43

Asher ducks her head in a diffident nod, her stack of books in her hands. "I hope it sorts out smoothly," she murmurs. "When Oliver and Josiane were fighting, it felt like it went on forever. But you sorted it out in the end."

Oliver is your younger brother, now twelve. He was a baby when your father Georges, a blurry figure you hardly remember, passed away. Oliver and your older sister Josiane were less than cordial for a long time, though they have settled down in recent years. She called him a brat and a hanger-on, while he called her a bully. Both were in the right. Or the wrong.