The Long Way Home (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #10)

by Louise Penny

Turmoil shook loose all sorts of unpleasant truths. But it took peace to examine them.

She had a face, a body, made not for a Paris runway but for good meals and books by the fire and laughter. She was constructed from, and for, happiness.

“It’s like drinking acid,” said Myrna, “and expecting the other person to die.”

“Avant-garde,” said Ruth. “Isn’t that the term? Ahead of your time. The rest just needed to catch up. You didn’t need rescuing. You weren’t lost. You were exploring. There’s a difference.”

“Life is made up of ‘no big deals,’” said Myrna, crossing the line. “You know that. Isn’t that what you say about murders? They’re rarely provoked by one huge event, but by a series of tiny, almost invisible, events. No big deals, that combine to create a catastrophe.”

Maybe every now and then he simply wept. Not in pain or sadness. The tears were just overwhelming memories, rendered into water, seeping out.

It was a pastel time of day. Everything soft blues and pinks in the early sun.

An unsuspected yearning uncovered, discovered. For a simpler time and a simpler life. Before Internet, and climate change, and terrorism. When neighbors worked together, and separation was not a topic or an issue or wise.

Fear lives in the head. And courage lives in the heart. The job is to get from one to the other.” “And between the two is the lump in the throat,”