The Mark of Chance••√•• Pure Love

chapitre : 11

The relief of having spoken to her mother was short-lived. Barely two days had passed when Marina's phone vibrated, displaying a name that froze her blood: LÉNA. She let it ring three times, her heart pounding wildly, hoping for a miracle a wrong number, a hang-up. But the miracle didn't come. She answered, her voice strangled.

"Hello?"

Léna's voice on the other end of the line was a steel cable, stretched to breaking point. No greeting, no preamble.

"You're going to come see me. Now."

It wasn't a request. It was an order. An order from a judge or an executioner.

"Léna, I... It's not a good time, I'm—"

"I DON'T CARE!" her sister barked, and Marina pictured her face, distorted by white-hot rage. "You come here, right now. This is not a discussion."

The line went dead. Marina remained seated, the phone pressed to her ear in the sudden silence. She didn't even have the strength to be afraid. It was a certainty. Her mother had talked. Anna's naive joy had been too much; she must have called her eldest to share the "good news," perhaps hoping to ease the tensions between the sisters. What a terrible mistake.

The journey to Léna's house was that of a condemned woman walking to the scaffold. Every flying dead leaf seemed like an omen. The house, when it appeared, no longer had its former cold perfection. It seemed hostile to her, the closed windows like blind, accusatory eyes.

Léna opened the door before she even rang. She was there, in the doorway, dressed in a severe black suit, arms crossed. Her face was a stone mask, but her eyes... her eyes burned with a dark fire.

"Get in," she ordered, stepping aside just enough to let her pass.

The hall was silent, too silent. Marina immediately sensed the absence.

"Chris...?" she asked, despite herself, in a weak voice.

"On a business trip. For a week. Perfect, isn't it? We can talk. Just us girls." Léna's smile was a grimace. "No witnesses."

She led Marina into the immaculate living room and stood in front of the fireplace, her back to the wedding photo, as if to deny its existence.

"So," she began, not taking her eyes off her. "Mom told me some big news. Very big."

Marina stood in the middle of the room, feeling ridiculous, like a schoolgirl summoned to the principal's office. She said nothing.

"She's so happy," Léna continued in a sweet, venomous voice. "Her little Marina, finally a woman. Pregnant." She snapped the syllable. "It's wonderful. Truly. Except that... no one seems to know the lucky father. Mom told me you were being mysterious. That he was a 'good' man."

She sneered.

"A good man who hides his name? Who lets the mother of his child face her family alone? I'm surprised at you, Marina. You, who always had principles, who wanted seriousness, sincerity. You get pregnant like a silly girl and you hide the father? It's pathetic."

The words stung, humiliating. Marina clenched her fists, feeling her nails dig into her palms. Stay calm. Say nothing.

"Well?" Léna's voice rose a notch. "Who is it? Who is this 'good man' of yours? A married man? A priest? A bum? Because a good man, normally, he takes responsibility. He's there."

Marina's silence was a wall. A fragile wall beginning to crack under the assault.

"ANSWER ME!" Léna suddenly screamed, slapping the flat of her hand on the marble mantelpiece. The sound cracked like a gunshot in the silent room. "WHO IS THE FATHER OF THIS CHILD?"

The fear, the fatigue, the accumulated stress, the contempt in her sister's voice... It all formed an unbearable pressure in Marina's chest. She felt something give way. A sob escaped her, then the words, in a hoarse whisper, as if torn from her.

"It's Chris."

Time froze.

The two words, so simple, so monstrous, hung in the air between them, palpable, toxic.

Léna didn't move. She didn't even blink. Her face, first frozen in fury, emptied of all expression. It was far worse. It was a mask of nothingness, as if the information was so colossal, so destructive, it had annihilated her ability to react. The anger was gone, replaced by an absolute void, more terrifying than all the screams in the world.

"What?" she finally breathed, her voice now just a thread.

Marina, trembling from head to toe, her eyes drowned in tears, repeated, unable to be silent now that the floodgates were open.

"The child... it's Chris's."

She then saw understanding slowly, cruelly, illuminate the empty gaze of Léna. It wasn't surprise that shone there, but an absolute horror, mixed with a kind of... recognition. As if a part of her had always known this would happen, had always feared this possibility deep within her being.

"No..." she murmured, taking a step back as if she had received a physical blow. "That's... that's impossible. You're lying. You're a sick b***h making up stories!"

But her voice lacked conviction. She saw the truth on Marina's distraught face. She saw the terror, the shame, which were not those of a liar, but of someone stating an abominable truth.

"How?" she managed to articulate, her body beginning to tremble. "How is it possible? Did you... did you two...?"

Marina shook her head, unable to speak the words. She whispered, her voice broken:

"The towel. In your bathroom. That night."

The revelation was the second slap. Léna closed her eyes, a long moan escaping her. She understood. All too well. She remembered the argument, the tension, Marina stepping out of the bath. She remembered Chris's towel, hanging there. The chance. The absurdity. The monstrosity of fate.

When she reopened her eyes, she was no longer the controlling, self-assured woman. She was a wreck. Her world, the world she had built with such selfish determination, had just collapsed not under the blows of a classic love rivalry, but under those of a grotesque biological fate. Her husband hadn't even needed to touch her sister to get her pregnant. A piece of cloth had sufficed.

She didn't scream anymore. She didn't cry. She looked at Marina with a hatred so pure, so icy, it was almost palpable.

"Get out," she said in a low, toneless voice. "Get out of my house. And never set foot here again. You no longer have a sister."

Marina didn't have the strength to protest, to explain further. She was drained. She turned on her heel and walked to the door, her legs buckling. As she crossed the threshold, Léna's voice, turned into a serpent's hiss, reached her one last time.

"And that child... that monster... I curse it. I curse you both."

The door closed behind Marina with a dull, final thud. She was outside, in the cold air, alone with the secret that was a secret no more. The bomb had exploded. And in the silence that followed, she felt the first fragments of the shockwave begin to fall on her, heralding a storm far worse than anything she could have imagined.