” she said at last.
— “It is not that.
— Then explain to me tomorrow. There, I think I won’t hear very well.
She hung up without anger. Nina would have preferred anger. We can defend ourselves against a reproach. His mother's fatigue offered him no hold.
3. The repetitions
On Thursday, Gaspard arrived at the orangery in a dark blue jacket. He had brought a clear shirt and a tie wrapped in a pouch. He didn't try to kiss Nina. She was grateful to him.
In the garden, Roman assembled an ark with Samuel. His brother had refused any decoration that would force him to handle a stapler over his head. He had been holding one over his head for 20 minutes.
— "This is Gaspard," said Nina.
Romain descended from his stepladder.
— "Hello. I am the real brother. I would like to point out the table plan.
Samuel closed his eyes. Gaspard held out his hand.
— “Happy to meet you.
Romain squeezed her, ashamed to have found her phrase funny a second earlier. They then worked with applied politeness. The head of the estate, Marianne, showed them the planned route from the small side door to the front row. It was necessary to bypass a mass of sage, wait for the music to leave, and then move forward without constantly looking at his shoes.
Gaspard offered his arm. Nina put her hand on it. They walked down the aisle for the first time. He was going a little too slow. In the second, he adapted his step to his own, without comment. She felt her body relaxing in spite of herself.
In the middle of the garden, he leaned towards her.
— You can breathe. We are not yet photographed.
She's laughing. This laughter did him good, and this well-being veered her a little.
A white van entered the courtyard. On the door was painted a small orange sun: the House of Seasons, the caterer chosen by Samuel. A woman came down with a box of glasses. Gaspard stopped so abruptly that Nina stepped on his foot.
— "Excuse me," he said.
The woman had not seen them. She was talking to Marianne, pointing to the service building. Gaspard looked at the time.
— I have to move my car.
He left before Nina could tell him she wasn’t bothering anyone. She followed him with her eyes, then turned to the van. The woman in the orange sun was now laughing with Romain, who was helping him unload.
— “It’s Alice,” Samuel explained. She leads the team on Saturday. Very well, very organized. She even planned what to do if your brother broke all the drinks.
Nina looked for Gaspard in the courtyard. His car had not moved.
4. The people present
Élise arrived with a box of cookies that she had not made. Nina recognized those in the supermarket and thought, with idiotic relief, that her mother had not spent the night cooking to prove her love.
They sat inside, near the windows. In the garden, Samuel explained to Romain that the rows of chairs did not need to be parallel to a hedge that was not itself.
— “I’m not replacing you,” Nina said.
— I know that’s not your intention.
— But that’s how you feel.
Élise opened the box and took a broken cookie.
— "I have already chosen my dress," said Élise. Green. You told me it would be good.
— - It will be.
— "I know. It is not the dress.
She broke the cookie again, without eating it.
— “When you told me about him yesterday, I thought I wasn’t presentable enough to do those thirty metres with you.
— “Mother, no.
— I tell you what I thought. Then I realized that you were still trying to hide that he would not come.
Nina put her finger on the crumbs and gathered them in the lid.
— I don’t want to see their heads. Poor smiles, you know.
— - Yeah. I know them.
In the garden, Romain called Samuel to ask him to hold the stepladder. They turned their heads together.
— "You don't have to give me his arm," resumed Élise. But also look who's there.
Gaspard reappeared in the door. He apologized, without specifying what, and then sat down when Nina offered him. Élise watched him for a few seconds.
— Do you have children?
— "A girl.
He answered too quickly, then added:
— We don't see each other very much.
— Will she come to see you play on Saturday?
— - Nope.
This time Nina heard the effort in her voice.
They then spoke of subjects small enough to fit between four people who did not want to hurt themselves. The announced rain. The parking lot. The heat in the orangery in August. Gaspard accepted a cookie and kept it in his hand until they left.
Outside, Alice was checking an electrical outlet. He managed to get out through the other door.
Nina understood then that her discomfort was not about a parking space or a missed meeting. He waited until he opened his car.
— Do you know her?
He looked at the white van.
— - Yeah.
5. The other contract
They returned to the garden, away from the service building. Gaspard stood up. He now looked much older than in his photograph, not because his face had changed, but because he no longer seemed to know how to stand.
