The next morning a dark police van drove up to the Canadian side of the U.S. border crossing at Richford.

A man and a woman in the uniform of the Judge Advocate General’s office in the States stood just on the other side of the barrier, military police at their side.

Waiting.

The van stopped twenty meters short, its engine running. The army officers looked at each other and shifted from foot to foot. Antsy.

The van door slid open and a large, burly man with wild gray hair stepped out. Then he turned and reached out his hand to help an elderly woman from the vehicle. And, after her, a tall elderly man.

They walked on either side of Al Lepage. Their pace measured, their faces solemn. Returning the man. Finishing the deed.

The bar lifted, but just before he crossed, Ruth stopped him.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I sent John Fleming to you.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t know. He terrified me and I wanted to get rid of him. I gave him you to save myself.”

Al Lepage considered Ruth Zardo.

“I could have sent him away too. That’s the difference between us. You saw evil and wanted nothing to do with it. But I invited him in.”

Al looked at the officers waiting for him. Then turned to the man and woman who had saved him once. He shook Monsieur Béliveau’s hand, then looked at Ruth.

“May I?” he asked, and when she nodded, he kissed her on one cheek. “I have no right to ask this, but please look after Evelyn. She knew none of this.”

Then he stepped across the border and became Frederick Lawson once again.

*   *   *

Before taking Al Lepage across the border that morning, Ruth had something she needed to do.

She picked up Rosa and walked over to Clara’s cottage. Letting herself in, she found Clara where she knew she’d be. Ruth sat on the sprung and lumpy sofa that smelled of banana peels and apple cores and watched Clara at the easel, staring at Peter’s portrait.

“Who hurt you once, so far beyond repair?” said Ruth.

“The line from your poem,” said Clara, turning on the stool to look at Ruth.

“I was asking you, Clara. Who hurt you once?” Ruth gestured to the easel. “What’re you waiting for?”

“Waiting?” asked Clara. “Nothing.”

“Then why’re you stuck? Like the characters in that goddamned play. Are you waiting for someone, something to save you? Waiting for Peter to tell you it’s okay to get on without him? You’re looking for milk in the wrong place.”

“I just want to paint,” said Clara. “I don’t want to be saved, I don’t want to be forgiven. I don’t even want milk. I just want to paint.”

Ruth struggled out of the sofa. “I did.”

“You did what?” asked Clara.