We barely speak on the way to JB’s parents’ house. I have no idea exactly what I’m going to say.
As we pull up at the house, I have no idea if she will even see me, let alone talk to me, and I couldn’t be more nervous. If Stephanie won’t see me I’m not sure I could bear it. I stare at the front door. The same door she knocked on when she came to find JB, who sent her away. I stare at it and wonder if the same will happen to me, presuming, of course, that they’re here. My heart is pounding.
‘I’ll wait down the street,’ Fabien says. ‘Take as long as you need.’
I open the door and slide out from beside Ralph, who is happily reunited with Fabien’s Jack Russell, Mimi.
I walk slowly up the road, in through the front gate and through the neatly tended little garden up the crazy-paved path to the sage-coloured front door.
I stare at it. Right now, everything that matters is, hopefully, on the other side. I raise my shaking hand and knock. My new life in France hangs in the balance.