The Perfect Nanny

by Leïla Slimani

We will, all of us, only be happy, she thinks, when we don’t need one another anymore. When we can live a life of our own, a life that belongs to us, that has nothing to do with anyone else. When we are free.

Solitude was like a drug that she wasn’t sure she wanted to do without.

Fate is vicious as a reptile. It always ends up pushing us to the wrong side of the handrail.”