The Long Way Home

“And mine,” said Myrna.

“I’m coming back with the hose,” said Olivier as he left. “And no, that’s not a euphemism.”

Myrna spread a thick piece of toast with melting butter and jam and bit into it while Reine-Marie took a sip of coffee.

“What were we talking about?” Myrna asked.

“Cheeses.”

“Before that.”

“Them.” Reine-Marie Gamache nodded in the direction of her husband and Clara sitting silently on the bench above the village. What were they not talking about, Myrna had asked. And every day Reine-Marie had asked herself the same thing.

The bench had been her idea. A small gift to Three Pines. She’d asked Gilles Sandon, the woodworker, to make it and place it there. A few weeks later an inscription had appeared on it. Etched deeply, finely, carefully.

“Did you do that, mon coeur?” she’d asked Armand on their morning walk, as they paused to look at it.

“Non,” he’d said, perplexed. “I thought you’d asked Gilles to put it on.”

They’d asked around. Clara, Myrna, Olivier, Gabri. Billy Williams, Gilles. Even Ruth. No one knew who’d carved the words into the wood.

She passed this small mystery every day on her walks with Armand. They walked past the old schoolhouse, where Armand had almost been killed. They walked through the woods, where Armand had killed. Each of them very aware of the events. Every day they turned around and returned to the quiet village and the bench above it. And the words carved into it by some unknown hand— Surprised by Joy

*

Clara Morrow told Armand Gamache why she was there. And what she wanted from him. And when she was finished she saw in those thoughtful eyes what she most feared.

She saw fear.

She’d placed it there. She’d taken her own dread, and given it to him.

Clara longed to take back the words. To remove them.

“I just wanted you to know,” she said, feeling her face redden. “I needed to tell someone. That’s all—”

She was beginning to blather and that only increased her desperation.

“I don’t expect you to do anything. I don’t want you to. It’s nothing, really. I can handle it on my own. Forget I said anything.”

But it was too late. She could not stop now.

“Never mind,” she said, her voice firm.

Armand smiled. It reached the deep crevices around his eyes and Clara saw, with relief, that there was no longer any fear there.

“I mind, Clara.”

She walked back down the hill, the sun on her face and the slight scent of roses and lavender in the warm air. At the village green she paused and turned. Armand had sat back down. She wondered if he would pull out that book, now that she was gone, but he didn’t. He just sat there, legs crossed, one large hand holding the other, self-contained and apparently relaxed. He stared across the valley. To the mountains beyond. To the outside world.

It’ll be fine, she thought as she made her way home.

But Clara Morrow knew deep down that she had set something in motion. That she’d seen something in those eyes. Deep down. She hadn’t, perhaps, so much placed it there as awakened it.

Armand Gamache had come here to rest. To recover. They’d promised him peace. And Clara knew she’d just broken that promise.





THREE


“Annie called,” said Reine-Marie, accepting the gin and tonic from her husband. “They’re running a little late. Friday night traffic out of Montréal.”

“Are they staying the weekend?” Armand asked. He’d started the barbeque and was jostling with Monsieur Béliveau for position. It was a losing battle, since Gamache had no intention of winning but felt he should at least appear to put up a fight. Finally, in a formal gesture of surrender, he handed the tongs over to the grocer.

“As far as I know,” said Reine-Marie.

“Good.”

Something in the way he said it caught her ear, and then was gone, carried away on a burst of laughter.

“I swear to God,” said Gabri, raising a plump hand in an oath, “this is designer.”

He turned so that they could appreciate his full splendor. He had on a pair of baggy slacks and a loose lime-green shirt that billowed slightly as he turned.

“I got it from one of the outlets last time we were in Maine.”

In his late thirties and slightly over six feet tall, Gabri had passed paunchy a few mille-feuilles back.

“I didn’t know Benjamin Moore had a line of clothing,” said Ruth.

“Har dee har har,” said Gabri. “This happens to be very expensive. Does it look cheap?” he implored Clara.

“It?” asked Ruth.

“Hag,” said Gabri.

“Fag,” said Ruth. The elderly woman clutched Rosa in one hand and what Reine-Marie recognized as one of their vases filled with Scotch in the other.

Gabri helped Ruth back to her chair. “Can I get you something to eat?” he asked. “A puppy or perhaps a fetus?”