Come on, you can’t tell me you even have an opinion.”

All this talk of warm chocolate dripping off fresh strawberries, or even pears, was making her collagen-filled mouth water. She looked around for the tiny chocolates hotels put on pillows. Her side of the bed, his side, the pillows, the night table. She ran to the bathroom. Nothing. Staring at the sink, she wondered how many calories there were in toothpaste.

Nothing. Nothing to eat. She looked down at her cuticles, but she was saving those for an emergency. Returning to the room she looked at his frayed cuffs and wondered how they’d frayed. Surely not by repeated touch.

“You humiliated me in front of everyone,” she said, transferring her hunger to eat into a hunger to hurt. He didn’t turn round. She knew she should let it go, but it was too late. She’d chewed the insult over, torn it apart and swallowed it. The insult was part of her now.

“Why do you always do it? And over a pear? Why couldn’t you just agree with me for once?”

She’d eaten twigs and berries and goddamned grasses for two months and lost fifteen pounds for only one reason. So that his family would say how lovely and slim she looked, and then maybe Thomas would notice. Maybe he’d believe it. Maybe he’d touch her. Just touch her. Not even make love. Just touch her.

She was starved for it.

Irene Finney looked into the mirror and lifted her hand. She brought the soapy cloth close, then stopped.

Spot would be there tomorrow. And then they’d all be together. The four children, the four corners of her world.

Irene Finney, like many very elderly people, knew that the world was indeed flat. It had a beginning and an end. And she had come to the edge.

There was only one more thing to do. Tomorrow.

Irene Finney stared at her reflection. She brought the cloth up and scrubbed. In the next room Bert Finney gripped the bed sheets listening to his wife’s stifled sobs as she removed her face.

Armand Gamache awoke to young sun pouring through the still curtains, hitting their squirrelled-up bedding and his

perspiring body. The sheets were kicked into a wet ball on the very end of the bed. Beside him Reine-Marie roused.

“What time is it?” she asked sleepily.

“Six thirty.”

“In the morning?” She got up on one elbow. He nodded and smiled. “And it’s already this hot?” He nodded again. “It’s going to be a killer.”

“That’s what Pierre said yesterday. Heat wave.”

“I finally figured out why they call it a wave,” said Reine- Marie, tracing a line down his wet arm. “I need a shower.”

“I have a better idea.”

Within minutes they were on the dock, kicking off their sandals and dropping their towels like nests onto the warm wooden surface. Gamache and Reine-Marie looked onto this world of two suns, two skies, of mountains and forests multiplied. The lake wasn’t glass, it was a mirror. A bird gliding across the clear sky appeared on the tranquil water as well. It was a world so perfect it broke into two. Hummingbirds buzzed in the garden and monarch butterflies bobbed from flower to flower. A couple of dragonflies clicked around the dock. Reine-Marie and Gamache were the only people in the world.

“You first,” said Reine-Marie. She loved to watch this. So did their kids when they were younger.

He smiled, bent his knees and thrust his body off the solid dock and into mid-air. He seemed to hover there for a moment, his arms outstretched as though he expected to reach the far shore. It seemed more of a launch than a dive. And then, of course, came the inevitable, since Armand Gamache couldn’t in fact fly. He hit the water with a gargantuan splash. It was cool enough to take his breath for that first instant, but by the time he popped up, he was refreshed and alert.

Reine-Marie watched as he flicked his head around to rid his phantom hair of the lake water, as he’d done the first time they’d visited. And for years after that, until there was no

longer any need. But still he did it, and still she watched, and still it stopped her heart.

“Come on in,” he called, and watched as she dived, graceful, though her legs always parted and she’d never mastered the toe-point, so there was always a fin of bubbles as her feet slapped the water. He waited to see her emerge, face to the sun, hair gleaming.

“Was there a splash?” she asked, treading water as the waves headed into the shore.

“Like a knife you went in. I barely even knew you dived.”

“There, breakfast time,” said Reine-Marie ten minutes later as they hauled themselves up the ladder back onto the dock.

Gamache handed her a sun-warmed towel. “What’ll you have?”

They walked back describing for each other impossible amounts of food they’d eat. At the Manoir he stopped and took her off to the side.

“I want to show you something.”

She smiled. “I’ve already seen it.”

“Not this,” he chuckled and then stopped. They were no longer alone. There, at the side of the Manoir, someone was hunched over, digging. The movement stopped and slowly the figure turned to face them.

It was a young woman, covered in dirt.

“Oh, hello.” She seemed more startled than they. So startled she spoke in English rather than the traditional French of the Manoir.

“Hello.” Reine-Marie smiled reassuringly, speaking English back.

“Désolée,” the young woman said, smearing more dirt onto her perspiring face. It turned to mud instantly, so that she looked a little like a clay sculpture, animated. “I didn’t think anyone was up yet. It’s the best time to work. I’m one of the gardeners.”

She’d switched to French and she spoke easily with only a slight accent. A whiff of something sweet, chemical, and familiar came their way. Bug spray. Their companion was doused in it. The scents of a Quebec summer. Cut grass and bug repellent.

Gamache and Reine-Marie looked down and noticed holes in the ground. She followed their gaze.

“I’m trying to transplant all those before it gets too hot.” She waved to a few drooping plants. “For some reason all the flowers in this bed’re dying.”

“What’s that?” Reine-Marie was no longer looking at the holes.

“That’s what I wanted to show you,” said Gamache.

There, off to the side and slightly hidden by the woods, was the huge marble cube. At least now there was someone to ask.

“Not a clue,” was the gardener’s answer to his question. “A huge truck dropped it here a couple of days ago.”

“What is it?” Reine-Marie touched it.

“It’s marble,” said the gardener, joining them as they stared.

“Well here we are,” said Reine-Marie eventually, “at the Manoir Bellechasse, surrounded by woods and lakes and gardens and you and I,” she took her husband’s hand, “are staring at the one unnatural thing for miles around.”

He laughed. “What are the chances?”

They nodded to the gardener and returned to the Manoir to change for breakfast. But Gamache found it interesting that Reine-Marie had the same reaction to the marble cube he’d had the night before. Whatever it was, it was unnatural.

The terrasse was mottled with shade and not yet scorching hot, though by noon the stones would be like coals. Both Reine-Marie and Gamache wore their floppy sun hats.

Elliot brought their café au lait and breakfasts. Reine-Marie poured Eastern Townships maple syrup onto her wild

blueberry crêpe and Gamache speared his eggs Benedict, watching the yolk mix with the hollandaise sauce. By now the terrasse was filling with Finneys.

“It doesn’t really matter,” they heard a woman’s voice behind them, “but if we could have the nice table under the maple tree that would be great.”

“I believe it’s already taken, madame,” said Pierre.

“Oh really? Well, it doesn’t matter.”

Bert Finney was already down, as was Bean. They both read the paper. He had the comics while Bean read the obituaries.

“You look worried, Bean,” the old man said, lowering the comics.

“Have you noticed that more people seem to be dying than are being born?” Bean asked, handing the section to Finney, who took it and nodded solemnly.

“That means there’s more for those of us still here.” He handed the section back.

“I don’t want more,” said Bean.

“You will.” And Finney raised the cartoons.

“Armand.” Reine-Marie laid a soft hand on his arm. She lowered her voice to a barely audible whisper. “Is Bean a boy or girl?”

Gamache, who’d been mildly wondering the same thing, looked again. The child wore what looked like drugstore glasses and had shoulder-length blond hair around a lovely tanned face.

He shook his head.