A Trick of the Light

Once they all had their cups and were seated Chief Inspector Gamache took a sip and placed the delicate bone china cup on its saucer and leaned toward the elderly couple. Madame Dyson reached out and took her husband’s hand.

Would she still call him “Papa” after today, Beauvoir wondered. Or was that the very last time? Would it be too painful? That must have been what Lillian called him.

Would he still be a father, even if there were no more children?

“I have some very bad news,” said the Chief. “It’s about your daughter, Lillian.”

He looked them in the eyes as he spoke, and saw their lives change. It would forever be dated from this moment. Before the news and after the news. Two completely different lives.

“I’m afraid she’s dead.”

He spoke in short, declarative sentences. His voice calm, deep. Absolute. He needed to tell them quickly, not drag it out. And clearly. There could be no doubt.

“I don’t understand,” said Madame Dyson, but her eyes said she understood fully. She was terrified. The monster every mother feared had squirmed in through that crack. It had taken her child, and was now sitting in her living room.

Madame Dyson turned to her husband, who was struggling to sit further forward. Perhaps to stand up. To confront this news, these words. To beat them back, out of his living room, out of his home, away from his door. To beat those words until they were lies.

But he couldn’t.

“There’s more,” said the Chief Inspector, still holding their eyes. “Lillian was murdered.”

“Oh, God, no,” said Lillian’s mother, her hand flying to her mouth. Then it slipped to her chest. Her breast. And rested there, limp.

Both of them stared at Gamache, and he looked at them.

“I’m very sorry to have to bring you this news,” he said, knowing how weak it sounded but also knowing to not say it would be even worse.

Madame and Monsieur Dyson were gone now. They’d crossed over to that continent where grieving parents lived. It looked the same as the rest of the world, but wasn’t. Colors bled pale. Music was just notes. Books no longer transported or comforted, not fully. Never again. Food was nutrition, little more. Breaths were sighs.

And they knew something the rest didn’t. They knew how lucky the rest of the world was.

“How?” Madame Dyson whispered. Beside her her husband was enraged, so angry he couldn’t speak. But his face was contorted and his eyes blazed. At Gamache.

“Her neck was broken,” said the Chief. “It was very fast. She didn’t even see it coming.”

“Why?” she asked. “Why would anyone kill Lillian?”

“We don’t know. But we’ll find out who did this.”

Armand Gamache cupped his large hands toward her. An offering.

Jean Guy Beauvoir noticed the tremble in the Chief’s right hand. Very slight.

This too was new, since the factory.

Madame Dyson dropped her tiny hand from her breast into Gamache’s hands and he closed them, holding hers like a sparrow.

He said nothing then. And neither did she.

They sat in silence, and would sit there for as long as it took.

Beauvoir looked at Monsieur Dyson. His rage had turned to confusion. A man of action in his younger days now imprisoned in an easy chair. Unable to save his daughter. Unable to comfort his wife.

Beauvoir got up and offered the elderly man his own arms. Monsieur Dyson stared at them, then swung both hands to Beauvoir’s arm and grabbed on. Beauvoir lifted him to a standing position and supported him while the old man turned to his wife. And put out his arms.

She stood and walked into them.

They held each other and held each other up. And wept.

Eventually they parted.

Beauvoir had found tissues and gave each a handful. When they were able Chief Inspector Gamache asked them some questions.

“Lillian lived in New York for many years. Can you tell us anything about her life there?”

“She was an artist,” her father said. “Wonderful. We didn’t visit her often but she came home every couple of years or so.”

It sounded vague, to Gamache. An exaggeration.

“She made a living as an artist?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” Madame Dyson said. “She was a big success.”

“She was married once?” the Chief asked.

“Morgan was his name,” said Madame Dyson.

“No, not Morgan,” said her husband. “But close. Madison.”

“Yes, that’s it. It was a long time ago and they weren’t married long. We never met him but he wasn’t a nice man. Drank. Poor Lillian was taken in by him completely. Very charming, but they so often are.”