“Ce que vous appelez une petite vie, madame, je l’ai choisie.” What you call a small life, madame, I chose. I continued in French, calmly, every word clear. I told them I had lived seven years in Marseille, waited tables in the Panier district, and once argued a landlord out of a deposit in better French than Bernard’s. I told them my daughter was neither simple nor unpolished. She was honest, and honesty was not the same thing as a lack of culture.

Isabelle’s wineglass stopped halfway to her lips. Bernard’s face went from tan to crimson. Matthieu stared at me with something close to admiration. Then I finished, still in French. “Now you will repeat to my daughter, in English, exactly what you said about her tonight. Or I will.” Anna looked from me to them, bewildered. “Mom,” she whispered, “since when do you speak French?”