The Apartment Read Online Free

apartment, taken mostly from the outside—the only interior shot showed a freestanding Victorian bath, a burgundy towel draped over its lip—along with a succinct description: “Stylish luxurious place in fantastic location for City of Love!!! Sleeps 2 or three personnes.” The building looked weathered and elegant and typically French, with a large solid wooden door and narrow windows fringed with curlicued metal balustrades. There were no reviews, but so what? We didn’t have any reviews either. Perhaps they were first-time house swappers like us.
    I didn’t hesitate.
Bonjour!
I typed in.
It’s lovely to meet you!

Chapter 3
Mark
    The car behind me bleats the second the light changes, shunting me out of another vague vision of masked men shouting orders. I deliberately take my time releasing the hand brake and pulling off. The suit behind me—a guy no older than twenty-five in an open-top Porsche—gesticulates angrily, and I play the part of the doddery oldster. Cape Town used to have a reputation for being mellow and chilled, but now it seems overrun with uptight corporate types who wish they were in L.A.
    The guy tails me all the way to the Buitengracht lights and I feel his glare in the rearview mirror. Not long ago, I would have returned it, but today I can hardly bear to glance back. Any more knocks from life right now and I might just dissolve.
    I’m so tired. The irony is that Hayden’s sleeping better than ever these past couple of weeks. She’s been waking only once, or not at all through the whole night, but still I can’t—or don’t allow myself to—sleep. Rationally, I know that staying awake all night doesn’t make us any safer. I know it’s not good for me or for Steph and Hayden when every little bit of attention or help they need from me becomes a difficult demand because I’m so drained. I get irritable and I know I shouldn’t be. But still, I can’t sleep. What if they come back? If I’m awake, they won’t get to Steph.
    To try to distract myself, I flick the car’s iPod player on. The randomizer selects “I’m a Funny Old Bear” and I’m thrown back seven years to Zoë’s first-grade awards ceremony. Packed into the school hall with mothers and lost-looking fathers whose own fathers would never have bothered to attend an insignificant occasion like this. The children were singing this song about Winnie-the-Pooh and it struck me: they seemed happy. Somehow my daughter had escaped the dull, sullen neglect of my own childhood, and something about that plain fact twisted my gut. I started crying as they cheered their way through the chorus. It was her last awards ceremony.
    It’s a relief, really, to be picking at the scab of this comforting old pain rather than our more recent trauma. I look in the rearview mirror again, imagining Zoë sitting strapped in the back. But of course she wouldn’t be sitting there anymore. She’d be fourteen now, up in the passenger seat. Jesus.
    It was several months before I could bring myself to take her booster seat out of the car. There are two holes where it wore through the backseat’s fabric and still a collage of stains from all the food she spilled as she grew up.
    Why’re you sad, Daddy?
I imagine her saying.
    I’m not, sweetie. Just…tired.
    Is it the new girl? Your Other Daughter?
    The guy behind me honks again, interrupting my fantasy. Not just him, but a row of cars behind me. This time, I put my hand up in apology and pull off. I check in the mirror again, and the backseat’s still vacant. I change to morning radio to drown out the voices.
    When I’ve squeezed into the tiny underground parking bay, I scan into the Melbourne City Campus elevators. When I was retrenched from the University of Cape Town—“The department is becoming remodularized into more relevant and productive study areas, Mark, and we simply don’t need two specialists in Victorian literature. Maeve’s lucky enough to hang on to her portfolio, and that’s