Before she had cancer, she would sometimes tell Luc and me how she had wanted more children—a brood of chortling French Catholics passing a deep pot of cassoulet around her table. “But then we would have been trop gros for Manhattan,” she’d inevitably say, reaching her arms out. Too big. “And God knew the Lebruns would be sad not to live in New York.” Luc and I would giggle, basking in the undivided sunlight of her attention, oblivious to the loss she might have felt every day. But if she did feel a loss, few could have guessed it. Back then, she wasn’t so reserved. She would cuddle Luc and me
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