Robert Mongeau was of medium height, and while not rotund, he was heading that way. His hair was thick and still flecked with brown. His beard was trim and white, and his eyes a sort of hazel. He was in his late sixties, Armand guessed. There was an ease about him, and his good humor was obvious to anyone who spent more than a minute with the man.
Though Armand knew it concealed a private anguish. That much was also obvious to anyone who looked at the Reverend and Madame Mongeau.
“Really,” said Mongeau, replying to Armand with amusement. Then he turned to his wife. “Shall we?”
“Always.” Sylvie Mongeau lifted her arms. He pulled her out of the chair, took her in his arms, and they swung away, joining the young people on the green.
The others watched, smiling. It was clear, and becoming clearer by the day, that Sylvie Mongeau was dying. Myrna and Clara and even Ruth had approached her within a month of their arrival in Three Pines with offers of friendship. And to talk. Sylvie had accepted the friendship but declined the implied offers to discuss her health.
Myrna and Billy Williams finished their dance and joined the others, having first stopped at the food table.
“I’ve never seen her look happier,” said Myrna after eating an asparagus roll. It tasted of every childhood picnic.
At first the others thought Myrna meant Sylvie Mongeau, but they quickly realized she was watching her niece. Harriet was dancing with abandon, her arms waving over her head, her face turned to the stars. There was a sort of wild ecstasy about her. It was joy, gilded by extreme relief. And awash in booze.
The worst was over. She’d done it.
The adults were quiet, each watching the young people. Each remembering their own dances. And that first kiss.
Armand put his hand on Reine-Marie’s and remembered his last first kiss.
Then, one by one, they turned to the Mongeaus. Swaying slowly. Even though it was a fast song. He held her, his cheek against hers. Their eyes closed.
Armand took a sharp breath against the sudden pain. He looked away. Had to. Toward the bright, the luminous, the joyful young people. Their lives ahead of them.
When the song ended, the Mongeaus returned to their lawn chairs. Sylvie with a fresh glass of rosé, Robert with a beer.
“Armand,” he said, his voice low and soft. “Who’s that? I haven’t seen him before.”
Mongeau had tipped his beer bottle toward a young man standing on the other side of the bonfire.
“That’s Fiona’s brother, Sam. He’s staying at the B&B.”
“Ah. Fiona is the young woman who stays with you from time to time?”
“Oui.”
“But he doesn’t?”
“Non.”
Mongeau examined Gamache and seemed about to say something, but the man’s face in profile, lit by the dancing flames as he watched Sam Arsenault, did not invite conversation.
The minister decided to change the subject. Slightly.
“How did you come to meet her? A friend of your daughter’s?”
“Non” came the answer, perhaps a bit too quickly. Then Armand turned to him and smiled. “We met a few years ago. Reine-Marie has become a sort of mother figure for her.”
“Lucky her.” Mongeau waited, but that seemed to be that.
“Harriet isn’t the only one celebrating,” said Olivier, who’d overheard their conversation. “Fiona also graduated today from the École Polytechnique. Armand and Reine-Marie helped get her in.”
It wasn’t the whole story, thought Armand. Olivier was being discreet. Though he suspected the minister would find out soon enough. It wasn’t exactly a secret.
What no one there knew, not even Reine-Marie, was why Armand felt as he did about Fiona’s brother. Sam Arsenault.
Only one other person knew that.
When Jean-Guy had heard that Sam was now in Three Pines, he’d offered to come down. But Armand had declined.
“I appreciate it, but it’ll be okay. Merci quand même,” Armand had said on the phone that afternoon. Thanks anyway.
Through his study window he could see Billy Williams assembling the wood into a sort of teepee for the bonfire that night.
“It might even be a good thing.”
“How so?” asked Jean-Guy.
“Running away only makes things worse. I suspect the more I see him, the more I’ll realize he’s just a regular young man. Nothing—” What to say? Nothing sinister? Nothing disturbing? Nothing monstrous? “—more.”
Jean-Guy had long suspected the Chief Inspector had it backward. Beauvoir quite liked Sam. It was Fiona …
Jean-Guy never could get his head around Armand’s reaction to the boy. It was as though he was afraid of him. Beauvoir tried to set that thought aside as ludicrous but could not quite shake it. And his father-in-law’s reaction, immediate and visceral, that afternoon at the graduation only underscored that there was more there than met the eye.
While his offer to go down to Three Pines was sincere, the truth was it was the last thing Jean-Guy wanted to do. He was exhausted. He’d arrived at the neighbors’ barbecue just as the last overcooked burger was dropped onto the grass by some kid and eaten by some dog.
Then he’d spent eternity chasing Honoré, who was fueled by devil’s food cake, around the yard while Annie held Idola and smiled. Jean-Guy’s need to corral chaos almost always amused her, especially now there were two young children in the house. And with Honoré, they’d given birth to mayhem.
That boy loved being dirty and hated baths. Idola, on the other hand, loved baths. Loved being clean. Loved being dirty. Loved being held up, loved lying down.
She was still very floppy. The specialist said she would be for a while but would eventually, with training, be able to sit up by herself.
As he spoke to his father-in-law, Jean-Guy carefully supported Idola’s head while she slept in his arms, secure in the knowledge that she was safe and loved.
Jean-Guy Beauvoir thought about the Arsenault siblings and all the other children who never felt that. In fact, were raised knowing the opposite was true.
“Now that’s interesting,” said Ruth, breaking into Armand’s thoughts, just as Billy put another log on the bonfire, sending sparks into the night sky.
Across the village green, they saw Harriet laugh and place her hand on Sam Arsenault’s forearm. She said something, and he laughed. Just touching her arm before removing his hand.
Armand and Myrna exchanged glances.
“Well,” said the Reverend Mongeau, getting to his feet, “time to get to bed, I think.”
Again, he helped Sylvie up, and everyone rose to say goodbye. It seemed a good time for the adults to leave the party to the kids. Best not to see what happened next, they thought, remembering their own dances.
“Wait!” Harriet was walking quickly, if a little unsteadily, over. “You can’t leave yet, Auntie Myrna. I have something for you.”
She bent down and picked up a package wrapped in a towel that was under her chair.
“When I first came here, I was afraid of everything and everyone. It was all you could do to get me out of the bookstore.”
“Spiders!” said Clara. “Remember the spider incident? You got out fast enough then.”
“Peppermint toothpaste,” said Monsieur Béliveau, who ran the general store. “I had to hide it behind cans of mushroom soup. Actually, you were afraid of mushroom soup too.”
“Mushrooms could be poison,” said Harriet, as though that was reasonable.