How the Light Gets In (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #9) - Louise Penny Page 0,158

The window was positioned to catch the morning light, the youngest light.

Jean-Guy Beauvoir bowed his head, weighed down by the solemnity of the moment. Then, behind him, he heard a door open and everyone rose to their feet.

The chant came to an end and there was a moment of quiet before another voice was heard. Beauvoir didn’t need to look to know who it was.

Gabri stood at the front of the church, looking down the aisle, past the wooden pews, and sang in his clear tenor,

Ring the bells that still can ring,

Forget your perfect offering,

Around Beauvoir, the congregation joined in. He heard Clara’s voice. Olivier’s and Myrna’s. He even made out Ruth’s thin, reedy, unwavering voice. A doughboy voice. Unsure but unyielding.

But Jean-Guy had no voice. His lips moved, but no sound came out. He looked down the aisle, and waited.

There is a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.

He saw Madame Gamache first, walking slowly. And beside her, Annie.

Radiant in her wedding dress. Walking down the aisle on her mother’s arm.

And Jean-Guy Beauvoir began to cry. With joy, with relief. With sorrow for all that had happened. For all the pain he’d caused. He stood in the morning light of the boys who never came home, and he wept.

He felt a nudge on his arm and saw a linen handkerchief being offered. Beauvoir took it, and looked into the deep brown eyes of his best man.

“You need it.” Jean-Guy gave it back.

“I have another.” Armand Gamache brought one from his breast pocket and wiped his eyes.

The two men stood shoulder-to-shoulder at the front of the packed chapel, weeping and watching as Annie and her mother walked down the aisle. Annie Gamache was about to marry her first, and last, love.

* * *

“Now there will be no more loneliness,” said the minister, as he gave his final blessing on the couple.

Go now to your dwelling place to enter into

the days of your togetherness.

And may your days be good and long upon the earth.

The party on the sunny village green started in mid-morning on the early July day, and lasted well into the night. A bonfire was lit, fireworks set off, a barbeque was held and all the guests brought salads and desserts, pâtés and cheeses. Fresh bread. Beer and wine and pink lemonade.

As the first song started, Armand, in morning coat, gave his cane to Clara and limped slowly to the very center of the circle of guests, the center of the green, the center of the village, and put out his hand.

It was steady, not a quiver, as Annie placed her hand in his. He bent over and kissed it. Then he held her to him, and they danced. Slowly. In the shadow of the three huge trees.

“You’re sure you know what you’re taking on?” he asked.

“Did Mom?” his daughter replied with a laugh.

“Well, she was lucky. I happen to be perfect,” said Gamache.

“Shame. I hear that things are strongest where they’re broken,” she said, as her father moved her slowly around the village green, and she rested her head on his strong shoulder. The place he reserved for people he loved.

They danced past Gabri and Olivier, past Myrna and Clara, past the shopkeepers and villagers. Past Isabelle Lacoste and her family, past the Brunels, standing beside Agent Nichol. Yvette Nichol.

They smiled and waved as Armand and his daughter danced by. Across the green Jean-Guy and Reine-Marie danced past Daniel and Roslyn and the Gamache grandchildren, who were stroking Henri.

“You know how happy we are, Jean-Guy,” Reine-Marie said.

“Are you really?”

He still needed reassurance.

“None of us is perfect,” she whispered.

“I tried to kill your husband,” said Jean-Guy.

“No. You tried to save him, to stop him. And you did. I will be forever in your debt.”

They danced in silence, as both thought of that moment. When Jean-Guy had been faced with a choice.

To continue shooting at, and missing, Gamache’s legs. Or to raise his sights, and aim for his back. A shot that might kill the very man he was trying to save. But to not shoot would mean the Chief would certainly die. Be blown up as soon as he reached the door to the schoolhouse. Believing he was saving Jean-Guy.

It had been a terrible, terrible choice.

As had Isabelle Lacoste’s.

She’d gone with her instincts, and lowered her gun. And watched in horror as Beauvoir had fired, and the Chief had fallen.

The only thing that had saved Gamache was the presence of Jérôme Brunel, the former emergency room physician. He’d