Page 70 of Our Last Resort

For people like me, who grew up in this kind of world. A world with a man at its center, a universe shaped by his presence, his ideas, his wants.

Another thing I didn’t immediately grasp: why he waited until we were eighteen.

There was a lot I didn’t know then.

It was December. I’d finished school the previous summer. More than ever, my days belonged to Émile. We worked together in the morning. In the afternoons, I taught class. Made meals. Once a month, people who were thinking of joining came to the compound for introductory sessions. Kids weren’t privy to that aspect of things; Émile didn’t want them near outsiders. (Didn’t want them to talk too candidly, I later realized.) As an almost-adult, I’d discovered the ritual: We entertained them in the reclaimed chapel, served them coffee and home-baked cookies in the cafeteria.

Other girls (I still thought of us as girls) looked after the children, but I was exempt. I didn’t have to tell Émile that I didn’t want to do it; he sensed it. And I was chosen. I didn’t do things I didn’t want to do.

That’s something I’m still ashamed of. That I taught his classes. That I shared his word. That I left my least favorite tasks up to the other girls.

This is not the person I try to be.

Here’s what happened: I turned eighteen, and for a few hours, nothing changed. I met Émile in his office. I proofread a blog post for his website, which was up and running by then. I had lunch. I taught class. We roasted parsnips for dinner. I went to bed.

I woke to someone shaking my shoulder.

Edwina.

“Follow me,” she said.

Just like ten years earlier.

She led me back to Émile’s building.

I knew Émile’s kingdom; I had its metaphorical keys. In his office, I knew which window was easy to open and which one got stuck every time. I could have recited the titles of his books in the order in which they were stacked on his shelves.

Inside the building, I headed toward the office.

Maybe it was the test. Maybe we all had to take it again, once we turned eighteen. A second chance.

It took me a couple of steps to notice that Edwina was no longer in front of me.

“Where are you going?” she whispered.

She was standing at the bottom of the staircase that led to Émile’s living quarters.

“Come back here,” she said.

I followed her up the steps, down a narrow hallway. I’d never been up there. She stopped in front of a door.

Edwina didn’t knock. She opened it, and there it was.

Therehewas.

There’s what I know happened, and there’s what I remember.

What I remember: The bed was, oddly, in the center of the room. I’d never seen an individual bedroom, only dorms, but even to me, that placement didn’t feel right.

The light was off.

Émile didn’t speak much. He presented what happened next as a sort of sacrament, except he wouldn’t have used that word.

What would he have said?

If I close my eyes, if I deprive all my senses, I can still hear it.

His explanation, the mild vibrato in his voice, almost like he was choking up.

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