It's a moment of home, overlaid with this strange bright room and Joly's earnestly sympathetic face: hot coffee and milk and a spoonful of brandy, like Toussaint used to push on her if she was ill or worried or cold. Just that thought makes the wailing desire to be a little girl again, safe and cared for, surge inside her -- which is all the proof anyone might need that her nerves could use some settling.

She's a grown woman now, a married woman of 17, and it's her job now to care for her father.

"Yes," she says, feeling the cup warm her hands even through its thin saucer. "Just a little drop -- thank you, monsieur."