Page 132 of The Stranger

“Think there will be consequences?”

She nods. “I hope he has to clean out the llama stalls.”

“Double punishment!” I hold out my hand for a high-five. “Lola is bound to spit at him on your behalf.”

“Oui!” Her hand meets mine before I hold out my arms.

“Come here.” She almost throws herself against me, and I close my eyes as I pull her in tight. “Brothers, eh?” I press my lips to her silver-blond hair. “Can’t live with them and can’t adopt them out.”

“He is a crétin, but I will miss him when he goes to boarding school next month.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” I say as her words turn watery, and she tightens her grip.

My goodness, love is such a paradox.

32

LUC

I watch a dozen thoughts and emotions flicker and fade across my son’s face.

“I was only telling the truth,” he mutters eventually, still staring at this hands.

“You were trying, and you succeeded in making your sister feel small.”

“She is small,” he mutters.

“Isn’t that all the more reason for you to be kind?”

I stifle a sigh. The pair used to be the best of friends. I don’t have siblings, so there is something about the change in their dynamic I don’t understand. The insults, the constant competing, warfare that pivots to an alliance in a heartbeat, but only to suit their purposes.

The only thing I can put the change down to is Felix’s age. The flip side of this is that he ought to know better. To do better. He’s leaving for boarding school soon, and I can’t say I’m looking forward to him being in Switzerland. In fact, it would seem the only person ready for the change is him. It doesn’t seem like two minutes ago he was stressing over his first day in kindergarten.

The thought catches somewhere beneath my ribs. No more breakfast squabbles and bad moods. No more arguments over card games or movies. By the time he comes home for his first school vacation, the dynamic will have changed. And each visit, he’ll seem further away. From her. From me.

“You are older than Sylvie. Bigger, as you were so pleased to point out. But that doesn’t make you better than her. It gives you a responsibility.”

“To what?” His brows pull down.

“To be the person she can rely on,” I say evenly. “There will be enough people in this world willing to make your sister feel she isn’t good enough. Your job is not to be one of them.”

His eyes narrow. “What do you mean? What people?”

I inhale then pause. How to explain this without giving him a lecture so far above his head that he’ll stop listening to halfway through? “People who will assume they know what Sylvie can and can’t do simply because she’s a girl. “

“What people?”

“People who will expect her to be quieter than you. To keep herself smaller, be less ambitious, perhaps. More agreeable. People who might listen to you first even on topics she knows more about.”

“Like llamas?”

“Like llamas.”

“Why would they do that?” He looks genuinely confused.

“Because men have spent an age telling themselves they are superior. And because some ideas are hard to get rid of.”

“Do you think that way?”