Cruelest Month

‘Our own Odile Montmagny has written an ode to the day and to this house,’ Monsieur Béliveau was saying as Odile shifted from foot to foot, as though she suddenly needed to relieve herself.

‘But Sarah Binks was my book. I was going to give it to her.’ Ruth grabbed it from his hand and used it to gesture toward Odile. ‘Where’d you get it?’

‘It was hidden in Madeleine’s bedside table,’ said Gamache.

‘Madeleine? She stole it from me? I thought I’d just lost it.’

‘She took it from you when she realized what you were going to do with it,’ hissed Myrna. ‘When you told Odile she reminded you of Sarah Binks she thought it was a compliment. She worships you. Madeleine didn’t want you to hurt her, so she hid it.’

‘This is a little something I wrote last night while watching the hockey game,’ said Odile. Nods greeted this insight into the creative process, this natural affinity between poetry and the playoffs.

She cleared her throat.

‘A cursed duck pecked off his ear,

And his face grew peaked and pale;

“Oh, how can a woman love me now?”

Was his constant and lonely wail;

But a woman came and she loved the man,

With a love serene and clear –

She loved him as only a woman can love

A man with only one ear.’

A silence greeted the last word. Odile stood uncertainly on the porch. Then, to his horror, Gamache saw Ruth move through the crowd, the Sarah Binks book clutched in her hand and Rosa quacking behind.

‘Make way for the duck and the fuck,’ yelled Gabri.

Ruth hauled herself onto the porch and stood beside Odile, taking the younger woman’s hand. Gamache and Myrna held their breaths.

‘I have never heard a poem that moved me so much. That speaks so clearly of loneliness and loss. Using the man as an allegory for the house was brilliant, my dear.’

Odile looked confused.

‘And like the blighted man the old Hadley house will be loved again,’ Ruth continued. ‘Your poem brings hope to all of us who are old and ugly and flawed. Bravo.’

Ruth slipped the book into her tattered sweater as she embraced Odile, who looked as though she’d found heaven on the battered porch of the old Hadley house.

Peter and Clara arrived, carrying a welcome case of beer. But they stopped just short of the house. Gamache watched and wondered what they’d do. More than any villager the old Hadley house had haunted Peter and Clara. And now the two stood outside the buzz of activity, and stared. Then Clara bent down and lifted the ‘For Sale’ sign. Using her sleeve she wiped the worst of the mud and dirt from its face, then she handed it to Peter, who thrust it into the ground. The sign stood upright, clean and proud.

‘Do you think anyone will buy it?’ Clara asked, wiping her hands on her jeans.

‘Someone will buy it and someone will love it,’ said Gamache.

‘But a woman came and she loved the man, With a love serene and clear – She loved him as only a woman can love A man with only one ear,’ Ruth quoted, joining them again. ‘Ridiculous poem, of course. But still…’ She limped off to join Odile, giving kindness another chance. Little Rosa waddled behind.

‘At least Ruth now has an excuse for the quacking,’ said Clara.

In the bright sunshine Armand Gamache watched as the old Hadley house was brought back to life, then he put down his beer and joined them.