In 1998, Matthieu was twenty-eight and teaching tennis at the Monsanto Country Club in Phoenix, Arizona. A year earlier he had been doing engineering work in the Utah salt flats, a quick but well-paying job for the state's Non-Profit Housing Corporation. A friend suggested they do a quick tour of Arizona before heading back to Marseille and he gladly tagged along. The others left after a week, as scheduled. Matthieu postp...

[RECAP: Joanna is a married writer of thirty-four, mother of two boys. At her son's school play she meets Alan, a rookie teacher of twenty-seven, and the two quickly hit it off, establishing a texting-based friendship fed by off-the-cuff jokes and an interest in theatre. He becomes an outlet of sorts in the face of a stressful job and a marriage strained by infidelity. The communication with Alan grows more and more intim...

JOANNA It's my son's school play today. Backstage, teachers and parents rush fussily from here to there amid a flock of costumed kids. It’s not how I usually allow myself to get. But I'm the class's resident Journalist Mom and I’ve let them suck me into this fully. The play's star and guest of honor happens to be an alumnus who went on to become a moderately famous rock climber, and with him, he brings the attention of th...