But from the look he gave his mother when Sébastien came to sit on my knees, I realized that he was playing a double game, reassuring his mother just as he’d reassured me. I nearly burst out laughing and disguised my guffaw as a loud smack on Sébastien’s neck. He yawned with ­amazing intensity and rested his head on my chest, asking me to rub his belly as I’d done the night before. That was a trick my mother used to calm me when I was little: she’d put me on her lap, lean me against her vast bosom and rub my stomach very gently until I fell asleep. It was a ­very ­special moment for both of us, one we were careful not to overdo: it served as a cement for our reconciliations after a squabble, or as an apotheosis to our ringing declarations of love.

Rose watched me with a strange expression. I felt obliged to tell her how this habit had come about, and ­slowly the conversation slid towards very general subjects—family, work (she was hostess in a big Montreal restaurant and very proud of it), likes and dislikes. She complained a little about her overheated apartment, expressed envy of the trees she’d seen outside my house, admitted her secret dream of one day buying a building in the Plateau Mont-Royal with six or seven flats, one of which she would live in, and which would pay for itself. It was low-key, warm and altogether agreeable. And when I deduced from Rose’s voice, which became very quiet, that Sébastien had fallen asleep in my arms, relaxed and fragile, for a brief moment I felt ­intensely happy. These few minutes spent chatting softly over a cooling cup of coffee completely made up for the difficult day that was drawing to an end. This little person, all warm and trembling, who was entrusting to me utterly unconcerned his sleep, the most precarious state in which a human being can find himself, made me melt with gratitude and well-being.

It didn’t last long.

Around eight o’clock the doorbell rang. Sébastien—was he actually asleep?—woke at once, exclaiming “It’s Mummy! It’s Mummy!” He ran through the house, followed by his father who was obviously overcome by the events. Rose had suddenly gone pale. She had brought her hand to her necklace and stiffened her neck as people do when they’re expecting some imminent disaster. We’d stopped talking; we even avoided looking at one another. Something very delicate had just been broken, something it would be hard to reconstitute because we’d have to start from the very beginning: our first steps towards complicity had become utopian now that a part of the former life of Mathieu and Rose had been introduced into the house.

I apologized and got up from the table.