I came across this postcard in a second-hand bookstore here in Roubaix, a picture perfect to send like I’m sending it now, home across the ocean that won’t keep us apart for long. Remember sitting on your mother’s bed with me after she couldn’t live alone any longer, telling your history slowly through a box of photos from your childhood in the city? One sticks most in my mind, so much like this one: A girl of three or four, laughing happily at the camera, or maybe something her mother’s girlfriend said a second before taking the picture, laughing and holding a cat in her small arms, a cat not getting the joke in typical cat fashion but not struggling to leave the child’s cradling comfort. I hope the cat had a long and happy life. I hope it took good care of that little girl who would one day be you.