On September 11 2001 I drove back from the Institut Godegrand confidant that I had found an appropriate special needs school for Justine. I didn't expect to see smoke pouring out of the windows of our stone house with the bodies of our ducks and chickens strewn on the road and the hacked down trunks of the pear tree and wysteria collapsed in front of the kitchen door.
Jeannie, 5, ran into my arms and I hugged her hard and then pulled back, appalled. The left side of her face drooped and drool slipped from her mouth. Her left eye lid was half-closed. I glanced at John who said, 'Don't worry! That's just Jeannie pulling faces as usual; she's such a clown!'
