The days were becoming dangerously short. I was ­anxiously awaiting the day when it would already be dark when I left school. I think there’s nothing more depressing than to come out at the end of classes into the hideous early evening of late November or early December, just before the snow, if by chance there is any, falls and turns everything blue. You feel as if you’ve lost a whole day because when you went inside that morning, it wasn’t really light yet. You emerge from the wan CEGEP lighting into the dirty light of the streets and wonder what you’re doing there. I don’t know why, but I hate having to turn on the lights in my apartment when I come home from work. It seems like midnight and I feel like going to bed . . .

All this to say that November is the month I hate the most. And that November was particularly hard. On everybody.

On the eve of Sébastien’s second visit, I was in a filthy mood. Despite the good will of my students, who, sensing it, had been amazingly attentive: I came home in a fury, phoned the Laurier Bar-B-Q because I didn’t feel like cooking, and settled down in the living room with my Journal de Montréal, looking for a laugh, but even that didn’t cheer me up. And Mathieu didn’t get off work until nine!

I was feverish, I felt like chewing my nails, which I hadn’t done for years and, more seriously, I’d have quite willingly got drunk, though I hardly drink any more. Oh yes, I’d have quite gladly got bombed . . . A good weekend of adolescent boozing, complete with vomiting, dirty jokes, smutty songs, the works. Another form of escape, needless to say. What would we do with Sébastien for two days?

Nightmare!

I’d wolfed my chicken, greasy french fries, sauce, bread, mocha, and Pepsi too fast, without thinking . . . and of course I got indigestion. We were off and running. I could see the weekend coming in pretty well the same colours: queasiness followed by heartburn, nausea, and full-fledged panic.

Mathieu came in around nine forty-five, all smiles.

“I’ve solved your problems. This time, anyway. I’ll take Sébastien to my mother’s place tomorrow. They haven’t seen each other for months. And we’ll sleep over!”

Mathieu

Mathieu

Sébastien was asleep on the living room sofa. Rose was holding his left foot, which protruded from the quilt, her thumb scarcely touching the sole so she wouldn’t tickle him, the rest of her hand wrapping his foot like a blanket: Sébastien’s toes emerged from his grandmother’s hand the way his head did from the quilt.