Mathieu—and I could sense that it was going to be like this for two days—frowned and bent over his son.

“Sébastien, leave Jean-Marc alone, he’s busy.”

“I want him to come and play . . . I finished the puzzle and the doggy won’t talk to me.”

I played with the doggy for another few minutes, until I finally lost my voice, so then we got out the poster paints and brushes and threw ourselves into a tremendous mural depicting Sébastien, Daddy, Jean-Marc and the doggy. Mathieu joined us and we were able to finish it before the start of the popular kids’ show, “Passe-Partout.”

As father and son sang along with the theme song “Passe-Montagne aime les papillons, les souliers neufs et les beaux vestons . . .” I slipped into the kitchen to fix supper. For the past few years, since I’ve been living alone in fact, I’ve made a specialty of wok-cooking. Because it’s fast, simple and light. The trouble is, I’m the only one in my crowd who likes this Chinese-inspired cuisine. No, that’s wrong, let’s say I’m the only one who likes my version of it, for my friends think my cooking is incredibly bland and at times repulsive to look at. I admit that it’s rarely a treat for the eye: either I’m too free with the cornstarch or I let loose with the soya sauce—in other words, I often end up with mush, one that tastes good to me because I know what’s gone into it, though the sight of it makes my guests gag. Mathieu is more discreet. Or cautious. Usually, he’ll eat my cooking without a word. Sometimes he’ll even say that it’s good, or at any rate healthy, and ask for seconds. He hates to cook so I suspect he’ll do anything to avoid a stint at the stove.

Still, I followed to the letter the supposedly foolproof instructions in a highly recommended cookbook that had cost me a fortune. The results were grotesque. Apparently I just haven’t got the knack . . .

So there I was with my vegetables ready to be chopped and my shrimps all set to shell. Why shrimps for a four-year-old? Not to impress him! I’d wondered, actually, when I was hesitating at Lemercier’s between the crustaceans and some hamburger for a shepherd’s pie, then I thought, if I’m in the mood for shrimp, why not . . . But doubt returned as I was stripping the limp intestinal vein from the miserable creatures. “Maybe Sébastien’s the kind of child who’ll only eat his mother’s cooking . . . I should’ve asked Mathieu to find out from Louise if he likes shrimp . . . A shepherd’s pie would’ve been so simple . . .”