The Nature of the Beast (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #11) - Louise Penny Page 0,65

He doesn’t want to see anything to do with Laurent. But I come up, when he’s outside.”

She swung the door open and stepped inside. The bed was as Laurent had left it, unmade. And his clothes were scattered about, where he’d tossed them.

The two women sat side by side on Laurent’s bed.

The old farmhouse creaked and groaned, as though the whole home was in mourning, trying to settle around the gaping hole in its foundation.

“I’m afraid,” said Evie, at last.

“Tell me,” said Clara. She didn’t ask, “Of what?” Clara knew what she was afraid of. And she knew the only reason Evelyn had allowed her past the threshold wasn’t because of the casseroles she carried in her arms, but because of something else Clara carried. The hole in her own heart.

Clara knew.

“I’m afraid it won’t stop, and all my bones will disappear and one day I’ll just dissolve. I won’t be able to stand up anymore, or move.” She looked into Clara’s eyes. Clung to Clara’s eyes. “Mostly I’m afraid that it won’t matter. Because I have nowhere to go, and nothing to do. No need of bones.”

And Clara knew then that as great as her own grief was, nothing could compare to this hollow woman and her hollow home.

There wasn’t just a wound where Laurent had once been. This was a vacuum, into which everything tumbled. A great gaping black hole that sucked all the light, all the matter, all that mattered, into it.

Clara, who knew grief, was suddenly frightened herself. By the magnitude of this woman’s loss.

They sat on Laurent’s bed in silence, except for the moaning house.

It was a boy’s room. Filled with rocks, that might be pieces of meteors, and bits of white that might be plastic, or might be bones from saber-toothed tigers or dinosaurs. There were pieces of porcelain, that might be from an ancient Abenaki encampment. Had the old tribe enjoyed high tea.

The walls were covered with posters of Harry Potter and King Arthur and Robin Hood.

Up until that moment Clara had been shocked by Laurent’s death and appalled that it was murder. But she hadn’t really thought of him as a person. She’d only known Laurent as the strange, annoying little boy who made up stories and demanded attention.

And so Clara had averted her eyes whenever he burst in erupting with another fantastic tale.

But now she sat on his Buzz Lightyear bedspread. And saw his shoes, flung off in different directions. And socks, balled up and tossed to the floor. And books, loads of books. Who read anymore? What child, what little boy read? But Laurent’s room was filled with books. And drawings. And wonder. And a grief so thick she could barely breathe.

This was the real Laurent, and he was lost forever.

Clara stood up and walked to the bookcase, and gripped it, her back turned to Evie so that Laurent’s mother wouldn’t be subjected to Clara’s own suddenly overwhelming sorrow.

She was face-to-face with Babar and Tintin and the Little Prince. Leaning against the books was a series of small framed drawings of a nimble lamb. Pen and ink on white paper. The lamb was dancing. What was the word? Gamboling, she thought. Nine frames were lined up, leaned up against the books. The later ones were more sophisticated, with some watercolor added. All of the same lamb in a field. And in the distance, a ewe and a ram, watching. Guarding. On the back of each was written, Laurent, aged 1. Laurent, aged 2, and so on. The first lamb, the simplest, had just “My Son” written on the back and a heart.

Clara looked at Evie. She had no idea this woman had such skill. While his father was the singer in the family, Laurent’s mother was the artist. But there would be no more lambs. Laurent Lepage had stopped aging.

“Tell me about him.” Clara walked back to the bed and sat beside Evie.

And she did. Abruptly, in staccato sentences at first. Until in dibs and dabs and longer strokes, a portrait appeared. Of an unexpected baby, who became an unexpected little boy. Who always did and said the unexpected.

“Al adored him from the moment he was conceived,” Evelyn said. “He’d sit in front of me and play his guitar, and sing. His own songs, mostly. He’s the creative one.”

Clara remembered Al sitting on that chair at the funeral. The guitar on his lap. Silent. No songs left. Clara wondered if, like her art, his music was now gone forever. That