Over the past few days, I’d sensed something was happening inside Louis, even though the electroencephalograms were still as haphazard. But I could see signs that the others didn’t seem to have picked up. Or, at any rate, didn’t interpret in the same way. For some time now, Louis’s body had regularly trembled with slight spasms, movements. Reflexes – nothing conscious, nothing coordinated, nothing logical. I agreed with the diagnosis, how could I not? I was so desperate to see some meaning in the brief clenching of a hand, the twitch of a cheek or a foot, in those soft yelps. But they happened randomly, sometimes even while his brain was being scanned . . . and the tests were still showing the same anarchic pattern. And yet, in the past few days, I’d noticed some changes. Real changes. The intensity when he clenched his hand was different at different times, I was certain of it. And, most importantly, I’d noticed that the movements were more frequent and lasted longer when I was speaking to him. As if he were trying to communicate. No one in this damned hospital would listen to me – or, rather, everyone listened to me, everyone knew the situation. The countdown. Hope does your head in, makes you imagine an awakening that isn’t happening. So, when I spoke about Louis, people’s faces changed. I could see the pity and what they were really thinking in their eyes: She’s losing her mind as well as losing her son, it’s not surprising . . . It’ll all be over soon, in any case.

But I was certain of what I was seeing, of what I felt. Maternal instinct. I’d never really understood what that meant. Now, the expression really resonated and seemed so utterly appropriate. Maternal instinct means seeing things others can’t see, feeling the slightest fluctuation in your child’s behaviour in your bones. I could feel Louis. I could feel Louis, and Louis was talking to me.

That was why I wanted to speak to Dr Beaugrand. I thought he would listen to me, that he’d try to do something. He listened to me, his face blank. He had the direct look of the expert navigator whose job it was to bring those who are adrift back to the shore. Charlotte was with me. She spoke in my defence, arguing that I was the one who spent the most time with Louis, that, statistically, if anything happened, I was the one who had the greatest chance of witnessing it, so account should be taken of my observations and views.