“Merci,” she said. “And you look like crap.”
Ruth laughed. Then, lifting her middle finger, she waved to Armand and Reine-Marie, who were just stepping off their front veranda, Henri, Fred, and Gracie tumbling after them.
“Welcome home,” Clara called.
After greeting everyone, Armand and Reine-Marie sat down.
“Who’s that?” Harriet pointed to a young man, shirt off, placing logs in a teepee pattern in the firepit on the village green. Ready for the Canada Day bonfire that evening.
“My nephew,” said Billy. “He’s just started working with me.”
They all looked over. The young man was glistening in the mid-morning sun.
While the others turned back, Myrna noticed that Harriet had not. Myrna and Billy exchanged glances. Ahhhh, to have that many pheromones again.
Olivier placed French presses on the table for the Gamaches, along with jugs of hot, frothy milk.
“Merci, mon beau Gabri,” said Reine-Marie. She plunged, then poured the coffee while servers took their orders.
“How was the cabin?” Gabri asked.
It was a delicate way to ask how they were. And, just possibly, to dig for information.
As soon as they were able, after the siege at their home, Armand, Reine-Marie, and Jean-Guy had gone to the lake house. To spend the rest of June with their family. To swim and canoe. To sit on the dock and watch the early-morning mist rise from the lake, then burn off as they drank their coffee and did their sums and welcomed a fresh new day. One that, for a while that long night, they never thought they’d see.
The best sound ever, Armand decided, was the slamming of a screen door. It meant the children were awake and racing out to play.
It meant all was right with the world.
It meant that all was well.
He and Reine-Marie and Jean-Guy went for long walks in the late afternoon. The others, Annie, Daniel, Roslyn, left them to themselves. Understanding this was time they needed. Alone. Together.
At first they just walked, in silence. Each lost in their own thoughts. Then, little by little, they opened up. About what had happened.
Through the sunshine, through the woods, up and down the hills, over the wooden bridges, along the dirt road, they talked. And talked. And walked. And listened.
Sometimes they’d stop as one or the other halted. Overcome. Unable to go on.
They’d wait. And when the person was ready, they’d walk some more. Moving forward. Slowly. But always forward.
On clear, warm nights a bonfire would be lit. Marshmallows and hot dogs would be burned. Florence and Zora would crawl onto their grandfather’s lap, nestling into his open arms, while Honoré would curl up next to his grandmother, sharing a Hudson’s Bay blanket.
Jean-Guy always held Idola. Keeping her warm against his chest. Rocking her slowly. Back and forth. Back and forth. He’d push his chair back a little from the light so that no one could see his tears.
But rainy days were Armand’s favorites. They’d sit on the screened porch watching the warm rain on the lake, listening as it drummed on the roof. He’d get out the Monopoly board and, with Idola on his lap, he’d play all day with his grandchildren.
When they tired of Monopoly, he taught them cribbage and always, always, always cheated. Counting his cards to a ridiculous point total, to howls of protest.
And then it was time to leave.
If Armand’s and Reine-Marie’s embraces were a little tighter, a little longer, than normal, no one noticed. Or, if they did, they didn’t say anything.
John Fleming was dead. His skull crushed by the brick. Though Armand was honest enough to know it wasn’t the brick that did it. He did it. The brick just happened to be the tool at hand.
Sam Arsenault survived the gunshot wounds and was recovering in the prison hospital. He was charged with the murders of Claude Boisfranc and Monsieur Godin. Though Gamache suspected he was also responsible for the death of Madame Godin. Or was at least an accomplice.
But it was someone else’s case. He was now a witness.
He’d been interviewed, of course. And twice agents from his own department had traveled to the lake. He, Jean-Guy, and Reine-Marie had insisted the interviews not take place at the cabin, but in the detachment in Ste-Agathe. So as not to upset the children.
And now they were home in Three Pines.
Both Reine-Marie and Armand had wondered, as they’d driven back, how the place would feel.
Would they walk into their home and be overcome with terror? Would those ghosts come out of the walls, the floorboards, down the chimney and attack?
The place had been cleaned professionally, of course, in their absence. Several times. Then Clara and Myrna, Ruth, Olivier and Gabri, Monsieur Béliveau and Sarah and other friends and neighbors had gone in and scrubbed it down again.
What worried Armand and Reine-Marie as they got closer and closer to Three Pines weren’t the physical traces of what had happened. It was what could not be seen. That there was more in their home now than met the eye.
Armand unlocked the front door and reached for the handle, but Reine-Marie stopped him.
He looked at her, wondering if maybe she was about to say she could not go in. The place was not theirs anymore. John Fleming had taken possession of their home.
They would sell it and find a place somewhere else.
But instead, she laid her hand on top of his. “Let me.”
As she walked in, Reine-Marie was met with the familiar aromas of coffee and wood smoke and pine. The scents were embedded in the home.
But there was something else …
She turned and saw the huge bouquet of fragrant bee balm on the coffee table. And through the open door to the kitchen, she saw vases overflowing with roses and lavender. All from gardens around Three Pines.
Perennials. That never failed to return each year, no matter how harsh the winter.
She closed her eyes and dared the monster to do his worst.
Come on, she taunted. Come and get me.
She waited, but all she sensed was peace. And calm. And safety. There were spirits here, yes. But no demons.
Opening her eyes, she noticed a new painting. It was Clara’s latest.
The wild, exuberant, vibrant swirls of colors seemed to spill out past the unframed canvas and tumble into the room.
Reine-Marie couldn’t help but smile. She knew immediately what it was. Who it was.
She turned to her husband. Armand was searching her face. She reached out and placed her palms on his chest so she could feel his heartbeat.
“Welcome home.”
A few minutes later, as she embraced Clara, Reine-Marie whispered, “Merci. The painting is magnificent.”
They sat down and enjoyed breakfast together as the friends brought the Gamaches up to speed on village life.
The play Gabri was organizing.
The cooking course Olivier had decided to offer.
“I need to show you the new bedroom,” said Myrna. “Harriet’s room.”
“It’s finished?” asked Armand. “So quickly?”
“We all helped,” said Ruth.
They looked at her. Rosa had been more help than the old poet.
“There is one more thing we need to do,” said Clara. “But we’ve been waiting for you.”
“First, though, I have some questions.”
“For God’s sake, Ruth,” hissed Gabri. “We agreed not to ask.”
“You did. I never agreed to anything.”
“You did so,” said Clara.
This went on for some minutes while Reine-Marie finished her Croque Monsieur, the melted Gruyère and béchamel sauce dripping out of the crispy croissant and onto her plate. Armand poured more maple syrup over his blueberry pancakes until they looked like islands in a sweet sea.