The Mark of Chance••√•• Pure Love

chapitre : 2

The train came to a halt with a muffled screech. A familiar weight settled in Marina's chest as the taxi drew closer to Léna's home. It wasn't apprehension, nor boredom. It was subtler, deeper: a feeling of a dull alarm, like a sound at a frequency too low to hear, but whose vibrations made her bones tremble.

And then, it was there. The house.

From the outside, it was an image ripped from a decorator's magazine. A bourgeois house of cut stone, with perfectly fitted anthracite grey shutters and a front garden so neat it seemed to have been drawn with a ruler. The rose bushes were trimmed to the millimeter, no weeds sullied the white gravel paths, and the lawn was a uniform, artificial green, like synthetic turf. A perfection that was almost aggressive.

"You're finally here!"

Léna was on the front steps, a broad, white smile plastered on her face—so similar to her own, and yet so different. She wore impeccable jeans and a white blouse that bore no trace of the day. She pulled Marina into a quick hug, an expensive, complex perfume briefly enveloping her sister.

"Come in, come in, Chris is putting the car away, he'll be right in."

The interior struck Marina, as always. A large hall with cold stone floors, a light wood staircase curving perfectly upwards. Everything was ordered, clean, bright. But the light itself seemed sterile. It fell from the recessed ceiling spots with surgical precision, illuminating each object as if in a display case. There was none of that golden softness, those comforting shadows of truly lived-in homes.

"So, are you happy to get out of your little nest?" Léna said, guiding Marina towards the living room. Her voice echoed, oddly loud in the large space.

"Yes, it's good to have a change of scenery," Marina replied politely.

Her gaze was immediately drawn to the wedding photo hanging above the white marble fireplace. Léna and Chris, smiling, impeccable. Léna, radiant, possessive, one arm firmly linked with her husband's. Chris, he was smiling too, but his eyes… Marina had always found his gaze a bit distant in that photo. As if he was looking at a point just above the lens. She had put it down to shyness.

"It's always so… impeccable here," Marina commented, searching for words.

Léna let out a small, satisfied laugh. "Oh, you know, you have to take care of it. A house is like a couple, it requires work every day."

The sentence fell like a verdict. A shiver ran down Marina's spine. She set down her bag; the sound was absorbed by the thick beige carpet.

It was at that moment that Chris appeared in the doorway to the living room. He had that slightly lost look that was unique to him, as if he was always searching for his keys or his words.

"Marina. Glad you could make it."

His voice was calm, low. A soothing presence, she had always thought. He approached, and instead of hugging her or giving her a kiss on the cheek, he stayed at a respectful distance, giving her a small nod. But his eyes scanned her face with an intensity that belied his physical restraint. It was quick, almost furtive, but she felt it. A gaze that weighed, that searched for something.

"Chris, could you take Marina's bag up to the guest room?" asked Léna, not really asking a question.

He nodded, an obedient soldier. "Of course."

He picked up the bag, and his fingers briefly brushed against Marina's. An electric contact, brief and warm. She held her breath, surprised. He looked at her again, an indecipherable glimmer in his grey eyes, then turned away and went up the stairs.

"He's a bit out of it tonight," Léna commented with a hint of annoyance. "So, come on, I'll show you the new landscaping in the garden. I had integrated LED lighting installed along the paths. It looks wonderful at night."

Marina followed her into the kitchen, a room of stainless steel and black granite. No pots lay around, no waiting dishes. You could perform surgery here. The order was absolute, crushing. She remembered her own small, cluttered countertop, with teapots, books, herb plants growing in mismatched pots. Here, even the fruit in the glass bowl seemed aligned by color and size.

"Are you happy here?" The question escaped her before she could stop it.

Léna froze for a moment, a bottle of sparkling water in her hand. Her smile didn't falter, but it hardened imperceptibly at the corners.

"Happy? But of course! Look at this house. Look at our life. Chris has a brilliant career, we travel, we have everything one could desire. Why do you ask?"

The tone was light, but Léna's eye had become a radar, scanning her sister's face for the slightest trace of judgment.

"No, it's just… the house is so beautiful. So perfect. I was wondering if… if one doesn't feel a little…"

"A little what?"

"Lonely," Marina finished in a whisper.

Léna burst out laughing, a laugh too loud, too crystalline. "Don't be silly! We're very well. It's you who should leave your studio, Marina. Living in a real home would change your mindset. You'd see, you don't feel lonely when you're well settled."

The implication was clear: your life is small and sad, mine is big and successful.

Marina fell silent. She looked through the large picture window at the impeccable garden, the LED spots beginning to turn on with Swiss punctuality. She thought of Chris, up there, in the silence of the upper floors. She thought of the look he had given her. It wasn't the look of a happy, contented man. It was the look of someone observing the world from behind a pane of glass.

The feeling was becoming clearer, tenacious, insidious. This house was not a home. It was a display case. Magnificent, precious, but cold. A display case where emotions were carefully arranged, labeled, or outright locked away. Léna's laughter rang false, Chris's silences were too heavy. The perfection was just a mask, a stage set behind which a drama was playing out—one she couldn't see yet, but felt with every fiber of her being.

Léna continued to talk, listing projects, purchases, successes. Marina pretended to listen, nodding her head from time to time. But her mind was elsewhere. It was with Chris, in the silent upstairs. It was with this strange sensation of having entered not a house, but a beautifully decorated trap, whose jaws she could not yet discern.

A few hours later, during dinner, she looked up and caught Chris's gaze resting on her. It wasn't a brother-in-law's gaze. It was a gaze laden with such profound melancholy, such acute attention, that it took her breath away. He averted his eyes immediately, immersing himself in the contemplation of his plate.

Léna, beside him, was talking about interest rates for a loan.

In that instant, Marina understood. The people living here were not happy. They were playing at being happy. And she had just walked, unknowingly, onto their stage. The cold she felt wasn't that of the stone or the marble. It was the cold of lies and unfulfillment, a cold that is born when the heart beats in a gilded cage.