He would not dance with me at our wedding now, René. The man who had embraced our couple at the start would not get to celebrate with us. I kept thinking of the last time I had seen him, on the trip to the stone farmhouse when he had ridden in the back of that old car like a king. In Bruno and Titi’s gardens, he had watched Justine and Sébastien and me play Frisbee and looked delighted when I threw one to him. He played with us until he got tired, which happened quickly, and then sat and threw fallen apples to the dogs, undeterred by the slobber when they brought the fruit back for more.

I don’t know how many things Sébastien thought of as he sat there on the mattress beside me—our only place to sit so far—while the crickets hummed through the window. He started life in America with sorrow, caught on the other side of the world while his family mourned.

I think, when I came to France for Sébastien and was unhappy, it must have been hard for him. A lot harder than I ever realized before.

Twenty-seven

To distract himself from grief for his grandfather, Sébastien plunged into America as enthusiastically as he could. This was when I learned that some of my assumptions about America were based on complete ignorance. How could I possibly have guessed Americans were as difficult as Frenchmen? No one except the French and citizens of some two hundred other countries had ever mentioned this before, and it was disconcerting to realize I would have to start taking these oddballs into account. America had always been the place I returned to when I wanted a dose of sanity, an idealization that awed Sébastien. “You think your country’s sane?”

“Well . . . I did.”

It was unfortunate that we had started this conversation on Sébastien’s first trip to an American supermarket. He stopped dead at the beginning of the cereal aisle, where rectangular boxes lined up to form a flat wall of garish colors. He walked away from me, all the way to the end of the aisle and back. “Laura, it’s all cereals.”

“Um-hmm.”

“The whole aisle.”

“Yep.”

“Wow.” He rubbed his hands together. “Can I get some?”

“Sure. It’s about time you started eating a healthy breakfast. Just coffee is really bad for you. Try the chocolate-coated sugar pops.”

He came back with his arms full and began opening and trying bowls of cereal the moment we got home from the store. The produce section proved a less happy occasion, though. He recoiled. “You’re not going to buy tomatoes that look like that, are you? Wouldn’t you rather pick them up at a market?”