Three Pines was asleep, as it always seemed to be. At peace with itself and the world. Oblivious of what happened around it. Or perhaps aware of everything, but choosing peace anyway. Soft light glowed at some of the windows. Curtains were drawn in bashful old homes. The sweet scent of the first autumn fires wafted to him.
In Beauvoir’s experience Darwin was way wrong. The fittest didn’t survive. They were killed by the idiocy of their neighbors, who continued to bumble along oblivious.
And what a tale those eyes told Gamache. In them he saw the infant, the boy, the young man, afraid. Never certain what he would find in his father. Would he be loving and kind and warm today? Or would he sizzle the skin off his son? With a look, a word. Leaving the boy naked and ashamed. Knowing himself to be weak and needy, stupid and selfish. So that the boy grew an outer hull to withstand assault. But while those skins saved tender young souls, Gamache knew, they soon stopped protecting and became the problem. Because while the hard outer shell kept the hurt at bay, it also kept out the...
“Most unhappiness comes from not being able to sit quietly in a room.” “Pascal,” said Gamache, recognizing the quote, and the appropriateness of it. “This man could. But he surrounded himself with objects that had a lot to say. That had stories.”
“Nothing sexual, you mean.”
“No, just a close father-daughter bond. And then in her late teens something happened and she left home. She never spoke to him or saw him again.”
“What happened?” Gamache was slowing the car. Clara noticed this, and watched the clock approaching five to five.
“No one knew. She never told anyone, and her family said nothing. But she went from being a happy, carefree child to an embittered woman. Very solitary, not very likeable apparently. Then, near the end of her life, she wrote to a friend. In the letter she said that her father had said something to her."
Which was why, Gamache knew, it was vital to be aware of actions in the present. Because the present became the past, and the past grew. And got up, and followed you. And found you. As it had the Hermit. As it had Olivier. Gamache stared at the cold, hard, lifeless treasure in his hand. Who wouldn’t be afraid of this? Ruth limped across the green to the bench and sat. With a veined hand she clutched her blue cloth coat to her throat while Gabri reached out and taking her other hand in his and rubbing it softly and murmured, “there, there.” She rose up but remembered to politely wave good-bye …