When I returned home, I wasn't welcomed quite as warmly as I had expected. Maman had a kind word for me-- "Welcome"-- but no one else was even remotely glad to see me.

I worked on the family farm for years, getting listless and bored, and hating every moment.

Once I attempted conversation with my father. "Bonjour, Papa."

"Bonjour. Why are you here again?"

"Maman invited me back home."

"Isn't that just like your mother? Well, I'm not paying for you to stay here. You'll get a job, or you'll get going. I'm not raising any loafers."

This surprised me. In my childhood, my father had been rather a womanizer and had told me that wine and women were cardinal joys in life. I took him at his word about getting a job, though. My father had never been one to say things he didn't mean. So I did both.

I'd always wanted to see Montreuil-sur-Mer, and I'd heard there were plenty of jobs to be had, so there I went.

I set myself up in a small but convenient apartment. I first tried to find employment at the police agency, as a secretary under one M. Javert, but when I arrived the position had been filled. Three other times the same occurred, until I went to the factory of the kindly Maire Monsieur Madeleine. I knew that he would not refuse me. If there were no position open, he would create one. So I was not disheartened when he told me that the men's factory was full.

"Would you like to work in the women's factory? I need a foreman, someone fair and honest, to keep the girls in line."

"I will do that for you, Monsieur! When would you like me to start?"

"Is tomorrow morning too soon?"

"No, not at all!" And true to my word, I showed up the next morning. The girls were generally well-tempered. But one girl in particular caught my eye. She had hair the color of the sun... a page ripped straight from my past.

Fantine.

I repeatedly asked her to dinner or to the theatre or to coffee, and I grew increasingly angry as I was constantly rejected. If I could just win back Fantine, then I would know that my years spent on the farm were not a waste, that I was still charming.

I remember distinctly the day I received the life-changing news. Fantine had gotten a letter, and some spoiled little busybody named Brigitte got hold of it. In the letter, a man named Thenardier was asking for money for housing her illegitimate child.

I thought. She was refusing me now, so she didn't know who I was. Which meant she didn't accept offers from other men, and so... that child was mine.

I was angry. Why didn't she bother to tell me? She could have easily found out my address. How could she have denied me the chance to be a father to my own child?

Monsieur Madeleine had one rule in his factory: be honest. I doubted Fantine told Madeleine that she had an illegitimate child. I did not fire her because of that Brigitte, or even because I was angry with her. I fired her because she broke the only rule of the factory. I couldn't be at fault for whatever happened to her now. She was on her own, and she would have to raise the child herself.

But now I don't go a single day without reflecting on my missed chances: for my child, for myself, and most of all for Fantine.

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