Andy and Alicja had quite a success in the towns they drove by. Alicja was used to go from one big city to another, so having all these miniature concerts was new for her. She loved it.

Andy was still bad, to be honest. But he was getting better. All this practicing and performing were teaching his fingers what this was all about. He was able to play at least six chords now and he knew their names. He still had that ukulele in a plastic bag, but he was saving up for a proper case.

Driving towards Valencia led them to the Mediterranean sea. It was nothing that new to Andy, who had been following the coast the week before, but Alicja, once again, had spent most of her time inside cities, so she was pretty excited. As a rule of thumb, she got excited pretty easily. She had big dreams, an enthusiastic laugher and the ability to act on it. It was the kind of personality Andy felt the most envious of, because he didn’t have any of that.

The spent a lengthy two weeks in Valencia, strumming at the street corners. Sometimes Alicja accepted to play something else than reggae. She was reluctant at best when Andy asked, then she heard his voice and she wanted to hear more. Soon had a show prepared, with seven or eight of her songs and two or three of his. She was the lead musician in both. Andy usually followed up with happily plucked his ukulele, or sung. He hadn’t mastered yet the art to do both at the same time, but he was working on it.

Alicja helped with keeping alcohol in check as she didn’t drink either. It was good to have an ally to go and buy sodas with. Gradually, the thirst was more and more of a background noise. Realistically speaking, Andy knew the noise would never go away, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had gotten out of it almost too easily.

Their next destination was Barcelona. While it did make them trace back a bit towards France, they had heard so much about this city in the streets that they had to check it out. They didn’t want to get there too fast, though, so they checked out the places they could stop at using Alicja’s smartphone. That thing was handy, but it also had a life of its own and required as much attention as a newborn did.

They prepared to leave when they had gathered a small pile of cash. They had used some to buy warmer clothes, scarves and gloves. Winter was really there now and the wind stung out in the streets. They had to stand and dance a little bit while playing to keep themselves warm. They also bought (duvets) so they could sleep in the car. They didn’t enough to go to a youth hostel anytime they felt like it. It was OK with two people, because their body heat helped warm up the cabin. They slept in the front-row seats because they extended all the way down for some reason. These old car were pretty well built.

Some morning Andy had trouble with the cold, or his back if he had turned around in his sleep. Even with all that, compared to the time spent in France, life was a breeze.

---

Back in France the winter days ticked slowly. Life had a different rhythm to it when you were following an old person into their life. Ms. Giraud was quite tired these days and the house didn’t help. Several times, Josh had to call someone because the ancient heating system was breaking down. Far from the sea, winters were harsh and cold. Going through them without heating the house was not an option.

She was spending more time on the ground floor. Josh picked some of the things she had up there to bring them down. Going up the stairs was not so easy for an almost eighty years old.

Life was good, though. She had a bit of a hard time reading because most books had such a small print, but television was OK. If her sight dwindled, her ears were as good as new. Léa was also a fair part of the good things in her life. She was the child of Stephanie, her daughter who came to visit once in a while, but more often then not simply dropped the girl for a day or two. She seemed to be nice, but very busy. In all those of those months, Josh had almost no opportunity to sit down and chat with her.

At forty-five, Stephanie was the last of four siblings, three of them who were still alive. Even though she didn’t stay and chat most of the time, she was by far the one who visited the most often. Josh hadn’t met the other two yet. Even among her siblings, Stephanie was a bit special because she was the baby sister. Ms. Giraud had given birth to her when she was thirty-five already and her siblings were already teenagers. Growing up with her siblings had been more like being raised by cool older cousins. There was a distance and a need to protect her at the same time.

Josh got to meet the elder sibling right after Christmas. They had spent it with Léa and her Stephanie, simply having tea and cake on the afternoon of the twenty-fifth. Ms. Giraud was too old for evening parties. Who would still come to those anyway?

Léa got a sort of chemistry set to grow crystals. With the explosive personality of that kid, Josh thought that was a dangerous gift. She was radiant: it was exactly what she had asked from Santa.

“Sometimes,” she said, “I write things and he doesn’t get them. He doesn’t even leave a note to say sorry or anything!”

Josh had gotten pretty used to French language since Ms. Giraud had refused to keep speaking with him in English. It was for his own good, apparently. She knew the struggles of learning a foreign language pretty well, after all. Léa was a specially advanced class.

“Well,” said Josh, thinking she was a bit old to still believe in Santa, “Maybe Santa’s too busy to leave notes?”

The explanation seemed pretty dumb to Léa. “He only works one day in the entire year!”

They had a pretty nice chocolate cake brought by Stephanie, with layers and all. That evening, Mathieu, the eldest of the siblings, called. The call was pretty brief, as he simply warned he was coming over the next day to spend the day with his mother.

Mathieu was the serious one, explained Ms. Giraud. Fifty-eight years old, married for forty, no children. They didn’t get along great together, because he was always so sure of what was best for everyone else.

“I’ll tell you what,” she said, “he didn’t get that from me, that’s for sure. I fled my English family to get away from the people telling me how I should live my life, then I gave birth to one! I know he’s a good child and I love him very much, but most of the time he’s a pain in the butt.”

“Well,” said Josh, a bit taken aback, “I’m looking forward to meet him, I guess.”

“You’re a nice man, Josh,” said Ms. Giraud, giving Josh’s hand a reassuring tap. “Just don’t expect too much from my hard-headed son.”

As Josh would find out the day after, Ms. Giraud knew her son pretty well indeed.