We left the motorway service area driving very slowly. Marc never exceeded eighty, used his indicator well in advance, and regularly stopped at small scenic rest areas to ask me:
— Are you still alright, Hélène?
“Better than this morning,” I would reply each time. And it was true.
We stopped in a small village, at the shaded terrace of a café. Marc insisted on offering me a dish of the day and a dessert, despite my protests.
“I have a pension and not many expensive hobbies,” he joked. “Besides, you don’t let someone make a long journey on an empty stomach.”
Between bites, he told me about his life: his night shifts, the fires that would wake him with a start years later, his colleagues who had become like brothers, his two sons and his daughter who lived in different parts of France but who called him every day.
