A Trick of the Light

The Chief Inspector nodded. He’d thought the same thing. But what a world between the two. In one Lillian was sober and healthy, and in the other she was cruel, unchanged, unrepentant. Was she one of the King’s men, or had she come to Three Pines to push someone else off the wall?

Gamache put on his reading glasses and opened the large book he’d left at the bistro and retrieved.

“The alcoholic is like a tornado, roaring his way through the lives of others,” he read in a deep, quiet voice. He looked at Suzanne over his half-moon glasses. “We found this on her bedside table. Those words were highlighted.”

He held the book up. In bright white letters on a dark background were the words “Alcoholics Anonymous.”

Suzanne grinned. “Not very discreet. Ironic really.”

Gamache smiled and looked back down at the book. “There’s more. Hearts are broken. Sweet relationships are dead.”

He slowly closed the book and took off his glasses.

“Does that tell you anything?”

Suzanne held out her hand and Gamache gave her the book. Opening it to the bookmark she scanned the page, and smiled.

“It tells me she was on step nine.” She gave the book back to Gamache. “She must’ve been reading that section of the book. It’s the step where we make amends to people we’ve harmed. I guess she was here for that.”

“What is step nine?”

“Made direct amends to such people except when to do so would injure them or others,” she quoted.

“Such people?”

“The ones we’ve damaged by our actions. I think she came here to say she was sorry.”

“Sweet relationships are dead,” said Gamache. “Do you think she came to speak to Clara Morrow? To, what did you call it? Make amends?”

“Maybe. Sounds like there were lots of art people here. She might’ve come down to apologize to any of them. God knows, she owed a lot of amends.”

“But would someone really do that?”

“What d’you mean?”

“If I wanted to sincerely apologize I don’t think I’d choose to do it at a party.”

“That’s a good point.” She gave a big sigh. “There’s another thing, something I think I didn’t want to really admit. I’m not sure she’d actually reached step nine. I don’t think she’d done all the steps leading up to it.”

“Does it matter? Do you have to do them in order?”

“You don’t have to do anything, but it sure helps. What would happen if you took first year university then skipped to the final year?”

“You’d probably fail.”

“Exactly.”

“But what would failing mean, in this case? You wouldn’t get kicked out of AA?”

Suzanne laughed, but without real amusement. “No. Listen, all the steps are important, but step nine is perhaps the most delicate, the most fraught. It’s really the first time we reach out to others. Take responsibility for what we’ve done. If it’s not done right…”

“What happens?”

“We can do more damage. To them and to ourselves.”

She paused to sniff a lilac in full bloom on the edge of the quiet road. And, Gamache suspected, to give herself time to think.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, raising her nose from the fragrant flower and looking around, as if seeing the pretty little village for the first time. “I could see living here. It would make a nice home.”

Gamache didn’t say anything, judging she was working herself up to something.

“Our lives, when we were drinking, were pretty complicated. Pretty chaotic. We got into all sorts of trouble. It was a mess. And this is all we ever wanted. A quiet place in the bright sunshine. But every day we drank we got further from it.”

Suzanne looked at the little cottages around the village green. Most homes had porches and front gardens with peonies and lupins and roses in bloom. And cats and dogs lounging in the sun.

“We long to find home. After years and years of making war on everyone around us, on ourselves, we just want peace.”

“And how do you find it?” Gamache asked. He more than most knew that peace, like Three Pines, could be very hard to find.

“Well, first we have to find ourselves. Somewhere along the way we got lost. Ended up wandering around in a confusion of drugs and alcohol. Getting further and further away from who we really are.” She turned to him, a smile on her face again. “But some of us find our way back. From the wilderness.” Suzanne looked up from Gamache’s deep brown eyes, from the village green and homes and shops, to the forest and mountains surrounding them. “Getting sloshed was only part of the problem. This is a disease of the emotions. Of perception.” She tapped her temple a few times. “We get all screwy in how we see things, how we think. We call it stinking thinking. And that affects how we feel. And I can tell you, Chief Inspector, that it’s very hard and very scary to change our perceptions. Most can’t do it. But a lucky few do. And in doing that, we find ourselves and,” she looked around, “we find home.”