Page 227 of A Better Man

“Yes. The truth must come first. And then, maybe, reconciliation. Maybe.”

“You think Vivienne and her father might’ve reconciled?”

“Maybe. I think getting the courage to confront him was the first step. If not to forgiveness, at least to healing. And I think Homer’s willingness to meet her, and to take the money, shows that maybe he wanted that, too. Maybe.”

“He killed her,” Clara reminded Myrna. “Then he was willing to see Carl Tracey tried and convicted for something he himself did. Hardly the acts of a contrite man.”

“True.” Myrna pushed herself out of the sofa. “I guess I just want to believe.”

Just as she’d wanted to believe, desperately, that Clara’s miniatures were brilliant.

But that had proved a delusion. Dominica Oddly had made that clear. And had, with a few well-turned phrases on her site, destroyed Clara’s credibility as an artist.

Her gallery had dropped her. Collectors were returning paintings. Social media was on a feeding frenzy.

Myrna looked at the tiny paintings, nailed to the wall where Clara had put them. Where she could always see them. A reminder. A warning.

Oddly had been right about them. But she’d also been wrong. She might have a duty to tell the truth, but there was no need to be so cruel.

“Are you going to do a portrait of her?” asked Myrna.

“Her who? Vivienne? I never met her.”

“No, you know who I mean.”

Myrna waited for the answer. That would reveal so much about her friend’s state of mind.

But Clara didn’t answer. Or maybe she did, thought Myrna, as she watched her friend stare into the vast, white, empty expanse of canvas in front of her. And put down her brush.

Jean-Guy Beauvoir pulled the car in to the now-familiar yard, and he and Armand got out.

The donkeys noticed first. Coming over to the fence to greet them.

“What do you want?” demanded Carl Tracey, once again standing at the barn door with a pitchfork. “Come to arrest me? I keep telling you, I didn’t kill Vivienne.”

Jean-Guy looked at the man and felt a wave of revulsion. He might not have killed his wife, but he beat her. Isolated her. Tormented her.

But Carl Tracey had also done something else.

“Non,” said Beauvoir. “I’ve come to thank you. For saving my life.”

He didn’t offer his hand. Couldn’t take it that far. But he did look Carl Tracey, his unexpected savior, in the eyes. And saw there surprise. And even, maybe, a softening? A hint of what this man could have been, might still become. Might actually be, deep inside.

Carl Tracey’s actions on the bridge had been instinctive. Maybe, below all the rot, there existed some timid decency.

“Yeah, well, a blow to the head’ll do that.”

Was there, as he said it, the smallest possible smile?

“And I came to apologize,” said Gamache. “For having you arrested, charged. I was wrong, and I’m sorry.”

“You’re kidding,” said Tracey, scanning the woods, the road, behind the Sûreté officers. “This’s a trap, right?”

Did Carl Tracey go through life looking for, seeing, manufacturing traps set by others, for him? How, Gamache wondered, must that affect how he sees the world?

It didn’t forgive the abuse, the violence. It wasn’t Gamache’s to forgive. But it might help explain it.

“No, no trap. An apology.”