That year, Charlotte was due to finish her nursing studies. A few years earlier, she’d moved to a tiny apartment in the centre of Paris. Charlotte loved the capital, which isn’t always the case for a girl from the south. She’d fallen crazily in love with the city and with one of its inhabitants. The affair didn’t last, but her love for Paris remained unchanged. During those dark days of their lives, Charlotte put her studies on hold to go and help her brother and her niece. And to save herself. She spent six months with Isadora and Edgar, helping to heal their inner wounds. They healed hers in return. From then on, it was just the three of them. It would always be the three of them. They swore it. It’s the three of us for life, for life. That was their motto. Etched in their flesh.

Then Charlotte had this brilliant idea. They would drop everything. They had no reason to stay in Marseille, and Charlotte needed to finish her nursing studies. They’d find an apartment in Paris that was big enough for the three of them. And they’d recreate what they had lost – a home.

Isadora loved the idea. Edgar could no longer bear to live in Marseille, wandering those streets that reminded him of his lost loved ones. He had to move on. For Isa’s sake. For his own. For their sakes. Charlotte was amazing, there was no other word for it. The bond that united the three of them now was much stronger than that of a brother and sister.

Edgar sold the dance school. The money would enable him to get by for eighteen months, during which time he hoped to find the inspiration to paint once more, but he could no longer do it. Nothing is more volatile than creativity. His savings dwindled and Charlotte’s salary as a nurse wasn’t enough. So Edgar got a grip on himself. He applied for one of the various youth-leader jobs, created by the City of Paris in 2013 as part of their reform of the school timetable, reducing it to four and a half days a week. The work wasn’t well paid and was only part time, so he also ran sports courses at leisure centres to supplement his income. He wasn’t mad about football, he’d played it for a few years when he was a kid, but Edgar loved children. The youth-work qualification he’d obtained when he was sixteen would finally prove useful.

For over two years now, Edgar had been living again. Isadora was his daily ray of sunshine. But she, having been put in ballet shoes at the age of three by her mother, now refused to have anything to do with the world of dance, saying she preferred football. A shell, a necessary protective skin. Edgar no longer drew – that, too, was over. They’d turned a page.