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“Patience. Patience. With patience comes choice, and with choice comes power.”
Life can be cruel, as you know. But it can also be kind. Filled with wonders. You need to remember that. You have your own choice to make, Armand. What’re you going to focus on? What’s unfair, or all the wonderful things that happen? Both are true, both are real. Both need to be accepted. But which carries more weight with you?” Stephen tapped the boy’s chest. “The terrible or the wonderful? The goodness or the cruelty? Your life will be decided by that choice.”
Less a hunter than an explorer, Armand Gamache delved into what people thought, but mostly how they felt. Because that was where actions were conceived.
If there was one thing the senior police officer understood, it was that everyone had strengths. And weaknesses. The important thing was to recognize them. And not expect something from someone who didn’t have it to give.
Don’t believe everything you think. Chief Inspector Gamache wrote that on the board for the incoming cadets at the start of every year at the Sûreté academy, and it stayed there all year. At first the students in the class he taught laughed. It sounded clever but silly. Little by little most got it. And those who didn’t did not progress further. That phrase was as powerful as any weapon they’d be handed.
Her attitude was, after all, not his problem.
“It would be insane not to be afraid. To worry. The very thing you just admitted is what will make you a great father to your daughter. We’re all afraid. Of something bad happening to our children. Of not being there when they need us. Of not being enough. We all want to pull the sheets up over our heads some days and hide. But not all of us admit it. Your daughter is one lucky girl. I don’t know what it’s going to be like, but I suspect you’ll find that she is much more like other babies than she is different. And I do know you will love her, Jean-Guy.”
It had taken Beauvoir years to see the power of pausing. And of patience. Of taking a breath to consider all options, all angles, and not simply acting on the most obvious.
“Hell is the truth seen too late,” said Reine-Marie as she poured out more coffee. “Thomas Hobbes.”
“We always need help.”
He hadn’t lived to be an old warrior by responding every time someone wanted to fight.
Don’t worry about your phone. If it’s all we have, then we have to use it.”
Dreadful deeds were obvious. The divine was often harder to see.
But no, it didn’t feel wrong. It felt wretched. Horrific. A nightmare. But sometimes “right” felt like that.
