Except—

He turned to the disheveled woman beside him.

Why was Clara here?

* * *

Clara looked away. She couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes. Knowing what she was about to do.

She wondered if she should speak to Myrna first. Ask her advice. But she’d decided not to, realizing that would just be shifting responsibility for this decision.

Or, more likely, thought Clara, she was afraid Myrna would stop her. Tell her not to do it. Tell her it was unfair and even cruel.

Because it was. Which was why it had taken Clara this long.

Every day she’d come here, determined to say something to Armand. And every day she’d chickened out. Or, more likely, the better angels of her nature were straining on the reins, yanking her back. Trying to stop her.

And it had worked. So far.

Every day she made small talk with him, then left, determined not to return the next day. Promising herself, and all the saints and all the angels and all the gods and goddesses, that she would not go back up to the bench the next morning.

And next morning, as though by magic, a miracle, a curse, she felt the hard maple beneath her bum. And found herself looking at Armand Gamache. Wondering about that slim volume in his pocket. Looking into his deep brown, thoughtful eyes.

He’d gained weight, which was good. It showed Three Pines was doing its job. He was healing here. He was tall, and a more robust frame suited him. Not fat, but substantial. He limped less from his wounds, and there was more vitality to his step. The gray had left his face, but not his head. His wavy hair was now more gray than brown. By the time he was sixty, in just a few years, he’d be completely gray, Clara suspected.

His face showed his age. It was worn with cares and concerns and worries. With pain. But the deepest crevices were made by laughter. Around his eyes and mouth. Mirth, etched deep.

Chief Inspector Gamache. The former head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec.

But he was also Armand. Her friend. Who’d come here to retire from that life, and all that death. Not to hide from the sorrow, but to stop collecting more. And in this peaceful place to look at his own burdens. And to begin to let them go.

As they all had.

Clara got up.

She couldn’t do it. She could not unburden herself to this man. He had his own to carry. And this was hers.

“Dinner tonight?” she asked. “Reine-Marie asked us over. We might even play some bridge.”

It was always the plan, and yet they rarely seemed to get to it, preferring to talk or sit quietly in the Gamaches’ back garden as Myrna walked among the plants, explaining which were weeds and which were perennials, coming back year after year. Long lived. And which flowers were annuals. Designed to die after a magnificent, short life.