“I’ll go see what’s going on. They weren’t supposed to get here till much later . . .”

Rose didn’t move. I was sure she’d have given half her life to be somewhere else and I knew there was nothing I could do to help her.

Sébastien was in his mother’s arms but he was holding out his own to Gaston, wanting a kiss. We said hello while the child was moving from one to the other with obvious delight. Embarrassed, Mathieu stood quite motionless in the doorway. I was the one who invited Louise and Gaston to come in.

As soon as Sébastien was on the floor again—Gaston wanted to take off his coat—Sébastien exclaimed:

“Granny Rose is here! Granny Rose is here!”

Louise was startled, but her lovely face was soon graced by a smile. I realized at once that the two women had loved each other very much and I was filled with a great sense of helplessness.

“She is! I’d love to see her—it’s been so long.”

Mathieu looked at me. I let him know that everything was all right. Unhesitatingly I took Sébastien’s hand.

“Come on in, we’re still eating . . .”

Gaston was explaining their early arrival to Mathieu.

“We’re early because I had another fight with my brother and my father . . . In the middle of Da Giovanni, no less! I should’ve known better than to go Christmas shopping with the family . . . It’s hot, everybody gets on everybody else’s nerves, nobody can decide what to buy the kids, the men get fed up before the women, and then all hell breaks loose . . . We left the restaurant in the middle of supper.”

At her end of the table, Rose had got to her feet. She was looking at Louise so intently, I felt as if the younger woman might fall, burned by her gaze. Louise walked around the table, hesitating slightly.

“Hello, Rose . . . It’s so good to see you . . . This is my friend Gaston . . . Gaston, my mother-in-law . . . My former mother-in-law . . .”

Her voice was different; a tiny quaver made it almost ­guttural.

Rose ignored Gaston, not out of rudeness but because she couldn’t take her eyes off Louise. They remained for a long moment, not touching. Years of affection, of complicity, of hope in a simple and everyday world, in a life now distant and irretrievable, years of happiness that wasn’t a prelude to any disaster but which a single disaster must have shattered in just a few hours, passed through the silent look which they exchanged. Never, I told myself, never will that woman look at me in such a way, and the thought broke my heart. I felt like an outsider in my own house, and I stepped back a few paces towards the kitchen.