The car-theft ring had been dismantled with ease on the strength of anonymous information provided by Lessard’s son.
“Thank you for not telling anyone about Martin.”
She seemed too moved to acknowledge his thanks. She stepped close and gave Lessard a hug. When she pulled away, she kissed him lightly on the lips.
“We’re going to miss you, Victor. Stay in touch.”
She hurried out, not wanting to cry.
Carrying the bouquet, Lessard arrived at the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery around three. The grass was starting to turn green. Petunias were blooming around some of the gravestones. He hadn’t walked this far in one day since he was a teenager.
He passed the chapel and went up the cemetery’s main avenue. Birds were singing lustily, and two grey squirrels were chasing each other among the trees. Life was returning to the city after a long, hard winter.
Lessard remained in front of Ariane Bélanger’s grave for a long while. She had died a month ago, almost to the day. Cut down in her prime. He had never believed in an afterlife. There was nothing he wanted to say. He didn’t believe in heaven, either. But the connection he’d shared with Ariane, brief though it was, had stayed with him. It would help him on the road ahead.
He looked at the grave one last time before turning around and going back the way he had come.
Without noticing it, he walked past a grey granite headstone that stood over a fresh grave.
Miles Green
1956–2005
He went back along the main avenue to the chapel. The others hadn’t arrived yet. He sat down on a bench to wait.
Tanguay hadn’t demanded any explanations. The commander had even congratulated him for preventing Robert Delorme from committing another murder. Lessard would be awarded a service medal. Tanguay had also refrained from bringing up Lessard’s failure to inform him about Stefan Gustaffson’s murder.
In return, Lessard had taken no further action regarding the kinky photographs in Jacques Mongeau’s computer, and had decided not to do any more digging into the “intimate soirées.”
What role had Tanguay played in the whole affair? Was he personally implicated? Protecting someone? Had he been taking bribes from Mongeau in return for his protection? Had anyone blackmailed him? Was he the man who had posed as a journalist?
Lessard would never know. The truth was, he didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was striking a deal and ending hostilities.
Tanguay had granted him the six-month leave of absence he’d requested, half of which would be paid.
Lessard had left the commander’s office without shaking his hand. There was no longer any respect between the two men, only a working relationship based on a shared understanding of their respective interests.
He saw the car coming up the avenue.
Marie had agreed in principle to the idea of shared custody. Within a month, Lessard would be able to keep the kids for three consecutive days each week. If everything went well during that trial period, he’d be able to take them for seven days at a stretch, alternating with Marie.
Charlotte was the first one out of the car. She threw her arms around him. Martin came after her. As always, the boy had headphones over his ears, but he was grinning from ear to ear. Marie, leaning against the car, was smiling, too.
He had already bought a tent, a camping stove, and sleeping bags. The kids were thrilled at the idea of crossing the country by train. If everything went according to plan, they’d be gone for six weeks.
Victor Lessard lifted a tear-streaked face to the sun.
He didn’t know what the future held. He didn’t know whether he’d go back to police work when he returned. But with his daughter hugging him for all she was worth, he couldn’t help thinking that life was a beautiful thing.
At times.
SIMONE FORTIN
The sun’s glare is intense on this unseasonably warm September day, but a caressing wind helps keep the heat at bay.
I stretch lazily.
Beyond the wharf, the river has extended a couple of liquid tentacles between the few boats that lie on their sides like beached shellfish. At low tide, the salty tang of seaweed fills the air.
I look at my watch. It’s almost one o’clock. Lunch break will be over soon. The nurses who came outside with me are putting on their shoes, getting ready to go back to work. I wrap up the uneaten half of my sandwich and do likewise.
Through the trees, I can make out the outline of the Trois-Pistoles Hospital. If we walk at a decent pace, we’ll be back well before one-thirty. As I do every time I come here, I glance at the spot on the wharf marked with a cross, where Miles fractured his skull that summer day in 1998. I’m not sad or emotional. I simply walk with the others in silence.
After multiple requests to the College of Physicians, several interviews, and a few written examinations, I was given permission to practise medicine again on the condition that I redo my residency. I chose the Trois-Pistoles Hospital not out of nostalgia, but because I wanted to settle down in the area.
By pooling our savings, Laurent and I were able to buy the house on the Chemin du Havre where he had spent his childhood summers with Miles. Laurent has poured all his energy into restoring the place. Every evening, when I come home, his hair is full of plaster dust. But he never complains. He’s been working on the house for several weeks now, and we’ll soon be able to move in. I’ll occupy the ground floor with Mathilde; Laurent will live upstairs. For the moment, we’ve agreed that the only shared space will be the kitchen.
