They were waiting for me at a table when I arrived, Emma and a priest. I wasn't sure how to respond. I sat down with them, and Emma said almost nothing She could hardly look at me. The priest began to talk. He said that he was Madam Boudreau's confessor, and that she still hadn't the courage to speak to me, and had agreed that he would speak on her behalf. He said that Madam Boudreau had found herself "with child" as a result of our "connections." He said that shortly afterward, in an act of desperation, she had committed mortal sin by having the child aborted. She was going to end her life with pills, then instead, in a moment of repentant and redemptive insight, went to see him, her priest instead, and confessed and wanted to be received again in a spirit of full penitence by Holy Mother Church. I kid you not, that was the terminology he was using. She was given absolution, but as a form of penance would have to face me and confess everything. She was also to write me a check of a substantial sum of money, for all the labours that had been inflicted by her family on my mother in exchange for my education. Fortunately the elder Monsieur Gagnon had recently passed away from a heart attack, and Madam Gagnon was more than willing to collaborate, so the sum was beyond generous."
"How much did she give you?" asks Carl.
"I am not allowed to disclose the sum", says Francois, a little bit peevish. "It was one of the stipulations in the agreement I had to sign. The other stipulation was that I was not to inform my mother, but to tell her the money was a scholarship I had just been granted."
"Then what happened?" I ask.
"Mom and I bought a condo together, and then she married her boyfriend..."
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