It never fails to lift my heart, seeing a flock of the purple and mother-of-pearl fat-bellied city birds lift, shaking stars, off a cornice in Place d’Armes. They are nowhere near as graceful as linnets, or even starlings, whose nets of choreographed skydance I also love. Pigeons roost in the gutters of every common shop, but I find them uncommon. Pigeons are doves, and have not changed in any place or time, but are the same as ever in London, Edinburgh or Montreal, and—I remember—in the cornices around Quebec City’s plains. Pigeons make me come back briefly to my old self. I know my mother understands this, though she always complained about the mess they made in St. John’s Park.

Madam, I’ll head down to Montreal’s Ruelle des Fortifications again this afternoon. My friend, the one who reminded me to appreciate pigeons—I might have mentioned her name is Sophie and I am far from romantically involved with her: you know I’d tell you if I was. Sophie is a friend to me in the way George Warde was, and you know how I cared for him. You’ll be amused to know she challenges me even more than you ever have. She calls it folly to lament my lost days or to examine the fruits of my past actions, but that is why I am here. How else can I see if winning New France was worth losing all I ever loved, including you?

I don’t tell my mother that I reimburse Sophie for her services.

Nor do I mention that Ruelle des Fortifications is featureless, not a proper military passage with breastwork or alternating staircases or even the remains of a watchtower. It is covered by glass and by protruding storeys of overhanging offices and hotels. I can hardly see the sky. It, like many historic military sites I have revisited, now has a disappointing, civilian meaninglessness. Its old fort walls have tumbled or been dismantled and now it is merely a corridor. People with suitcases on wheels find themselves in it en route from their hotel lobbies to the subway station.

Nor is it entirely true that Sophie and I are not physical. I adore resting my head in her lap in the tent when she’s not on night shift at the Mission. I love her holding my hand as we watch leaf shadows on our lamplit canvas and listen for the park watchman, who found us once. I do not mention to Henrietta that Sophie is in her fifties. She might be sixty by now for all I know. But over the years I have, like many sons, learned to tell my mother what she wants to hear.