The Long Way Home(49)

She prayed.

Rosa had hatched on her own but her sister, Flora, had fought to get out. So Ruth had helped. Peeling back the shell. Cracking it further.

And there, inside, was Flora. Looking up into those weary, wary old eyes.

Flora and Rosa had bonded with Ruth. And Ruth had bonded with them.

They followed her everywhere. But while Rosa thrived, Flora grew frail.

Because of Ruth.

Flora was meant to fight her way out of her shell. The struggle would make her strong. Ruth’s helping hand had weakened her. Until, late one night, Flora had died in that same helping hand.

It had confirmed all Ruth’s fears. Kindness killed. No good could come of helping others.

And so Ruth made it a policy to turn her back. Not for herself, but to protect those she loved.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“A poem begins as a lump in the throat. A sense of wrong,” Gamache continued the quote. “A homesickness, a lovesickness.”

Ruth glared at him over the rim of her cut glass tumbler, one she’d found in the Gamaches’ home.

“You know the quote,” she said, cupping the glass between two scrawny hands. “Not one of mine, as you know.”

“Not even a poem,” said Gamache. “It’s from a letter Robert Frost wrote to a friend describing how he wrote.”

“Your point?”

“Is the same true for any work of art?” he asked. “A poem, a song, a book.”

“A painting?” she asked, her rheumy eyes sharp, as though a barracuda was staring at him from the bottom of a cold lake.

“Does a painting begin with a lump in the throat? A sense of wrong? A homesickness, a lovesickness?” he asked. In his peripheral vision he saw that Rosa was awake and watching her mother. Closely.

“How the hell should I know?”

But finally, under Gamache’s patient gaze, she gave one curt nod.

“The best ones do, yes. We express ourselves differently. Some choose words, some notes, some paint, but it all comes from the same place. But there’s something you need to know.”

“Oui?”

“Any real act of creation is first an act of destruction. Picasso said it, and it’s true. We don’t build on the old, we tear it down. And start fresh.”

“You tear down all that’s familiar, comfortable,” said Gamache. “It must be scary.” When the old poet was quiet he asked, “Is that the lump in the throat?”

* * *

“Can I ask you a question?” Clara asked.

Olivier was busy setting the bistro tables for dinner. One of the servers had called in sick and they were shorthanded.

“Can you fold napkins?” Without waiting for a response, he handed her a pile of white linen.

“Suppose,” said Clara uncertainly.

Olivier searched through his tray of antique silver knives and forks and spoons for sets that matched. And then he separated them. First he matched, then he mismatched.

“Do you know where Peter went?” Clara asked.

Olivier paused, a spoon in his hand, like a microphone. “Why would you ask me that?”

“Because you were good friends.”

“We all were. Are.”

“But I think you and he were especially close. I think if he was going to tell anyone, it’d be you,” said Clara.

“He’d have told you, Clara,” said Olivier, going back to setting the table. “What’s this about?”

“So he didn’t tell you?”

“I haven’t heard from him since he left.” Olivier stopped what he was doing to look at her directly. “I’d have said something earlier, when he didn’t show up. I’d never have let you stew.”

He gathered up more silverware and Clara folded the napkins. They moved around one table, then over to the next.

“When you left Three Pines—” she began, but Olivier interrupted.

“When I was taken away,” he corrected.

“Did you miss Gabri?”

“Every day. All day. I couldn’t wait to come back. It’s all I dreamed of.”

“But you told me that the night you returned you stood out there”—she fluttered a napkin toward the bay window of the bistro—“afraid to come inside.”

Olivier continued to set the places, his expert hands making sure the old silver was properly mismatched and properly placed.

“What were you afraid of?” Clara asked.

“I already told you.”

They’d moved on to another table, and were circling it, setting it.

“But I need to hear it again. It’s important.”

She watched his blond and balding head bowed over the chairs, as though the empty places were sacred.

Olivier straightened up so abruptly it gave Clara a start.

“I was afraid I no longer belonged. I stood out there and watched you all in here, laughing, having fun. You seemed so happy. Without me. Gabri seemed so happy.”

“Oh, Olivier.” She handed him a napkin and he covered his face in the white linen. He rubbed his eyes and blew his nose and for a moment after he lowered the napkin he looked just fine. But then another drop made its way down his cheek. Then another. He seemed unaware it was happening.

And perhaps, thought Clara, he was. Maybe this was now normal for Olivier. Maybe every now and then he simply wept. Not in pain or sadness. The tears were just overwhelming memories, rendered into water, seeping out. Clara could almost see the images inside the tears. It was winter. A bitterly cold night. And Olivier stood outside the bistro. Through the frosted panes he saw the logs in the hearth. He saw the drinks and festive food. He saw his friends, he saw Gabri. Not just moving on, but apparently happy. Without him.