I told them, in French, that my daughter had spent eleven hours cooking a dish from their country to honour people who had spent the afternoon assessing her. I said it quietly and I did not raise my voice once. Solange put down her glass. Gaspard’s face went through four expressions and settled on none of them. Then I told them the rest, still in French, because by then it seemed only fair. Bordeaux, nine years, a rented room above a butcher’s on the rue Sainte-Catherine, and the two years I spent translating technical documents for a firm on the Quai des Chartrons before I came home and married a man who preferred me quieter.

Étienne started laughing. Not cruelly. It was relief, I think, and it broke the whole thing open.