Part One

Chapter One

hen it comes to champagne and our amily, my ather has only oneabsolute rule: We do not drink it when we are sad.In the pebbled courtyard o this audaciously French bed and breakast, myather and I stretch our limbs. His arms ap out, parallel to the expanse o pigeon-grey pebbles, his palms wide and splayed, as though he’s holdingthe most gigantic pair o hedge-clippers and is just about to cut a bush intoa topiary o a cock. The rooster kind. He ings his arms as wide as they’llgo, pulsing them over and over. As he ings, he spits out a sequence o vowels ound in Dutch words, “OO! EE! AA! OO! EE! AAAAA!”