Lena was raised on violin lessons and minimal parental supervision. That’s the best one-line summary I could write from the time I spent with her. I haven’t been able to gather much about her parents’ background during my time around them. Besides, these days, I don’t have access to many tools to research anything.

It has probably been a very long time since St. Peters last saw that many people on its wooden benches and in its cold alleys. It couldn’t welcome one more living soul. The priest looks both concerned and overwhelmed.

The Simmons public library was a melting pot of the haves and have-nots, a mixture of homeless people and the wealthy older residents of the nearby neighbourhood. Cravings for Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and sometimes heat, have that sort of universality.

Ellie was trying to remember her first days as a therapist. The way she had felt both excited and terrified during the whole week before her first appointment, the sense of pride she felt when she first opened the door of the practice, the doubt she had about the paint on the walls being soothing enough, the million times she had swapped her brand new couch from one corner to another for her patients to feel the most comfortable possible, how she had thrown herself on the said couch and smashed its cushions to make it feel more « used » for her first patients not to realize they were the firsts to sit there.

The stupid alarm went on again. I couldn't remember if it was for the second or third time. It didn't really matter, it meant that I was already late. Fucking insomnia. Before getting up, I decided, despite that well known feeling of anxiety lying in my stomach, that it would be a good day. It had to be.