— Alice is my daughter.
Nina let go for a few seconds.
— Did you find out when you arrived?
— - Nope.
The answer hurt him more than the revelation.
Gaspard had recognized the caterer’s logo on the practical document she had sent him with the domain address. He knew that Alice was working for this company, that she was running events there. He then consulted their website. He wasn’t sure if he would see her that day. He had hoped.
— You accepted for her.
— I accepted it because it was my job.
— “You asked me if Samuel knew. You warned me against lies. And you planned that.
He did not defend himself immediately. She resented him more: his silence was something professional, as if he knew that one sentence too much would spoil his scene.
— “She doesn’t want to talk to me anymore,” he said at last. I wrote him. She answered once, asking me to stop. I thought that when I saw myself...
— Seeing me with you?
He looked down.
Nina’s shame became a definite anger. She was no longer just a client whose conflict had been hidden. It was the setting chosen by a man to show his daughter that he could be a good father, at least for two hours.
— “You were going to approach him at work, in front of his colleagues.
— I didn’t want to do a scene.
— But you chose mine.
He took the sentence without moving. For the first time, she did not wonder if she had been too hard.
— What did you do to him?
— I missed a lot of things. Then I found good reasons. By dint, I told them as if they were erasing what I had missed.
He could have said more. Nina did not give him the opportunity.
— It’s up to her to decide if she wants to hear that.
Gaspard nodded.
— "You are right.
She discovered that these words did not bring her any relief. They did not repair anything by their accuracy alone.
6. What Alice knew
Nina went to find Alice in the kitchen. She waited until she finished her call, then asked him out for a few minutes. Alice looked at her face and immediately put down her binder.
— Is there a problem with the menu?
— With someone I hired.
She explained Gaspard, the role, the repetition. As she spoke, she felt the project take on a different form. What had seemed to him a clever way of protecting himself now resembled an assemblage of secrets whose consequences other people had to bear.
Alice did not show any surprise on behalf of her father.
— I saw him when I came in.
— Why didn’t you say anything?
— Because I was working. Because I didn’t want him to turn that into a conversation about him too.
Nina would have liked to disappear from the interview. She stayed.
— He won't come back on Saturday. I'll cancel his performance.
Alice inhaled slowly.
— - Thank you for telling me. I'm not asking you to choose a camp. But I don’t want him waiting for me behind the kitchen, or being told that he’s come a long way, that he’s grown old, that you have to enjoy people while they’re there.
— I won't tell you.
A waiter passed by with an extension cord. They moved to let him in. This ordinary movement made the conversation almost more difficult: life continued to circulate around a border that Alice still had to explain.
— “He hasn’t always been absent,” she added. Perhaps that is the most tiring thing. It could be wonderful on a Sunday. So we waited for the next one for months.
Nina felt the phrase reaching a very old place. She didn’t need a more detailed story to understand it.
— I'm sorry I put you in this situation.
— "You did not know.
— “Now I know.
They stayed for a moment without talking. Alice looked towards the garden, where the chairs were still waiting for their final disposition.
— “Who do you want to walk with?” she asked.
Nina opened her mouth. For the first time in weeks, she found no answer ready.
7. One place less
Gaspard was waiting near his car. He did not try to know what Alice had said. Nina announced the cancellation. She would pay for the appointment and travel already made according to their agreement; she did not want him at the party.
He offered to give up all payments.
— “It doesn’t change the decision,” she replied.
— "I know.
She gave him the name of the person in charge of the reception and specified that she would be informed. Not to threaten him, but so that this limit does not rest, Saturday, on Alice’s ability to push him back.
He looked towards the garden. Between the branches of the ark, Alice was seen asking Romain to move a crate. She had not turned her head towards them.
— "I can still do what you called me for," said Gaspard. Leave after entry. She won't even have to see me up close.
Nina felt her anger coming back.
— I just told you no.
— "I understand. But you don't have anyone to...
He stopped too late.
She looked at her mother through the windows of the orangery. Élise spoke with Marianne; she had placed the box of cookies on her lap and held the lid with one hand.
— “I have people,” Nina said.
Gaspard lowered his eyes. He had touched exactly the place that had led her to this appointment. She didn’t know if he wanted it. She didn't want to have to determine it before she answered.
