“I don’t think we will. We’ve been too good for each other, and too bad, and I can’t imagine us being just friendly and polite . . .”

“But at least we can talk to each other without screaming.”

Louise struggled to smile; it wasn’t a complete success, but it was very touching.

“You mean you can talk to me without screaming!”

The key in the lock, Sébastien’s voice—“Do you think Daddy’s here?”—Gaston’s—“Yup, I’m sure he is!”

Louise and Mathieu exchanged a look that was so intense it overwhelmed them.

Jean-Marc

Jean-Marc

While Mélène was struggling to cram a limp cushion into an undersized pillowcase, I was trying to fit an oversized sheet onto the mattress of the hide-a-bed in my office.

“That’ll never look like a child’s bed . . .”

“What’s important, Jean-Marc, is that he’ll have a place to sleep. He’s only four years old—I don’t think his esthetic sense is all that well developed yet!”

“Maybe not, but putting the kid into a former pipe-­smoking French prof’s office that still reeks of tobacco, even the books and furniture, after I don’t know how many housecleanings and a move . . . The kid will be asphyxiated.”

Mathieu and I had scrupulously checked out all the possibilities in the apartment the night before, considering the various places to put his son where he’d be relatively ­comfortable: the living room couch doesn’t open up; the one in the dining room, an old stick I hang on to because it’s the first piece of furniture I ever bought—fifteen bucks in an antique store—and which now sits in the bay window, is too lumpy to sleep on; our bedroom’s too small to take a folding bed . . . I even suggested that Mathieu sleep with Sébastien in our bed, but he refused. He said he wanted Sébastien to get used to seeing us sleep together right away; he didn’t want to hide anything from him and it was ­essential for the child to realize from the outset that I was very important in his father’s life.

Mélène and I had folded up the hide-a-bed, cursing because the mechanism doesn’t work very well (I still have an ugly scar from the time I caught my right thumb in it).

“At four he’s too little for such a big bed . . . Just toss a sheet and a blanket on top, it’ll be fine and he won’t feel so lost . . .”

“No, I think he should have a real bed . . . And I’m going to buy a few things for the walls, for his next visit . . . This room’s too severe for a child . . .”