Still Life (A Three Pines Mystery)

'Clara? We need to talk. Can we talk?' Peter yearned to crawl back into their warm bed with a pot of coffee, some toast and jam, and the latest Lee Valley catalogue. Instead, he stood barefoot in the middle of their cold kitchen floor wielding a baguette like a wand at Clara's back. He didn't like the wand image. Maybe a sword. But was that appropriate? To wield a sword at your wife? He gave it a couple of swishes through the air and the crisp bread broke. Just as well, he thought. The imagery was getting too confusing.

'We need to talk about Jane.' He remembered where he really. was, placed the tragically broken sword on the counter and put his hand on her shoulder. He felt the soft flannel for an instant before her shoulder jerked away from his hand. 'Remember when you and Jane would talk and I'd make some rude comment and leave?' Clara stared ahead, snorting every now and then as a fresh drip left her nose. 'I'd go into my studio to paint. But I left the door open. You didn't know that, did you?'

For the first time in twenty-four hours he saw a flicker of interest. She turned to face him, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. Peter resisted the urge to get a Kleenex.

'Every week while you and Jane talked I'd listen and paint. For years, and years. Did my best work in there, listening to you two. It was a little like when I was a kid lying in bed, listening to Mom and Dad downstairs, talking. It was comforting. But it was more than that. You and Jane talked about everything. Gardening, books, relationships, cooking. And you talked about your beliefs. Remember?'

Clara looked down at her hands.

'You both believed in God. Clara, you have to figure out what you believe.'

'What do you mean? I know what I believe.'

'What? Tell me.'

'Screw off. Leave me alone!' Now she rounded on him. 'Where're your tears? Eh? You're more dead than she is. You can't even cry. And now what? You want me to stop? It hasn't even been a day yet, and you're what? Bored with it? Not the center of the universe anymore? You want everything to go back to the way it was, like that.' Clara snapped her fingers in his face. 'You disgust me.'

Peter leaned away from the assault, wounded, and wanting to say all the things he knew would hurt her the way she'd just hurt him.

'Go away!' she screamed through hiccups and gasps. And he wanted to. He'd wanted to go away since this time yesterday. But he'd stayed. And now, more than ever, he wanted to flee. Just for a little while. A walk around the Commons, a coffee with Ben. A shower. It sounded so reasonable, so justified. Instead, he leaned toward her again, and took her snot-smeared hands in his and kissed them. She tried to pull away, but he held on firmly.

'Clara, I love you. And I know you. You have to figure out what you believe, what you really, truly believe. All these years you've talked about God. You've written about your faith. You've done dancing angels, and yearning goddesses. Is God here, now, Clara? Is he in this room?'

Peter's kind voice calmed Clara. She began to listen.

'Is he here?' Peter slowly brought his forefinger to her chest, not quite touching. 'Is Jane with him?'

Peter pressed on. He knew where he had to go. And this time it wasn't somewhere else. 'All those questions you and Jane debated and laughed about and argued over, she has the answer to. She's met God.'

Clara's mouth dropped open and she stared straight ahead. There. There it was. Her mainland. That's where she could put her grief. Jane was dead. And she was now with God. Peter was right. She either believed in God, or she didn't. Either was OK. But she could no longer say she believed in God and act otherwise. She did believe in God. And she believed that Jane was with him. And suddenly her pain and grief became human and natural. And survivable. She had a place to put it, a place where Jane was with God.

It was such a relief. She looked at Peter, his face bent to her. Dark rings under his eyes. His gray wavy hair sticking out. She felt in her hair and found a duck clip buried in the chaos of her head. Taking it out, and with it some of her own hair, she placed her hand on the back of Peter's head. Silently she drew it toward her and with her other hand she smoothed a section of his unruly hair, and put her clip on it. And as she did so she whispered in his ear, 'Thank you. I'm sorry.'

And Peter started to cry. To his horror he felt his eyes sting and well up and there was a burning in the back of his throat. He couldn't control it any longer and it came bursting out. He cried like he'd cried as a child when, lying in bed listening to the comfort of his parents talking downstairs, he realised they were talking about divorce. He took Clara in his arms and held her to his chest and prayed he would never lose her.