“I think this might help . . . There’s something I forgot to tell you tonight . . . I called Sébastien before you came home . . . I gave him permission to tell Paulot he’s a horse’s ass the first chance he gets . . . And if Paulot comes to dump on us, which Louise said he’s quite capable of doing, you know what? I’ll french-kiss him!”

The roar of laughter that rose in the bedroom startled Mélène and Jeanne upstairs.

Jeanne gave her lover a disappointed look. “We haven’t laughed like that for ages.”

Mélène slapped her rear affectionately.

“We’re an old couple, sweetheart. Our problems are too boring to make us laugh or cry . . .”

“That’s not very romantic!”

“Make me unhappy, you’ll see how romantic I can be!”

Now it was Jean-Marc and Mathieu’s turn to be startled.

Mathieu looked up at the ceiling, after butting out his ­cigarette in the ashtray.

“That’s really something, eh, to laugh like that, at this hour of the night, after so many years together . . .”

Sébastien

Sébastien

Sébastien was wildly excited about going back to nursery school. He kept asking his mother how many days were left. Louise wanted to know why he was so eager; he just said that he wanted to see his friends. Still, he had fun playing with his toys, he went skating in the park with Gaston almost every afternoon—double-bladed skates, a gift from Gaston’s parents, had thrilled him, though he still couldn’t skate very well, merely standing in the middle of the ice, unable to take more than a couple of steps without falling, and he watched countless movies on his mother’s brand-new VCR.

Louise and Gaston were on vacation. Originally they’d planned a trip to the Laurentians, but they soon realized they didn’t have enough money and would have to stay in Montreal. They let the days pass slowly, fussing in the kitchen, entertaining friends, visiting others, making love frequently just in case, as Gaston said, “The baby didn’t take the first time . . .”

It was all the more frustrating, then, to hear Sébastien constantly asking when the holidays would be over.

During the first week in January it became quite ­unbearable, so that to restore a semblance of peace, Louise made a week-long calendar from which Sébastien could tear off a leaf every morning, counting the ones that were left. And still he answered her questions evasively: Yes, he was enjoying his vacation, no he wasn’t bored with her and Gaston, yes he liked spending weekends with his father and Jean-Marc, no he hadn’t had any fights with the neighbourhood kids . . .

On the eve of his return to nursery school, before he went to sleep, as Louise was reading to him from Winnie the Pooh (which he wasn’t listening to), he confessed to his mother:

“I can’t wait to see Marie-Eve Quintal!”