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resist. I wish he had.
     
    I make a decision: I’ll give each of my children three names, all as unobtrusive as possible, and they’ll choose between these when they’re seven. Seven, because it’s the age of reason.
    Now I can relax in the smell of fig leaves. Behind the tree there’s a hut with quinces, apples, nuts, some tools and, on a low shelf, a heap of books. I start reading Léonie veut aller à la fête . Léonie, the heroine, is invited to a dance for the first time. Her father, who is a sailor, is away in Africa. She’s excited about the party and would like to wear the dress her father sent her for her birthday, but there are a few snags. Her stepmother, madame Mercier, thinks she’s too young. Then Dora, the stepmother’s daughter, wants to borrow Léonie’s dress. As Dora is much larger than Léonie, the dress might not survive.
    The story is good, but I’ve read it before. What catches my attention is the way Léonie addresses her stepmother. Léonie calls madame Mercier Belle-mère . Which is the French word for both mother-in-law and stepmother , and literally means “beautiful mother”. This sounds like a solution.
    Because Coralie and I have a problem: we don’t know how to address our mother. She is a belle-mère to our older brothers and sister, but they just call her Odette. Justine even coined a pet name for her: Dette (which actually means “debt”). Coralie and I are supposed to say Maman , but we don’t. Ever. We don’t call her anything. At all. Which might get us into trouble. Because it’s not polite to just say “yes”, or “thanks”, or “please”; you should go on with the name or title of the person. As in “Thanks, Loli”, or “Please, Grand-Mère”. We can’t do it with our mother, we just can’t bring ourselves to pronounce the word maman , it sounds so babyish; so we try to avoid situations where we’d have to.
    Now why not call our mother Belle-mère ? She is beautiful.
    I can’t wait. I run back to the house with the book. I find Coralie in the coal shed, grinding chunks of coal onto her hair with both hands.
    “Hi,” she says. “Where have you been? I’d like to be a gypsy. Can you become a gypsy?”
    “I guess. Shall I read you Léonie veut aller à la fête? ”
    Coralie wipes her hands on her dress and follows me outside. On the green bench under the wisteria I read aloud, practicing my Belle-mère responses. I notice that Léonie hardly ever says anything to her stepmother. Most of their exchanges consist in madame Mercier’s giving orders and Léonie’s answering “Oui, Belle-mère ”.
    Then our mother calls from inside, “Tita, Coralie! Lunch!” Normally, we’d just go. Silently.
    But I answer, “Oui, Belle-mère .”
    Coralie echoes, “Oui, Belle-mère .”
    Our mother doesn’t seem to notice. She never pays much attention to words.

 
     
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    This morning when I wake up my nose is so clogged I can only breathe through my mouth, but my throat is swollen, so not much air gets in. When I try to say good morning to Loli no sound comes out, not even a whisper. Mother decides that I’ll stay home from school. Dr Barral drops by, and Loli goes to the pharmacy for the usual lozenges and tablets. Meanwhile I follow Mother up into the bathroom. She takes a long twisted metal stick out of the medicine cabinet, disinfects it, winds a cotton swab around one end, takes me in her lap, dips the stick in a bottle of tart-smelling red liquid and thrusts it into the back of my throat. I should be used to this. Every time, though, I’m sure the stick is going to pierce my vocal cords.
    Some gagging is going on in my throat, but the rest of my body stays very still as Mother dips and paints, dips and paints. I’m trying to stop my mind, pretend I’m already dead so nothing can hurt me. When she’s done, Mother closes the bottle, lays the stick in the washbasin, and gives me a long cuddle because I’ve been so quiet. “My sweet little sick