144: Where Words Fail (Originally aired 11.05.1999)

'Even so, at the square with the children, I was not like other mothers. Sitting on the bench or on the side of the sand pit, I would watch my Elvire making mud pies, and I would let Gauthier suck on his biscuit. If another woman wanted to talk to me, I had only two options. A bright facade, which devastated me-- yes, mine's already three and a half, but she's still frightened of the slide. I can't believe your little scrap. He's so brave up at the top of the ladder-- or a truth that was socially unacceptable. These are my younger two children. The elder ones died four years ago.

I would always be out of place. The working class, immigrants, the self-taught cranks, the handicapped, the unemployed, and grieving parents are more alike than people think. They have at least one thing in common. They have to make Herculean efforts to hold a normal, banal, bouncy conversation. They can think of only one thing, the moment when they might introduce a sentence about their misfortune. Thirteen years have passed, and I still cannot last half a day without evoking my daughters.'