Summary

As François drove home from Rocamadour, he realized that what lay ahead of him was a joyless, though not necessarily an empty, life. When he got home his mailbox was full of bureaucratic mail. He was surprised to find among it, a series of letters from the coroner’s office notifying him that his mother had died. They tried to contact François four times before depositing her body in the common division of the municipal cemetery. François had never imagined his mother leading a particularly vibrant social life, but had no idea that she was so completely alone. It bothered him a bit that she was in the communal grave and he wondered what had become of her french bulldog. Also in his mail was a payslip form the university; he had been paid in full. He wondered when and...