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?”
“Oh, that would be nice, dear,” said Ruth.
Reine-Marie moved among their friends, who were scattered around the garden, catching bits of conversations in French, in English, most in a mélange of the two languages.
She looked over and saw Armand listening attentively as Vincent Gilbert told a story. It must have been funny, probably self-deprecating, because Armand was smiling. Then he talked, gesturing with his beer as he spoke.
When he finished the Gilberts laughed, as did Armand. Then he caught her eye, and his smile broadened.
The evening was still warm but by the time the lamps in the garden were lit, they’d need the light sweaters and jackets now slung over the backs of chairs.
People wandered in and out of the home as though it was their own, placing food on the long table on the terrace. It had become a sort of tradition, these informal Friday evening barbeques at the Gamache place.
Though few called it the Gamache place. It was still known in the village, and perhaps always would be, as Emilie’s place, after the woman who’d lived there and from whose estate the Gamaches had bought the home. While it might be new to Armand and Reine-Marie, it was in fact one of the oldest houses in Three Pines. Made of white clapboard, there was a wide verandah around the front of the house, facing the village green. And in the back there was the terrace and the large neglected garden.
“I left a bag of books for you in the living room,” Myrna said to Reine-Marie.
“Merci.”
Myrna poured herself a white wine and noticed the bouquet in the center of the table. Tall, effusive, crammed with blooms and foliage.
Myrna wasn’t sure if she should tell Reine-Marie they were mostly weeds. She could see all the usual suspects. Purple loosestrife, bishop’s weed. Even bindweed that mimicked morning glory.
She’d been through the flower beds with Armand and Reine-Marie many times, helping to bring order to the tangled mess. She thought she’d been clear about the difference between the flowers and the weeds.
Another lesson was in order.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Reine-Marie said, offering Myrna a morsel of smoked trout on rye.
Myrna smiled. City folk.
Armand strolled away from the Gilberts and was scanning the gathering to make sure everyone had what they needed. His eye fell on an unlikely grouping. Clara had joined Ruth and was now seated with her back to the party, as far from the house as possible.
She hadn’t said a word to him since she’d arrived.
That didn’t surprise him. What did was her decision to sit with Ruth and her duck, though it often struck Gamache as more accurate to describe the couple as Rosa and her human.
There could be only one reason Clara, or anyone, would seek out Ruth. A profound and morbid desire to be left alone. Ruth was a social stink bomb.
But they weren’t completely on their own. Henri had joined them and was staring at the duck.
It was puppy love, in the extreme. A love not shared by Rosa. Gamache heard a growl. From Rosa. Henri quacked.
Gamache took a step back.
That noise, from Henri, was never a good sign.
Clara stood up, to get away. She moved toward Gamache before changing direction.
Ruth wrinkled her nose as rotten egg settled around them. Henri was looking innocently around as though trying to find the source of the foul odor.
Ruth and Rosa were now looking at the shepherd with something close to awe. The old poet took a deep breath, then exhaled, turning the toxic gas into poetry.
“You forced me to give you poisonous gifts,” she quoted from her famous work.
I can put this no other way.
Everything I gave was to get rid of you
As one gives to a beggar: There. Go away.
But Henri, the brave and gaseous shepherd, did not go away. Ruth looked at him in disgust, but offered one withered hand to Henri, to lick.
And he did.
Then Armand Gamache went in search of Clara. She’d wandered over to the two Adirondack chairs, side by side on the lawn. Their wide wooden arms were stained with rings from years, decades, of drinks taken in the quiet garden. Emilie’s rings had been added to, and overlaid, by the Gamaches’ morning mugs and afternoon apéritifs. Peaceful lives intertwined.
There were two almost identical chairs in Clara’s garden. Turned slightly toward each other, looking over the perennial borders, the river, and into the woods beyond. With rings on the wooden arms.
He watched as Clara grasped the back of a chair and leaned into it, pressing against the wooden slats.
He was close enough to see her shoulders rise and her knuckles whiten.
“Clara?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
But she wasn’t. He knew it. And she knew it. She’d thought, hoped, that in finally talking to Armand that morning, the worry would go away. A problem shared …
But the problem, while shared, hadn’t been halved. It’d doubled. Then doubled again as the day dragged on. In talking about it, Clara had made it real. She’d given form to her fear. And now it was out. And growing.
Everything fed it. The aromas of the barbeque, the blowsy flowers, the chipped and stained old chairs. The rings, the damned rings. Like at home.
All that had been trivial, that had been comforting and familiar and safe, now seemed to be strapped with explosives.
“Dinner’s ready, Clara.” He spoke the words in his quiet, deep voice. Then she heard his step on the grass moving away from her, and she was alone.
All her friends had gathered on the deck, helping themselves to food. She stood apart, her back to them, looking into the darkening woods.
Then she felt a presence beside her. Gamache handed her a plate.
“Shall we sit?” He motioned to the chairs.
And Clara did. They ate in silence. All that needed to be said had been said.
* * *
The other guests helped themselves to steak and chutney laid out on the table. Myrna smiled at the weed centerpiece, still amused. And then she stopped smiling and noticed something. It really was beautiful.
Bowls of salad were passed around and Sarah gave Monsieur Béliveau the largest of the dinner rolls she’d made that afternoon, while he gave her the tenderest piece of steak. They leaned toward each other, not quite touching.
Olivier had left one of the waiters in charge of the bistro and had joined them. The conversation meandered and flowed. The sun set and sweaters and light summer jackets were put on. Tea lights were lit and placed on the table and around the garden, so that it looked like large fireflies had settled in for the evening.
“After Emilie died and the house was closed up, I thought we’d had our last party here,” said Gabri. “I’m glad I was finally wrong about something.”
Henri swiveled his satellite ears toward the sound of the name.
Emilie.
The elderly woman who’d found him at the shelter when he was a puppy. Who’d brought him home. Who’d named him and loved him and raised him, until the day she was no longer there and the Gamaches had come and taken him away. He’d spent months searching for her. Sniffing for her scent. Perking up his ears at the sound of every car arriving. Every door opening. Waiting for Emilie to find him again. To rescue him again, and take him home. Until one day he no longer watched. No longer waited. No longer needed rescuing.
He returned his gaze to Rosa. Who also adored an elderly woman and was terrified her Ruth would one day vanish, as his Emilie had. And she’d be all alone. Henri stared and stared, hoping Rosa might look at him and realize that even if that happened, the wounded heart would heal. The balm, he wanted to tell her, wasn’t anger or fear or isolation. He’d tried those. They hadn’t worked.
Finally, into that terrible hole Henri had poured the only thing left. What Emilie had given him. As he went for long, long walks with Armand and Reine-Marie, he remembered his love for snowballs, and sticks, and rolling in skunk poop. His love of the different seasons and their different scents. His love of mud and fresh bedding. Of swimming and shaking with abandon while his legs danced beneath him. Of licking himself. Then others.
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 S?reté 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?”