Julia doesn’t come home when she’s meant to, so when the afternoon progresses to dinnertime and then bedtime for the kids, I offer to read Léa a story and tuck her in. She nods but doesn’t smile back.

‘That would be great, Jess, merci,’ Michel says. He put Luca to bed an hour ago. It’s the third night since I arrived that Julia’s worked late. Léa’s asked five times when she’ll be home, and all Michel could do was shake his head.

‘Bientôt, chérie.’ Soon. It’s a refrain I remember from my childhood. Such were my parents’ jobs that rarely were they both at home in the evening, one of them inevitably caught up in a breaking story or a tight deadline or a source meeting that just couldn’t wait. Part of me was always in awe of their stellar careers, the other part of me wished they’d just be home for dinner. But they did their best to take it in turns, at least.

Léa’s bedroom is every little girl’s fantasy. It has cream walls with hot pink and lime green painted wardrobes and a lampshade with cut-out stars that project a mini milky way onto the walls. A purple velvet chair sits in one corner between a crammed bookshelf and a small desk. Her bed has a fuchsia duvet cover and is lined along the far edge by a menagerie of stuffed toys.

‘Who’s this?’ I say, stroking the plush fur of a large St Bernard.

‘Barry.’ Léa gets under the covers and pulls him into a hug.

‘Are you okay? Ça va chérie?’ I offer my badly accented French in an attempt to make her smile, and she does, briefly.

She nods and picks up a book, the first Harry Potter, one of several that Julia got in English for me to read to the children. She hands it to me. ‘Please read.’

I settle next to her on the bed and she nestles into me. The clean, warm scent of her hair is comforting and I stroke it as I read. I wonder what Julia’s doing now, what project is keeping her from this moment, and I feel a sudden flash of rage towards her, with her high-powered job and her wardrobe stuffed full of designer labels. Because I know that no bumper salary or career ambitions or taste for expensive clothes would keep me from having moments like these with my own child if I had one.

I give Léa a squeeze. It’s lucky she’s got me to read to her, I think, before my conscience slaps me down.

She’s not yours. Don’t get too attached. But I know it’s already too late for that.

MARCH 1976 Lausanne/Bern, Switzerland

SYLVIA