I still remember that sweltering summer afternoon, when even the air seemed to hang languid. I was 12, my brother Leo was eight. Our parents had gone out for dinner, leaving us in the care of Clara, our usual babysitter. That day, however, Clara wasn’t alone. Her friend Manon, a tall, pretty student with steely blue eyes, was visiting. Their seemingly ordinary presence would seal a memory that was both humiliating and strangely formative in my childhood mind.
The heat had gotten the better of our composure. An impromptu water fight in the garden had turned into a mudslide. When we came home, soaked and covered in dirt, Clara and Manon’s laughter had faded. Their eyes were no longer those of joyful accomplices, but of adults confronted with disaster.