He stepped back to let her through, then changed her voice.
— Nina, breathe. Everything's gonna be okay.
It was the tone of the aisle a few minutes earlier. The same slowdown on his name, the same insurance without effort. She, in spite of herself, wanted to believe it. This second made him understand something Alice had said in the kitchen: a wonderful Sunday could be enough to make you wait a long time.
— “Don’t do that,” she replied.
He looked at her without understanding.
— You no longer have to reassure me to accept.
His hand stood between them for a moment, then fell back. The face he had in the photograph disappeared. He just looked like a man who had just tried two bad ways not to leave.
Out of his pocket came a white envelope.
— - You could just...
Nina didn't move.
— - Nope.
This time, he put away the envelope before finishing his sentence. He thumbs it through the fabric of his jacket.
— “I don’t know what else to do,” he said.
— , Today, leave.
He nodded. She waited until he got in his car and closed the door. He had to find his keys in two pockets. She thought of the credible hands of the café, of all that she had wished them to signify. They were opening a glove box to find a keychain. They were the hands of a stranger.
He left.
In the garden, Roman had moved three rows to find that Samuel had been right from the beginning. Nina sat in a chair in the middle of the driveway. Her brother came near her.
— The rental father?
— - We're gone.
He nodded his head without joking.
— You could have told me it hurt as well.
— I thought you knew.
Romain sat next door.
— "The last time he didn't come," said Romain, "I threw away his piece of pie. After that, I regretted it. The pie, I mean.
Nina had a smile that fell back.
— I would have kept him.
— "I know.
He took a clip off his sleeve and slipped it into his pocket.
Nina looked at the small side entrance at the end of the road.
— I’d like to stop waiting for him without having to hate him.
— It must be learned.
— Do you have a manual?
— I mounted the ark backwards. I am not the right person for the job.
She laughed, then cried. He stood next to her, close enough that she could lay her head on her shoulder, without deciding in her place when she would do it.
In the evening, Samuel found in their kitchen a sheet covered with possible answers. Nina started by writing what she would say if someone asked where her father was. Below were four variants, from the shortest to the most lovable.
— “I can answer some questions,” he proposed.
— “I don’t want you to spend your party managing my family.
— Our party. And I’m not talking about managing everything.
He took a chair and sat down in front of her. They decided that Marianne would only know who could enter the field. Romain would know the cancellation, without the details about Alice. To the others, Nina could say that her father was not present and that she preferred to talk about something else. She would not need a satisfactory story for each interlocutor.
— “Are you angry at me for not insisting on this idea?” asked Samuel.
She really thinks about it.
— - Nope. I probably would have spent all my energy proving to you that I was right.
— You had a few. There are reasons.
He did not try to enumerate them. This restraint did him more good than an absolution. They tore up the answer sheet, then put away the menus that were still crumpled. For the first time in several days, Nina went to bed without consulting the weather forecast.
8. Friday
The civil marriage lasted less than their journey to the town hall. Nina was surprised by the emotion of hearing their names in an administrative sentence. She had spent months imagining the garden, the lights, the photographs. The sharpest moment came between a cardboard file and a plant whose leaf had yellowed.
When Samuel came out, he took his hand.
— Good morning, ma'am.
— Very original.
— “I keep my best lines for the next fifty years.
They had lunch with the witnesses and their mothers. Romain took a photograph where no one was ready. Nina had her mouth open, Samuel was looking elsewhere, Élise was trying to get a towel carried away by the wind. This was the first image Nina sent to her friends.
His phone vibrated during dessert. Patrick had responded to the message she had sent him the previous week. He could not come on Saturday. He wished her a nice day and promised to call her soon.
She read the text twice. The second did not bring any new word.
Samuel placed a hand on his knee under the table.
— Do you want to go out?
She looked at her mother, who explained to the waiter that they had ordered one less pie. Romain protested because he claimed to be able to eat too much. Samuel’s mother was already laughing at a story he hadn’t finished yet.
— - Nope. I want to stay here.
She placed the phone against the table. The pain did not stop. She simply shared the space with something else: the sound of spoons, a handle stained with coffee, the hand of Samuel who had not withdrawn.
