“And you wanted to get rid of Thomas’s charms too?”
Peter said nothing. It was close enough to the truth.
Gamache reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and carefully unfolded an old piece of paper. Peter reached out but Gamache withdrew it, not trusting the man with something so precious.
Peter’s hand hovered in the air.
“Where’d you get that?”
Far from being angry or accusatory, his voice was full of wonder. He sounded like a little boy shown a pirate’s treasure map, one hunted for and dreamed of for weeks and months, or, in the case of a grown man, years.
“From the artist who sculpted your father.”
Peter was barely listening, riveted on the drawing. It showed a noble, lively bird, its head cocked at an impertinent angle, its eyes gleaming. It threatened to fly off the yellowed page. Yet for all its vitality it was unfinished. It had no feet.
“You drew this,” said Gamache, softly, not wanting to break too far into Peter’s reverie.
Peter seemed to have entered the drawing and disappeared completely. Where ever it had taken him, it seemed a good place. Peter was smiling, his face relaxed for the first time in days.
“You must have been young when you drew this,” Gamache prompted.
“I was,” agreed Peter at last. “I was maybe eight. I did it for Dad’s birthday.”
“You were eight when you did this?” Now it was Gamache’s turn to stare at the drawing. It was simple, elegant, not unlike Picasso’s iconic dove. Almost a single line. But he’d captured flight, and life and curiosity.
“Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,” whispered Gamache.
Freedom.
Once, Peter knew, he had flown. Before the world grew too heavy. Now his art, instead of taking flight, did the opposite.
He looked again at the bird. The very first drawing he’d done on his own, without tracing. He’d given it to his father and his dad had picked him up and hugged him, and taken him all round the restaurant where they were eating, and shown the drawing to perfect strangers. Mother had made him stop but not before Peter had developed two addictions, to art and to praise. And specifically to the praise and approval of his father.
“When my father died I asked Mother if I could have that back,” said Peter, gesturing to the drawing. “She told me he’d thrown it away.” Peter looked into Gamache’s eyes. “Where did you say you found this?”