Coming to the town’s main street, the nurses and I walk past the church and then the rectory. A young priest is standing outside in his shirtsleeves, enjoying the sunshine. He waves at us, and I give him a big smile.
When I brought Mathilde to school this morning, her teacher pulled me aside. She showed me a drawing that the child had made. In it, Ariane was sitting in a blue sky beside a sun that shone down on three smiling people: Laurent, Mathilde, and me. “I think she’s on the right track,” the teacher said in a low voice. She was right. Mathilde has been through a lot, but time is slowly healing the wounds.
I continue to walk. The nurses in their white uniforms giggle when we pass a group of young men. I can sense them stealing glances at my face, but I hardly care.
The scars that Robert Delorme’s knife etched into my flesh are still very visible, and they’re certainly not attractive. The ones criss-crossing my body are easier to conceal.
The stab wound in my back punctured one of my lungs, but it didn’t cause any permanent damage.
It took considerable effort for a medical specialist to reconstruct my torn scalp. The result isn’t perfect, but the damage is hardly noticeable to an untrained eye.
We come to the hospital parking lot where I met Kurt Waldorf a few months ago. I keep walking, unfazed by the young men’s reactions.
To me, these scars mean nothing. They’re part of me, just like all my other imperfections. Ariane is dead, and I have no right to feel self-pity over such trivial considerations. And if I still cry when I remember her, or when I think of Stefan, I only do it late at night, when Mathilde is asleep. One sad irony: the cat I loved to hate never came back after Ariane’s death.
I’m not angry at Robert Delorme. How could I be? As far as I’m concerned, he doesn’t exist.
With the passage of time and Laurent’s support, I’ve begun to forgive myself, both for Étienne Beauregard-Delorme’s death (case in point: I’ve stopped referring to it as a “mistake”) and for Ariane’s. As Miles said, the line between a good decision and a bad one is sometimes very thin. I’ve even made peace with my father. He’s supposed to come and visit us next month.
Will we get to know each other again?
I’ve stood by Laurent as he faced difficult challenges. I was at his side when Miles’s feeding tube was removed, and again at the moment of his death. We buried Miles together in the cemetery he loved so much.
Sometimes, I
accompany Laurent to his AA meetings. I feel so proud of him. We’re learning to help and support each other.
A few days ago, he kissed me for the first time. It was a strange feeling, and we both laughed about it for a long time afterward. For now, all I feel toward him is boundless tenderness.
I have no expectations.
Many questions remain unanswered.
How could Miles have known about my past and little Étienne’s death? How could I have spent twenty-four hours in his company when I was only in a coma for a few hours? Why, instead of giving me a clear message, did he send me back with that crazy anagram? Why did Miles’s apartment and the jazz bar appear so different from reality?
As far as my past is concerned, I’ve reached the conclusion that Miles didn’t know about it. All he did was create the conditions in which I could confront my own demons. As for all those other questions, I’ve learned to accept uncertainty. At the same time, I’ve rediscovered faith. Faith in those I cherish. Faith in myself.
Now, don’t go thinking I’ve turned religious. But the fact remains — and it’s a fact we’re all too willing to overlook — that in life, as in death, there’s an element of mystery. If we can only accept that mystery, it will bring a thrill to our existence.
Sadly, we human beings are all the same. We want answers. We don’t even know what the questions are. But we still want answers.
As for me, I know that from now on, my redemption will lie in the hands of a stranger who holds a door open for me, in the fleeting smile of a passerby, in the gentle gaze of a woman carrying a child. Sometimes you find love where you least expect it. These days, there’s redemption in an afternoon spent at the park with Mathilde, or in an hour sanding a wall with Laurent at my side.
Someday, perhaps someday soon, I’ll visit George Griffin and Jamal Cherraf in their hospital rooms. And I’ll call Kurt Waldorf. Just like that. To say hello.
You have to make time for the things that matter.
For now, though, I’m riding the elevator up to the third floor, where my shift will resume and I’ll go back to my duties: treating patients, writing reports, giving instructions, leading meetings.
The nurses riding up with me are chattering and laughing. I’m keeping quiet, as usual, because of that rule I mentioned before:
Never talk in an elevator.
All the same, I’m humming a tune to myself, too low to be heard, with perhaps a little note of triumph in my voice. It’s a song by Björk that’s been going through my head ever since I saved Robert Delorme’s life a second time:
“All Is Full of Love.”
I’m alive.
RUN LATE
On the morning of October 3rd, at the Sainte-Justine Hospital in Montreal, thirteen-year-old Juan Ramos emerged from the coma in which he’d lain since April 15th, 2005. He’d been horsing around with friends at a dump when a stack of heavy planks collapsed onto him.