In the evening, Nina called Marianne to change the entrance for the next day. Then she phoned her mother.
— “I want you to walk with me from the bedroom to the garden.
Élise did not respond immediately.
— Are you sure?
— - Yeah. After that, I want to cross the aisle alone. And I want you to be ahead, Romain and you, when I come.
— “Okay.
Nina heard the sound of a cup resting on a saucer.
— - Mom?
— - Yeah?
— You can wear the green dress. Even if it is not in the colors.
This time, Élise’s laughter came without precaution.
9. The thirty meters
On Saturday, the rain waited for everyone to take their seats.
It started with a few isolated drops, big enough to draw spots on the jackets. Marianne made a sign towards the orangery. The guests rose with the slowness of the groups hoping that another person would decide for them. Alice and her team moved the carafes, protected the trays and opened the glass doors wide.
Nina was looking at the scene from a window. She wore her dress, but not her shoes yet. Instead of the catastrophe anticipated for weeks, she saw a strange choreography: the people she loved carried chairs holding bags over their heads.
Romain slipped into the grass without falling. Samuel caught a bouquet on the flight. His mother-in-law, who had sworn not to wear anything because of his knee, distributed instructions from the shelter with unexpected authority.
— “We should go down,” said Élise.
— "Wait.
Nina took a photograph through the window. The reflection of his own dress mingled with the soggy garden. She did not try to erase it.
On the stairs, his mother held out her arm. They advanced cautiously, less by solemnity than because Nina discovered the rigidity of her new shoes. At the last step, Élise stopped.
— Are you okay?
— “I am a little afraid.
— I was afraid too.
She didn’t say what or when. Nina didn’t ask him. There will be more days for this conversation.
At the entrance to the orangery, the music began before it was ready. Someone made a gesture to stop her; she shook her head. Élise joined the first rank. The passage between the chairs was shorter than that of the garden, less straight, lined with wet umbrellas.
Nina went forward.
She saw a worried smile on an aunt’s face. He did not destroy it. She saw Romain discreetly wiping his glasses. Samuel was waiting for him near a slightly crooked bouquet. For a few seconds she still felt the empty space in her arm, then the movement of her own hand.
She had nothing to ask.
When she arrived, Samuel asked her in a low voice if her feet were wet.
— - Completely.
— - Me too.
They began this way: with accurate information, without any importance for the photographs.
10. What wasn’t a scene
The party was not perfect. A microphone whistled. Samuel's great-aunt insisted on calling Nina by her cousin's first name. A child spilled juice on two menus and declared that the spots were countries. Later, everyone wanted to see these countries.
During the meal, Nina sometimes unwittingly searched for Gaspard. She was afraid to see him near the doors, an envelope in her hand, convinced that one last gesture would finally prove her right. He didn't come.
Alice led her team with calm concentration. When Nina thanked her, she replied that the rain plan was designed to serve. They did not exchange additional confidence. Their conversation on Thursday didn’t force either of them to become each other’s friends for her limit to count.
A few days later, Gaspard sent a reduced invoice to the appointments made. The accompanying message was in two lines. He apologized for hiding his intention and didn’t ask for any news of Alice. Nina paya. She did not know if this silence would last. She didn’t have to watch her transformation.
Patrick called the following Sunday. Nina picked up. She told him that the party had been beautiful, that his absence had hurt him and that she did not want to hear immediately why he had not been able to come. However, he began an explanation. She interrupted him, calmly this time, and then offered to talk another week.
After the call, she remained sad for much of the afternoon. Samuel did not tell her that she now had her own family and that she had to turn the page. He brought her a cup of tea and asked her if she preferred company. She answered yes.
The photographer delivered the images a month later. He had managed to give light to the windows covered with rain and elegance to the displaced chairs. He asked which one they wanted to expand.
Nina chooses a photograph taken before their entry.
I could not see the bride. Samuel was wearing two chairs. Romain held the bottom of a tablecloth so that it did not drag. Élise, in her green dress, laughed under an umbrella too small. At the edge of the frame, Alice protected a tray with a tea towel.
The photographer proposed to reframe to remove the catering team and the pile of equipment.
Nina looked at people busy making room for a long time.
— "No," she replied. Everyone is in the right place.
End
