He’d hesitated a long time before making his declaration. He’d been thinking about it since that morning but his ­discovery last weekend at Jean-Marc’s had been so amazing that he’d wanted to keep it for himself a little longer, trying to comprehend it before he told anyone else . . . At nap time, then, he’d pretended to be asleep, the better to think. To his child’s mind, something was awry: you could have two ­daddies and two mummies, like his cousin Karine, when your parents split up . . . That was easy. But he wasn’t quite sure about his own situation. How could he explain that Jean-Marc wasn’t a mummy? His conversations with his mother and with Jean-Marc hadn’t cleared matters up: their answers had been a little too complicated and he suspected they were just using fancy words to cover something ­deeper that they didn’t want to talk about. He’d sensed their ­discomfort, but he couldn’t explain that either: are there some things you really can’t talk about! And what are they?

It was only when he thought about the obvious advantage that his special situation gave him over Eric Boucher that he’d decided to spill the beans. And he’d been right.

He went back to his own gang a good inch taller and pink with pleasure.

But the final blow came not from an enemy but from one of his greatest allies, Marie-Eve Quintal, though she was always discreet and looked at him with admiring eyes, and he could always wrap her around his little finger. Without looking up from her paintbrush she said mildly, as if it were the most normal thing in the word:

“I’ve got a daddy and three mummies . . .”

The entire nursery school, even Eric Boucher, exclaimed: “Wow! Lucky you!”

Jean-Marc

Jean-Marc

Every Christmas cliché was there: the roast turkey and dressing, the pork tourtières with Heinz ketchup, the ­cretons, the pickles both sour and sweet—I hadn’t seen mustard pickles with cauliflower and cucumber for years—the cranberry jelly, mashed potatoes, number two peas, doughnuts and doughnut holes, the apple pie, the bûche de Noël, and even, rarest treat of all, an old-fashioned lemon meringue pie and cream puffs filled with real whipped cream. Every mouthful home-made by an army of sprites who hadn’t cooked so much for eons but had thrown themselves into it with surprising enjoyment and the requisite hilarity. Especially Mélène, who had feigned horror at the sight of all the poison invading her kitchen, hand on heart and eyes rolled back. (She’d even run to her bedroom when the pork was delivered, crying out: “Vade retro Satanas!”) I pitched in too, abandoning my wok for once to try my hand at my Aunt Jacqueline’s cream puffs. The result looked awful and tasted delicious.