I’m glad we were able to rent this old farmhouse for only a few dollars, even though we have to paint the rooms on the second floor to compensate for the low rent. I can’t stand the city in summer.

Out here, the plain stretches indefinitely, swallowed up in a whirl of blue and yellow. There’s nothing to trouble our minds, nothing. If I were an artist surrounded by so much beauty I’d cut my ear off, but I know nothing about mixing colours, the secrets of pigments and the euphoria of the artist. So much space makes me anxious, and sometimes I have to blow into a brown paper bag to free up the alveoli of my lungs. The cows look at me stupidly. When I go and talk to them, they charge me as if I wanted to harm them. One of the previous renters was hit by a tornado in the middle of July. The roof and the back balcony blew off.

The farmers in the area work from morning till night. Marcel, our neighbour, lives alone in a big house ever since his wife left him for a guy in the city.

"She was lonely. I can’t see what she finds in the city that she can’t find here. Museums, bookstores, the arts – that’s not what she wants. She likes comfort: washing-machine, dryer, dishwasher, a home entertainment system. She didn’t even want to take the TV that was in her room," he confided in us, with his eyes all watery.

On Sundays, he takes a holiday from working in the fields and heads straight for the only bar in the village, the one time in the week that he allows himself to live his "man’s life," as he likes to call it.

Since his wife left him, he has to see to everything. At least, that’s what he says.

That is why I offered to do his washing and his ironing. It was a chance to use his appliances because we don’t have any. Michel didn’t agree. He threw a fit of jealousy the first time I walked in with the neighbour’s ironing. He went out to the barn with the children and they played with his paints and brushes. By suppertime, the storm clouds had dispersed. And I had time to take the ironing back to the farmer’s.

Michel built a cabin for the children. Because there were no trees strong enough to support the structure, he installed a platform just in front of the barn. Our neighbour offered to help him, but Michel didn’t appreciate the offer. Often, I see the farmer coming and going on his tractor, he waves when he sees me in the distance. Once, he even mistook Michel for me, which did nothing to improve the relationship between the two men.

A month after our arrival, Marcel asked me what had attracted me to Michel, a man without a job, without a future, who painted pictures to earn his living. I should be more concerned about my children, he said to me, and about offering them the best. With these words, he took two beers out of the fridge, sat down beside me, and watched me while I ironed and folded underpants – mine, his and my boyfriend’s.

I know (because Michel’s sister told me before leaving town) that he tried to pick up Michel’s mother and his sister Roxanne. His father decided to avoid Sainte-Marcelline as long as Marcel was there. The house is for sale for a ridiculous price, but as Michel’s and Roxanne’s father says, it has a hidden defect.

When I come back to the house, I decide to cancel my arrangement with our neighbour. The village laundromat will have to do for the last few weeks of our holidays. While Mrs. Carreau is attending to our washing, I go off and check out the garage sales along the back roads. I buy a mannequin’s head, an old ventilator and small objects that are easy to transport. People find me crazy to load up with all this stuff. On the concession roads, I turn the radio and air-conditioning on full blast. I don’t always bring lunch with me.

The story of the farmer doesn’t stop there. On the contrary. One day, I ask him to repair the stove that Michel can’t get working. Mice have gnawed through the wires of the electric panel. He redoes the wiring and doesn’t charge us anything.

"Here we go again," says Michel. "We’ve just run up a new debt with him."

He couldn’t sleep that night thinking about it. I couldn’t either, but for an entirely different reason: the mice. A few years ago, they moved in, lock, stock and barrel. They resent the presence of the occasional renters. And they show it. Soon, they’re eating our food. In the cupboards, the Oreo cookies, Chunky chocolate, chips, the bread, sugar and flour are already half eaten. Only the canned goods are still intact.