The doctor urges me on.

“What was she telling you?”

Mélanie’s eyes. Her hands clasping the wheel. Antoine, there’s something I need to say. I’ve kept it back all day. Last night, at the hotel, I remembered something. Something about… Her eyes, troubled, worried. And then the car driving off the road.

She fell asleep as soon as they were able to make their way through the sluggish suburban gridlock that circled Paris. Antoine smiled as her head dropped back against the car window. Her mouth opened, and he thought he heard a tiny snore. She had been irritable that morning when he came to pick her up just after dawn. She hated surprises and always had. He knew that, didn’t he? Why the hell was he organizing a surprise trip? Honestly! Wasn’t it bad enough turning forty? Getting over an agonizing breakup? Never having been married, not having any kids, and people mentioning biological clocks every five minutes? “If somebody utters that word one more time, I’ll hit them,” she hissed between gritted teeth. But the idea of facing the long weekend alone was unbearable for her. He knew that. He knew she couldn’t stand thinking about her hot, empty apartment above the noisy rue de la Roquette, and all her friends out of town leaving joyful messages on her voice mail: “Hey, Mel, you’re forty!” Forty. He glanced across at her. Mélanie, his little sister, was going to be forty. He couldn’t quite believe it. Which made him forty-three. He couldn’t quite believe that either.

Yet the crinkled eyes in the rearview mirror were those of a man in early middle age. Thick salt-and-pepper hair, a long, lean face. He noticed that Mélanie dyed her hair brown. Her roots were unmistakably gray. There was something touching about her dyeing her hair.