‘Clara, I love you. And I know you. You have to figure out what you believe, what you really, truly believe. All these years you’ve talked about God. You’ve written about your faith. You’ve done dancing angels, and yearning goddesses. Is God here, now, Clara? Is he in this room?’
Peter’s kind voice calmed Clara. She began to listen.
‘Is he here?’ Peter slowly brought his forefinger to her chest, not quite touching. ‘Is Jane with him?’
Peter pressed on. He knew where he had to go. And this time it wasn’t somewhere else. ‘All those questions you and Jane debated and laughed about and argued over, she has the answer to. She’s met God.’
Clara’s mouth dropped open and she stared straight ahead. There. There it was. Her mainland. That’s where she could put her grief. Jane was dead. And she was now with God. Peter was right. She either believed in God, or she didn’t. Either was OK. But she could no longer say she believed in God and act otherwise. She did believe in God. And she believed that Jane was with him. And suddenly her pain and grief became human and natural. And survivable. She had a place to put it, a place where Jane was with God.
It was such a relief. She looked at Peter, his face bent to her. Dark rings under his eyes. His gray wavy hair sticking out. She felt in her hair and found a duck clip buried in the chaos of her head. Taking it out, and with it some of her own hair, she placed her hand on the back of Peter’s head. Silently she drew it toward her and with her other hand she smoothed a section of his unruly hair, and put her clip on it. And as she did so she whispered in his ear, ‘Thank you. I’m sorry.’
And Peter started to cry. To his horror he felt his eyes sting and well up and there was a burning in the back of his throat. He couldn’t control it any longer and it came bursting out. He cried like he’d cried as a child when, lying in bed listening to the comfort of his parents talking downstairs, he realised they were talking about divorce. He took Clara in his arms and held her to his chest and prayed he would never lose her.
The meeting at the Sûreté headquarters in Montreal didn’t last long. The coroner hoped to have a preliminary report that afternoon and would bring it by Three Pines on her way home. Jean Guy Beauvoir reported his conversation with Robert Lemieux, of the Cowansville Sûreté, still eager to help.
‘He says Yolande Fontaine herself is clean. Some vague suspicions of slippery practices as a real estate agent, but nothing against the law, yet. But her husband and son are quite popular with the police, both the local and the Sûreté. Her husband is André Malenfant, aged thirty-seven. Five counts of drunk and disorderly. Two of assault. Two of breaking and entering.’