“Fifteen years old,” sighs Vanessa. “Am I really old enough to have a fifteen-year-old daughter?”

“Quinze ans et tous mes dents,” sings Rat.

“I remember the day you were born like it was yesterday.”

“What was it like?” asks Rat, all attention. It’s hard these days to get a story out of her mother: there’s never a good moment.

“In brief? Hell,” Vanessa replies. “Mémé Catherine, of course, had kicked me out of the house soon as I told her I was pregnant. I think what pissed her off most was my refusing to tell her who the dad was.” Vanessa makes a shrugging face. “Anyway, I was living with a girlfriend, but neither of us had a car. She had to get a neighbor to drive us to the hospital. My water broke all over the passenger seat. I hardly knew the guy, it was so embarrassing.”

“What water?” Morgan inquires.

“The little inland sea you baby-fish swim around in till you’re born.”

The new neighbors—a jolly-looking young couple with a two-year-old daughter—are sitting next door on their terrace. Rat brings them each a slice of cake and a glass of champagne.

“She’s a classy girl, your daughter, Vanessa, you know that?” says Marielle. “A-one.”

“I know. Just like me.”

“And she’s got character, too. Unlike her old trollop of a mother. Oh, Vanessa, I didn’t see you there,” jokes Jean-Luc.

Vanessa tweaks his ear affectionately. “You, I’ll take care of you later.”

It will be the last evening Rat sits down to a meal with her mother for a very long time. And somehow it’s almost as if they both sense it, the way you savor what you know will be the last swim of the year, the last of the autumn figs. Neither of them puts a foot wrong. There are no explosive exchanges, no sarcastic rejoinders, bitter undertones, recriminations. None of that mother-daughter shit that can ruin a good time.

And then, one a.m. or so, when everybody’s gone home except for Jérôme, there is the sound of a car turning into the drive.

The motorcyclish roar of the broken muffler is unmistakable. It’s Thierry’s Clio.

Vanessa glances at her watch, frowning.

Jérôme makes as if he’s going to leave—Rat doesn’t blame him, she would too if she had anywhere to go—then changes his mind.

Thierry takes a long time to get out of the car. When he comes into the house, followed by Vesuvio, he’s moving slow. Eyes bloodshot. He casts a look around the room. “What’s with the leopard skin? It looks like a bordello here.”

“Where’ve you been?” Vanessa demands.

“Where do you think I’ve been? I’ve got a job, remember?”

That’s the way the lovebirds talk these days. Snip, snip, snip. Voices tight and sour. Nastiness ricocheting back and forth like Ping-Pong.

“I got a call from Jens this morning, saying he needed to get hold of you urgent,” Vanessa says. “I’ve been trying you all day.”