A month had passed since Fatima and Amin arrived at Mathieu's farm.
During this time, Stéphanie hadn't had a single real conversation with the son. He reminded her too much of the men who had entered her parents' home and destroyed her family. Although she couldn't remember their faces, she knew he wasn't involved because she hadn't forgotten their voices despite all this time.
Sometimes, she heard them in her dreams, but luckily, this didn't happen often. Most often, she thought about the harvest. And sometimes, she remembered the loving faces of her parents.
They had never left her. They were always there, in her memories and in her heart.
Often, especially when she didn't feel well, she would take out the photo album that she and Marie had brought with them when fleeing Saint-Denis and would delve into her memories. Some were blurrier than others. She was glad to have these photographs at hand, without which she would have eventually forgotten them completely.
However, she had one great regret, besides, of course, not being able to hug her parents one last time. Her phone contained videos where she could hear their voices. She feared she might forget them someday.
Stéphanie turned another page of the album, revealing new photographs. They were old, as attested by the faded colors and the appearance of her parents. At that time, Stéphanie was very young and her father still had a mustache.
She didn't know how to walk yet and her mother looked a lot like Marie, only ten or fifteen years older. Marie, on the other hand, was sticking out her tongue at the camera. She didn't know who had taken the photo, and Marie couldn't help since she was too young to remember.
It was one of the first photos where Stéphanie appeared and one of the last where her father proudly wore that thick mustache. With it, it was hard to recognize her father, at least for Stéphanie, who had always known him without it. He liked having a smooth face. The only days he left the razor in his cupboard were Sundays and holidays.
Marie had once told her that he had stopped wearing the mustache because Christine had once said she preferred him clean-shaven. He shaved the very next day to please his wife, whom he loved more than anything.
We were so happy back then. We had everything we needed. Why did we have to lose everything to realize it now? If I had a second chance, I would do everything differently!
Stéphanie didn't like paper books and even less so novels. However, before the blackout, she loved reading stories on her phone, even when they were just texts. She even followed several stories in parallel.
Chapters could come out every day, every two days, every month, or worse! She had to be patient in the meantime. So she continued visiting these sites and discovering new stories. She grew fond of second-chance stories, mainly with romance.
According to her, there was nothing better than seeing a charming character get closer and closer to another character until they confessed their feelings. She had easily devoured a dozen stories like this. She secretly hoped, without really believing it, that maybe if there was a merciful enough god, she too would be granted such a chance.
Unfortunately, fiction was fiction and reality was reality. Nothing would change that, no matter her prayers.
Oh, here, I must have been barely five years old. It was at the Paris Zoological Park, in the Bois de Vincennes. I was fascinated by the pumas. I thought they were very big cats. Dad bought me a plush toy. Marie got a seal plushie.
If Stéphanie visited the place today, she would be very disappointed to see almost no animals. This park, like any in France, as well as any circus still offering animal shows, had faced a terrible choice: leave the animals on site until they starved or release them to give them a chance.
Where there were large predators like lions, tigers, pumas, and others, the question was particularly important because even though these majestic animals had been on site for many years, sometimes since birth, they remained formidable hunters.
The people who cared for them every day until the blackout didn't want to set them free. The risk of them killing a human was too high. Most of them were thus killed for safety, which was always heartbreaking. But some had decided otherwise.
Stéphanie didn't know it, but the pumas she had admired with her family a few years earlier had been secretly released by a caretaker who, in a burst of compassion, didn't want to kill them. This man hadn't stopped at that single feline, as he had also released the lioness and the two lions living there, as well as the two wolves, the lynx, and two jaguars!
Fortunately, the park was quite far from where Stéphanie and her loved ones currently were.
Knock, knock.
Stéphanie closed the photo album and allowed the person to open her bedroom door. It was Marie.
"Sorry to bother you, Steph, but we need help outside."
"Uh, I'm coming."
Outside, despite the frequent rain showers, the whole team was mobilized to surround Mathieu's fields.
It wasn't for decoration, but to protect the crops or at least put an obstacle in the path of the thieves who were coming more and more often to the farm.
Stéphanie wasn't unaware of what was happening outside, even though she didn't go out. If someone had to be sent to explore the surroundings, it was always a man.
She knew that the people on the outskirts of Paris were desperate due to the lack of food. Those who had gardens had turned them into vegetable plots, but that wasn't enough to feed a whole family. Especially since they were also victims of theft.
The young gendarme who had come to their farm for a night had returned three days earlier because they had the same problem in Nanterre. They were calling on nearby farmers, and because she knew there was a small community here that refused to abandon their fields, she came in hopes of obtaining food in the long term.
She was very disappointed to leave empty-handed because she had nothing to offer in return.
The barrier they were erecting around the farm wasn't a solid wall, as that would require stones or cinder blocks in large quantities and material to make concrete, again in large quantities. So they had taken wooden posts from a hardware store and wire mesh.
The air was cool and filled with moisture. The gray sky seemed as sad as a funeral day. The grass, green and thick, was considerably weighed down by the recent rains.
As soon as Stéphanie arrived where the new mesh was being deployed, she got to work. It hadn't even been five minutes before young Kevin approached Stéphanie.
Since arriving at the farm with his family, he had lost all his excess fat and gained muscle. His shoulders were broad like his father and older brother. He was already a handsome boy before, but now he was really attractive. Yet, Stéphanie felt nothing special for him. He was nice, but that was it.
"Hi!" he said energetically with a huge smile on his face, his cheeks slightly red.
"Hi."
"Hum, what a weather, huh?"
Stéphanie looked at him in confusion. She could see he was trying to start a conversation with her, but she wasn't particularly in the mood.
Her bad week had started, and like the previous months, since she no longer had access to comfortable sanitary pads, she was in a terrible mood. Her stomach hurt so much she wanted to tear out her organs and had to use pieces of cloth from old clothes to absorb the old blood.
"I saw a big bird earlier! I don't know what it was, but it was huge!"
Kevin kept talking at length, and it was only out of politeness that Stéphanie didn't interrupt him. He held the conversation by himself. All the young girl did was respond with "Oh?", "Really?", "I see", "Hmm".
Stéphanie wanted to silence him and leave. She felt the anger rising in her and it was only thanks to her mental strength that she hadn't thrown an insult or unpleasant word at him.
Amin watched the scene from a distance and felt a twinge of jealousy seeing them so close. From his position, he thought they were having a joyful conversation, but luckily, he noticed Stéphanie's expression.
After a long hesitation, he decided to approach.
"Um, Kevin, I need a hand. Can you come?"
Kevin fell silent and looked at the interrupter with surprise and frustration. Without knowing why, he didn't like him too much. Maybe because they were about the same age and he had noticed he was interested in Stéphanie.
To avoid giving a bad impression to Stéphanie, he smiled at her and followed him.
"Yeah, no problem. Sorry, Steph. See you later."
Stéphanie didn't respond and just watched them leave. She didn't know if it was a coincidence, but a brief look from Amin made her think it wasn't. Internally, she thanked Amin.