Cruelest Month

‘Exactly. Pity for compassion. Everyone thought you were a saint but it served a purpose for you. Made you feel needed and better than all the people you helped. When you met up with Madeleine again she was still ill. You liked that. Meant you could nurse her, look after her. Be in charge. She was sick and needy and you weren’t. But then she did something you hadn’t counted on. She got better. Better than ever. A Madeleine not only shiny and bright and alive, but full of gratitude and the desire to grab life. But the life she grabbed was yours. Little by little she was taking over again. Your friends, your job at the ACW. You could see it coming, the day when you again faded into the background. And then Madeleine crossed the line. She took the two things you cherished most. Your daughter and Monsieur Béliveau. Both turned their attentions to her. Your enemy was back and living in your home and eating off your plates and feeding off your life.’

Hazel was slumped in her chair.

‘What was it like for you?’

She looked up.

‘What do you think it was like? All through high school coming second in everything. I was the best volleyball player on the team, until Mad joined.’

‘But second best is still great,’ said Gabri, who’d have loved to come in the top ten in any athletic event, even the Wellington Boot Toss at the fair.

‘You think so? Try it all the time. At everything. And having people like you saying exactly that, all my life. Second best is good. Second best is fine. Well it isn’t. Even in the school play. I was finally in charge. The producer. But who got all the credit when the play was a success?’

She needn’t tell them. A picture, bright and brutal, was forming. How many condescending smiles could one person take? How many fleeting glances as the person searched for the real star?

Madeleine.

How bitter a thing it is, thought Clara.

‘Then out of the blue Madeleine called. She was ill, she wanted to see me. I searched my heart and couldn’t find any more hatred. And when we met she looked so tired and pathetic.’

Everyone could see the reunion. The roles finally reversed. And Hazel making the one, spectacular mistake. Inviting Madeleine to live with her.

‘Madeleine was wonderful. She brightened up the house.’ Hazel smiled at the memory. ‘We laughed and talked and did everything together. I introduced her around and got her involved in committees. She was my best friend again, but this time an equal. I started to fall in love with her again. It was the most wonderful time. Do you have any idea what that feels like? I didn’t even know I was lonely until Mad was there again, and suddenly my heart was full. But then people began calling just for her, and Gabri asked her to take over the ACW, even though I was vice-president.’

‘But you hated the job,’ said Gabri.

‘I did. But I hated being left out more. Everyone does, don’t you know that?’

Clara thought of all the wedding invitations she hadn’t received and how she’d felt. Partly relieved at not having to go to the party and bring a gift they couldn’t afford, but mostly offended at being left out. Forgotten. Or worse. Remembered but not included.

‘Then she took Monsieur Béliveau,’ Gamache said.

‘When Ginette was dying she’d often say he and I would make a good couple. Keep each other company. I began to hope, to think maybe that was true.’

‘But he wanted more than just company,’ said Myrna.

‘He wanted her,’ said Hazel, the bitterness seeping out. ‘And I started to see I’d made a terrible mistake. But I couldn’t see how to get out of it.’

‘When did you decide to kill her?’ Gamache asked.

‘When Sophie came home for Christmas, and kissed her first.’

The simple, devastating fact sat in their sacred circle, like the dead little bird. Gamache was reminded of the one thing they were told over and over: don’t go into the woods in spring. You don’t want to get between a mother and her baby.

Madeleine had.

Finally Gamache spoke. ‘You’d kept Sophie’s ephedra from a few years ago. Not because you planned to use it then, but because you don’t throw anything away.’

Not furniture, not books, not emotions, thought Gamache. Hazel let nothing go.

‘According to the lab, the pills used were too pure to be the recent manufacture. At first I thought the ephedra was from your store,’ he said to Odile. ‘But then I remembered there’d been another bottle of pills. A few years ago. Hazel said Madeleine had found it and confiscated them, but that wasn’t true, was it, Sophie?’

‘Mom?’ Sophie sat wide-eyed, stunned.

Hazel reached for her hand, but Sophie quickly withdrew it. Hazel looked more affected by that than anything else.

‘You found them. And you used them on Madeleine for me?’

Clara tried to ignore the inflection, the hint of satisfaction in Sophie’s voice.

‘I had to. She was taking you away. Taking everything.’

‘You first tried to kill her at the Friday night séance,’ said Gamache, ‘but you didn’t give her enough.’