Until one day the pain and loneliness and sorrow were no longer the biggest thing in his heart.
He still loved Emilie, but now he also loved Armand and Reine-Marie.
And they loved him.
That was home. He’d found it again.
* * *
“Ah, bon. Enfin,” said Reine-Marie, greeting her daughter Annie and her son-in-law, Jean-Guy, on the front porch.
It was a bit congested as people milled about saying their good-byes.
Jean-Guy Beauvoir said hello and good-bye to the villagers and made a date to go jogging the next morning with Olivier. Gabri offered to look after the bistro instead of joining them, as though jogging was ever an option.
When Beauvoir reached Ruth they eyed each other.
“Salut, you drunken old wretch.”
“Bonjour, numb nuts.”
Ruth held Rosa and, leaning into Beauvoir, they kissed on both cheeks. “There’s pink lemonade in the fridge for you,” she said. “I made it.”
He looked at her gnarly hands and knew that opening the can could not have been easy.
“When life gives you lemons…” he said.
“It gave you lemons. Thankfully, it gave me Scotch.”
Beauvoir laughed. “I’m sure I’ll enjoy the lemonade.”
“Well, Rosa seemed to like it when she stuck her beak in the pitcher.”
Ruth stepped down the wide wooden stairs of the verandah and, ignoring the fieldstone path, cut across the lawn on a trail worn into the grass between the homes.
Jean-Guy waited until Ruth slammed her front door shut, then he took their bags into the house.
It was past ten in the evening and all the guests had left. Gamache fixed a dinner of leftovers for his daughter and son-in-law.
“How’s work?” he asked Jean-Guy.
“Not bad, patron.”
He couldn’t yet bring himself to call his new father-in-law Armand. Or Dad. Nor could he call him Chief Inspector, since Gamache had retired, and besides, that sounded too formal now. So Jean-Guy had settled on patron. Boss. It was both respectful and informal. And oddly accurate.
Armand Gamache might be Annie’s father, but he would always be Beauvoir’s patron.
They chatted about a particular case Beauvoir was working on. Jean-Guy was alert for signs the Chief was more than just interested. That he was in fact anxious to return to the Sûreté du Québec unit he’d built. But while Gamache was polite, there was no sign it went beyond that.
Jean-Guy poured himself and Annie glasses of pink lemonade, scanning the pulp for downy feathers.
The four of them sat on the back terrace, under the stars, the tea lights flickering in the garden. Then, when dinner and the dishes were finished and they were relaxing over coffee, Gamache turned to Jean-Guy.
“Can I see you for a few minutes?”
“Sure.” He followed his father-in-law into the house.
As Reine-Marie watched, the door to the study slowly closed. Then clicked shut.
“Maman, what is it?”
Annie followed her mother’s gaze to the closed door, then looked back at the smile frozen on her mother’s face.
That was it, thought Reine-Marie. The slight inflection in Armand’s voice earlier in the evening when he’d learned Annie and Jean-Guy were coming down. It was more than pleasure at seeing his daughter and her husband.
She’d stared at too many closed doors in her home not to recognize the significance. Herself on one side. Armand and Jean-Guy on the other.
Reine-Marie had always known this moment would come. From the first box they’d unpacked and the first night they’d spent here. From the first morning she’d woken up next to Armand and not been afraid of what the day might bring.
She’d known this day would come. But she’d thought, hoped, prayed they’d have more time.
“Mom?”
FOUR
Myrna turned the handle and found Clara’s front door locked.
“Clara?” she called, and knocked.
It was rare for any of them to lock their doors, though they knew from some experience that it would be a good idea. But the villagers also knew that what kept them safe in their beds wasn’t a lock. And what would wound them wasn’t an open door.
But tonight, Clara had bolted herself in. Against what danger? Myrna wondered.
“Clara?” Myrna knocked again.
What was Clara afraid of? What was she trying to keep out?
The door was yanked open, and when Myrna saw her friend’s face, she had her answer.
Her. Clara was trying to keep her out.
Well, it hadn’t worked. Myrna sailed into the kitchen, as familiar as her own.
She put on the kettle and reached for their usual mugs. Into them she dropped bags of tisane. Chamomile for Clara and mint for herself. Then she turned to the annoyed face.
“What’s happened? What the hell’s wrong?”
* * *
Jean-Guy Beauvoir leaned back in the comfortable armchair and looked at the Chief. The Gamaches had turned one of the main floor bedrooms into a sitting room, and Gilles Sandon had built bookcases on all the walls and even around the windows and door frame so that it looked like a hut made of books.
Behind the Chief, Beauvoir could make out biographies, histories, science books. Fiction and nonfiction. A thick volume on the Franklin Expedition seemed to spring from Gamache’s head.
They chatted for a few minutes, not as father-in-law and son-in-law, but as colleagues. As survivors from the same wreck.
* * *
“Jean-Guy looks better every time we see him,” said Reine-Marie.
She could smell her daughter’s peppermint tisane and hear the flapping, tapping, of moth wings against the porch light.
The two women had moved to the front verandah, Annie on the swing and Reine-Marie in one of the chairs. The village of Three Pines was spread before them, amber lights at some of the homes, but most in darkness now.
The women talked not as mother and daughter, but as women who’d shared a life raft and were now, finally, on dry land.
“He’s going to his therapist,” said Annie. “And to his AA meetings. Never misses. I think he actually looks forward to it now but would never admit it. Dad?”
“He does his physio. We go for long walks. He can go farther every day. He’s even talking about taking up yoga.”
Annie laughed. She had a face, a body, made not for a Paris runway but for good meals and books by the fire and laughter. She was constructed from, and for, happiness. But it had taken Annie Gamache a long while to find it. To trust it.
And even now, in the still summer night, part of her feared it would be taken away. Again. By a bullet, a needle. A tiny painkilling pill. That caused so much pain.
She shifted her seat and shoved the thought aside. After spending most of her life scanning the horizon for slights and threats, genuine and imagined, she knew the real threat to her happiness came not from the dot in the distance, but from looking for it. Expecting it. Waiting for it. And in some cases, creating it.
Her father had jokingly accused her of living in the wreckage of her future. Until one day she’d looked deep into his eyes and saw he wasn’t joking.
He was warning her.
But it was a hard habit to break, especially since she now had so much to lose. And had almost lost it all. To a bullet. A needle. A tiny pill.