That morning, the duty nurse, who’d gotten into the habit of humming songs to Juan while she checked his vital signs, saw that his eyes were open and he was smiling at her.
“Welcome back,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion. The boy responded by asking for something to write on. The nurse handed him her pen and notepad, then watched carefully as he filled a sheet with fine, deliberate handwriting, as though he were trying to transcribe a message that he knew by heart.
When he was done, he gave her the sheet.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“It’s a message for Simone Fortin and Laurent Green. We need to find them and give it to them. It’s very important. I promised Miles that I’d pass this along.”
“Who’s Miles?”
“He’s a man I met while I was in a coma.”
Juan saw the skeptical look on her face.
“Miles was in a coma, too,” the boy said, “but he’s gone now.” The nurse looked at the sheet, but she could make no sense of the strange text the boy had written down. It was just a series of words without any logical connection.
• • •
A few minutes later, the treating physician walked in happily and examined Juan. Having lost a young patient the previous night, he was pleased by this unexpected reawakening.
Juan seemed to be in good condition, with no apparent loss of neurological function. As the doctor emerged from the room, he saw the nurse holding a piece of paper, wearing a concerned expression. He approached her.
“It could be transient confusion,” he mused, after hearing the nurse’s account of the message.
“He’s convinced that he met someone while he was in a coma.”
The doctor let out a long sigh.
“Another one. To hear them tell it, you’d think there was a whole other world out there.”
The nurse smiled, but she was pensive for a long time after the doctor walked away.
One Saturday morning in November, Juan Ramos and his mother, Encarnacion, knocked at the door of a house on the Chemin du Havre in Trois-Pistoles.
The young woman who came to the door welcomed them warmly, offering a bowl of café au lait to Encarnacion and a glass of orange juice to Juan. Awkwardly, Encarnacion explained the reason for their visit: her son had insisted on coming here to deliver a nonsensical message. To her astonishment, the young woman took the matter very seriously and spent several long minutes talking to the boy. Encarnacion never really understood what passed between the two, but from that moment onward, she stopped doubting Juan’s claims.
When Laurent brought Mathilde home from her skating lesson, Encarnacion and Juan Ramos had left. Simone had placed the message on a corner of the table, without even trying to decipher it.
• • •
After pouring himself a cup of coffee, Laurent read the message. It took him a couple of minutes to solve the anagram. He wrote down the solution for Simone’s benefit.
She kept busy with various chores until late that evening. Then she made up her mind. Before looking at the words that Juan Ramos had written down, she took a deep breath.
She put the message back on the table.
Outside, the first snow of the season was falling in cottony squalls that drew long white streaks against the opaque sky. Another winter was beginning.
Simone Fortin stayed at the window for a long time, watching the white maelstrom. When she stepped outside tomorrow morning with Mathilde and Laurent, the virgin ground would be untouched, immaculate.
They would trace a path across it.
Their path.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: CONFESSION
Forgive me, dear readers, for I have sinned. I’ve taken some liberties in this novel. For plot purposes, I’ve reconfigured Côte-des-Neiges Road, creating buildings and businesses that don’t exist in the real world. On the other hand, the walk that Miles and Simone take through the cemetery is rigorously accurate. The cemetery is worth visiting at any time of the year. It’s an oasis of peace and beauty. If you’d like to share your impressions, or if you’re interested in learning more about Lessard, come find me on Facebook at MartinMichaudAuteur.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To the friendly, collaborative, and enthusiastic team at Dundurn. It is an honour for me to be part of the family.
To Arthur Holden for understanding and respecting my characters and style in a very subtle way. When I read my book in English, I hear my voice. And that is because of your talent and sensitivity, my friend! You are the artist.
To my dear agent, Abigail Koons, for putting in the hard work and her faith in me at the start of this new journey, and for her ongoing guidance, passionate support, and ability to make me laugh. You are a gift.
I wish to thank my editor, Ingrid Remazeilles, and the whole Goélette team. It’s a privilege to work with you. Heartfelt thanks to Marc-André Audet, who provided the initial impulse. Thanks, as well, to Louise Daoust for helping me to understand comas, and to the gardener at the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery, who answered my questions when this novel was still
just an idea.
I’d like to offer particular thanks to Geneviève, my parents, my sister Mélanie, and all those who offered their support as time went by (in no particular order): Marc, Hélène, Mireille, Pierre-Yves, Jacques, Nathalie, and Christophe.
Finally, special thanks to Sandrine and Stéphane, who were my first readers, and to Igor, who encouraged me to write this novel, saying that “the coma story” I had described to him sounded pretty cool.
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