“They were awful,” he said finally, “but they were also kind of fun. So ridiculously inept they were sort of silly. Almost endearing.”

“Peter?” asked Olivier again.

“I think what upset me were all those colors mashed together—”

“Peter?” Olivier demanded. “Colors? Come on.”

“And you didn’t even see the lips,” said Clara.

“What lips?” they asked together.

“Peter put smiles in one of his paintings. It was sort of genius.”

As she said it, she felt light-headed, off balance. Gabri was yacking away about the likelihood of what he saw being anything other than soft and smelly. But Olivier was watching her.

“What’s happened?” he asked again, quietly.

Clara knew then that those paintings, and especially the one with the lips, were her mullioned windows. Frames through which she could see into Peter’s life. Like Olivier watching Gabri on that cold winter night.

And like Olivier, what she clearly saw was that Peter was happy. That was the message of the paintings. He was experimenting, he was searching. He’d left all that was artistically safe behind. He’d broken the ropes, the rules, and sailed off, leaving the known world behind. Exploring. And he was having the time of his life.

The works were messy. But emotions were.

Clara had looked through the window of those works and seen that Peter was happy.

Finally.

Without her.

Olivier looked around the bistro for a napkin to give Clara. Only then did he notice that she’d twisted the linen into all sorts of shapes. Intentionally or not, the napkins looked like creatures of the deep. Washed ashore in Three Pines. Landing on the bistro tables.

Olivier offered a napkin to Clara, who took it with surprise. She didn’t realize she’d made them. And she didn’t realize she’d been crying. She dabbed a sea creature to her cheeks and wondered what Olivier saw in her tears.

*   *   *

Gamache tossed the ball and watched Henri bound after it, through the deep grass and wildflowers.

He and Henri had walked up the hill and out of the village to the meadow behind the old mill. He needed to be alone with his thoughts.

Gamache knew that what Ruth had said about the creative process was significant. Important. And he felt on the verge of the answer. Almost there.

Toss, retrieve. Toss, retrieve.

A sense of wrong. A homesickness. A lovesickness. The words of Robert Frost surrounded him.

A lump in the throat. Every act of creation came from the same place, Ruth had said. And every act of creation was first an act of destruction.

Peter was dismantling his life. Picking it apart. And replacing it with something new. Rebuilding.

Toss, retrieve.

And the paintings were snapshots of the process.

That’s why he wanted to keep them. As a testament. A travelogue. A diary.

Gamache’s arm stopped. Henri, tail wagging his entire backside, stared as the hand and the ball slowly lowered.

Then Gamache threw, and both the ball and the dog sailed into the meadow.

Peter had left his home, physically, emotionally, and creatively. He was turning his back on everything familiar, everything safe.

Where once Peter used muted colors, now he used bright, clashing colors.

Where once Peter’s images were tightly controlled, now they were chaotic, unruly. Slapdash.

Where once his paintings were almost painfully self-satisfied and even pretentious, now they were silly, playful.

Where once Peter stuck to the rules, now he broke them. His first act of destruction. Experimenting with color, perspective, with distance and space. He wasn’t very good, yet. But if Peter kept trying, he’d get to where he wanted to be.

This new Peter was willing to try. Willing to fail.

Gamache stepped forward, approaching the answer. Seeing it just ahead of him. Henri had lost the ball in the thick growth and was rooting around, his bottom high and his nose down.

Every now and then he looked over at Gamache, for guidance, but Armand had his own search.

Where once Peter’s paintings were abstract, now … now.

Henri lifted his head in triumph. The ball in his mouth, along with a good chunk of wildflowers and grass.

Henri stared at Gamache. And Gamache stared at him. Both had what they were looking for.

“Well done,” Armand said to Henri. He took the slobbery tennis ball and clipped the shepherd on to the leash. “Well done.”

They hurried back to Three Pines, Gamache’s thoughts racing ahead.

Though he’d lived in the countryside, Peter had kept nature at arm’s length, eschewing it as the territory of amateurs. Still lifes, landscapes. All too figurative, too obvious. Unworthy of a great artist. Like himself. Who saw the world as more complex. As abstract.