“That’s what your mama and I have in common,” Souad told Rat. “We’ve each had to make our own way in the world. It’s not easy to cut yourself off from your family, never to be able to cry on your mother or your older sister’s shoulder. Be good to your mama; she struts around like a fighter, but she’s soft as butter inside.”

Souad was always telling people how she and Vanessa were alike, single mothers too independent to settle down. Morgan’s father? “Gone with the wind,” she joked.

Souad didn’t drink, but she loved to dance. Saturday nights, she would take Vanessa off to the Fandango at Canet Plage or to hear live bands in Perpignan.

Morgan would get dragged along, too, but after the first couple of times, Rat refused to go again. It was smoky in those clubs, the noise hurt her ears, the strobe lights hurt her eyes, and she hated the way men and women with bad breath bent down and tried to fake-dance with her.

“I’m not coming,” she said. “I’m old enough to stay home alone.”

By that point, Rat could light the stove, cook herself some pasta. She felt capable enough to run a country single-handed. If she had a problem, she could always go to Jérôme’s parents—Jean-Luc and Marielle never went out at night, she concluded pointedly.

Vanessa and Souad laughed at her.

“She’s such a priss,” Vanessa complained.

“She doesn’t like me,” said Souad.

“She’s jealous, she’s used to having me to herself.”

“Don’t worry, kid, I won’t be around forever,” Souad told Rat.

“Don’t say that.” There was a clutch of panic in Vanessa’s voice.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Souad gave her loud barking laugh.

Rat knew that Souad was HIV. What was HIV? It was something people joked about, it was in the air. One day Florian boasted to a bunch of kids after school, I’m HIV, the way he might have said, I’m a vampire, and at first you didn’t believe him, and then you weren’t so sure.

Souad you were sure. She was taking these homeopathic cures that were supposed to keep the beast at bay, she said, but then she got this thick drowning cough that wouldn’t stop, and when she became too weak to get out of bed, Vanessa took her straight to the emergency room.

Morgan stayed at their place while his mother was in the hospital.

On the face of it, the kid didn’t have much charm. Not that he was bad-looking: he was a wiry little boy, with caramel-colored skin and a head of dark gold curls, and big eyes a bottomless black. He might have been cute, if he weren’t such a zombie.