He smiles. “I’ve always been a bit proprietary about it. Mum used to bring me here when I was young. We’d take a picnic lunch and eat it right here on the steps. Sometimes she’d bring her sketchbook, and she’d draw the pigeons and the taxis.”

“Your mother is an artist?”

“A painter. Her work is in the New York MoMA.” He sounds proud, and I remember what Meredith once said—that St. Clair admires Josh because he can draw so well. And that St. Clair’s father owns two art galleries. And that St. Clair is taking studio art this semester. I wonder aloud if he’s also an artist.

He shrugs. “Not really. I wish I were. Mum didn’t pass on that particular talent, just the appreciation. Josh is much better. So is Rashmi, for that matter.”

“You get along well with her, don’t you? Your mom?”

“I love me mum.” He says this matter-of-factly, with no trace of teenage shame.

We stand before the cathedral’s double doors and look up, and up, and up. I picture my own mom, typing snapping turtle data into our home computer, her usual evening activity. Except it’s not nighttime in Atlanta. Maybe she’s grocery shopping. Wading in the Chattahoochee River. Watching The Empire Strikes Back with Sean. I have no idea, and it bothers me.

At last, St. Clair breaks the silence. “Come along, then. Loads to see.”

The farther we go, the more crowded Paris gets. He talks about his mom, how she makes chocolate chip pancakes for dinner and tuna noodle casserole for breakfast. How she painted every room of her flat a different color of the rainbow. How she collects misspellings of her name on junk mail. He says nothing of his father.

We pass another enormous structure, this one like the ruins of a medieval castle. “God, there’s history everywhere,” I say. “What is that place? Can we go in?”

“It’s a museum, and sure. But not tonight. I believe it’s closed,” he adds.