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“I don’t know. I think she’s angry at me, angry that she spent all those years in prison. And I didn’t. She wanted to hurt me.”
“But how could these pictures hurt you?”
Sam looked Beauvoir straight in the face. “You’ve always had a family, haven’t you? You’ve always belonged. I never have. She sent me those pictures as a message. She’s welcome in their home, in their lives, and I’m not. I’m out here. You don’t know her. She can be wonderful, but she can also be cruel.” He examined Beauvoir. “But maybe you do know that.”
He took a deep breath and stared again at the family photo. Like a starving child looking into a pastry shop, or a sinner glimpsing Paradise.
“Don’t laugh, but part of me even wishes that Monsieur Gamache had arrested me. At least in prison I’d have people around. I’d have, I don’t know, predictability. Stability. I’m tired of moving from place to place. I just want to stop, you know? I want someplace to go. I just want someone to care if I was home safe, even if that home is a cell. And that someone is a cop. And then, maybe, when I got out, Monsieur Gamache would take me in too.”
Jean-Guy did not laugh. He’d heard it before. Prisoners who didn’t want to be released. Men and women who reoffended so they could go back. Home. They weren’t free, but they were safe.
“I came here hoping maybe, maybe, the Gamaches would finally see me. Really see me. As I am now. Not as a screwed-up child but as a man, trying to do his best. Maybe, I thought, maybe Fiona and I could reconnect. Become a family again.” He mumbled something and Beauvoir had to ask him to repeat it.
“I thought maybe the Gamaches would invite me over for dinner.” He dropped his head and spoke to the table. “I stare at the pictures Fiona sent and pretend it’s my home. My family. I sit at the dinner table and listen as they talk about their day. And they ask me about mine. I even said to Fiona the other night that I hoped one day to meet the grandchildren. I know I won’t, but in my dreams the kids and I toss Frisbees on the village green while the Sunday roast is cooking. I’m sorry. This’s pathetic. I’m pathetic. Oh, shit.”
He dropped his head.
Jean-Guy understood. He’d been raised in a large family, but Sam was wrong about belonging. Just because there were people around didn’t mean you felt a part of it. For as long as Jean-Guy could remember, he’d always felt like a stranger. An outsider. Until he’d been invited one evening back to the Chief Inspector’s home for Sunday dinner.
He’d never really left. Not in his heart. At night, in his little apartment, Agent Beauvoir would close his eyes and smell the roast and relive that dinner. And know such a place existed. Such a thing existed. And that maybe, one day, he would not have to leave.
Yes. He understood.
Beauvoir pushed the phone across to Sam. “Erase those pictures, now. While I watch.”
“Yessir.” And Sam did.
Jean-Guy nodded and smiled and said, “Don’t worry. You’ll have a family of your own one day. It’ll be all right.”
Ça va bien aller.
It was, he remembered, exactly what he’d said to the ten-year-old Sam as the boy slobbered on his brand-new jacket.
Jean-Guy had rubbed the child’s back and repeated those words until the crying stopped.
It’ll be all right. It’ll be all right.
But it wasn’t.
“You came up here for a reason, Armand,” said Myrna. “Not just for Earl Grey.”
It took Armand a moment to remember. “Did the Special Handling Unit in the penitentiary try art therapy?”
She raised her brows. “What brought on that question?” Then she glanced toward the hole in the wall and had her answer. “Forget I asked. We tried everything. Forming choirs. Teaching them dog training. You don’t want to know how that went. Sports. Like lunatics ourselves, we kept trying and failing. And yes, including art therapy.” Myrna examined him. “You’ve been to the SHU. It’s a madhouse. Literally. All anyone wants is to prevent a catastrophe. A riot. Bedlam.”
“A breakout.”
“That, thankfully, has never happened, nor could it.”
“Did it work?”
“Art therapy with psychopaths? Jesus, that sounds like a really bad reality show. Though”—she paused—“I might actually watch that.”
They both spent a moment imagining …
“Did it work? Not even close. Two of them stabbed each other. One died.”
“So it was discontinued?”
