i couldn’t enjoy much of anything, except walking to the Ile St Louis
…to the park I’d come to love and rely on. The trees were flowering now, and there was the thick smell of horse-chestnut blossoms. I also liked to look around at the houses surrounding the park, and wonder about the people who filled them, what kind of marriages they had and how they loved or hurt each other on any given day, and if they were happy, and whether they thought happiness was a sustainable thing. I’d stay in the park as long as I could, and then walk home through the sunshine I couldn’t quite feel.
