A Trick of the Light

Their fight.

How close she’d come to getting dressed and leaving him. Taking the car, driving to Montréal. Checking into a cheap hotel.

And then?

And then, something. The rest of her life, she supposed. She hadn’t cared.

But then Peter had finally told her the truth.

They’d talked into the night, and fallen asleep. Not touching, not yet. They were both too bruised for that. It was as though they’d been skinned and dissected. Deboned. Their innards brought out. Examined. And found to be rotten.

They didn’t have a marriage, they had a parody of a partnership.

But they’d also found that maybe, maybe, they could put themselves together again.

It would be different. Would it be better?

Clara didn’t know.

“Morning,” said Peter when she appeared, her hair sticking up on one side, a crust of sleep on her face.

“Morning,” she said.

He poured her a mug of coffee.

Once Clara had fallen asleep, and he’d heard the heavy breathing and a snort, he’d gone down to the living room. He found the newspaper. He found the glossy catalog for her show.

And he’d sat there all night. Memorizing the New York Times review. Memorizing the London Times review. So that he knew them by heart.

So that he too would have a choice of what to believe.

And then he’d stared at the reproductions of her paintings in the catalog.

They were brilliant. But then he already knew that. In the past, though, he’d looked at her portraits and seen flaws. Real or imagined. A brush stroke slightly off. The hands that could have been better. He’d deliberately concentrated on the minutiae so that he wouldn’t have to see the whole.

Now he looked at the whole.

To say he was happy about it would be a lie, and Peter Morrow was determined not to lie anymore. Not to himself. Not to Clara.

The truth was, it still hurt to see such talent. But for the first time since he’d met Clara he was no longer looking for the flaws.

But there was something else he’d struggled with all night. He’d told her everything. Every stinking thing he’d done and thought. So she’d know it all. So there was nothing hidden, to surprise either of them.

Except one thing.

Lillian. And what he’d said to her at the student art show so many years ago. The number of words he could count on his fingers. But each had been a bullet. And each had hit its target. Clara.

“Thanks,” said Clara, accepting the mug of rich, strong coffee. “Smells good.”

She too was determined not to lie, not to pretend everything was fine in the hope that fantasy might become reality. The truth was, the coffee did smell good. That at least was safe to say.

Peter sat down, screwing up his courage to tell her about what he’d done. He took a breath, closed his eyes briefly, then opened his mouth to speak.

“They’re back early.” Clara nodded out the window, where she’d been staring.

Peter watched as a Volvo pulled up and parked. Chief Inspector Gamache and Jean Guy Beauvoir got out and walked toward the bistro.

He closed his mouth and stepped back, deciding now wasn’t the time after all.

Clara smiled as she watched the two men out the window. It amused her that Inspector Beauvoir no longer locked their car. When they’d first come to Three Pines, to investigate Jane’s murder, the officers had made sure the car was always locked. But now, several years later, they didn’t bother.

They knew, she presumed, that people in Three Pines might occasionally take a life, but not a car.

Clara looked at the kitchen clock. Almost eight. “They must’ve left Montréal just after six.”

“Uh-huh,” said Peter, watching Gamache and Beauvoir disappear into the bistro. Then he looked down at Clara’s hands. One held the mug, but the other rested on the old pine table, a loose fist.

Did he dare?

He reached out and very slowly, so as not to surprise or frighten her, he placed his large hand on hers. Cupping her fist in his palm. Making it safe there, in the little home his hand created.

And she let him.

It was enough, he told himself.

No need to tell her the rest. No need to upset her.

*   *   *

“I’ll have,” said Beauvoir slowly, staring at the menu. He had no appetite, but he knew he had to order something. There were blueberry pancakes, crêpes, eggs Benedict, bacon and sausages and fresh, warm croissants on the menu.

He’d been up since five. Had picked up the Chief at quarter to six. And now it was almost seven thirty. He waited for his hunger to kick in.

Chief Inspector Gamache lowered the menu and looked at the waiter. “While he’s trying to decide, I’ll have a bowl of café au lait and some blueberry pancakes with sausages.”

“Merci,” said the waiter, taking Gamache’s menu and looking at Beauvoir. “And you, monsieur?”

“It all looks so good,” said Beauvoir. “I’ll have the same thing as the Chief Inspector, thank you.”

“I thought for sure you’d have the eggs Benedict,” smiled Gamache, as the waiter left them. “I thought it was your favorite.”