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Jean-Guy lowered his gaze. “Pardon?”
“I said, Sneak home and pray you’ll never know / the hell where youth and laughter go.”
“Nice.” Don’t tell me it’s a poem, thought Jean-Guy.
“It’s a poem,” said Armand.
Please, don’t make it a long one.
Armand met his eyes and smiled. “She called us a ‘smug-faced crowd.’ ”
“Oui.” Butter tarts. Butter tarts. “So?”
“I wondered if she was referring to a line from that Sassoon poem, from the Great War.”
“Not everything comes from a poem. And how could she know it?”
“She knows far more than I think we realize, mon ami.”
Including the hell where youth and laughter go.
But then, he thought, so do I.
Chapter 10
You’ll never believe it.”
Annie came bounding down the stairs the next morning. They could hear her heavy tread—thump, thump, thumpity thump—and looked toward the door as she practically danced into the kitchen.
Her face flushed, her eyes bright with excitement, she looked at them around the large pine table enjoying their breakfast of pancakes and bacon.
“Haniya Daoud is here.”
“What?” said Roslyn, looking up from trying to dab maple syrup off Florence’s sweater. “Here? In Three Pines? I thought she wasn’t coming until tomorrow.”
“Well, she’s here now. Jean-Guy and Dad met her last night in the bistro,” said Annie. “Didn’t Dad tell you, Mama?”
“No,” said Reine-Marie. “I was asleep by the time he came in and got up before he did. He’s showering now.”
It was just after seven on New Year’s Eve and still dark outside.
When Reine-Marie had dressed and gone downstairs, she found the lights on and Daniel already in the kitchen. He’d started the fire in the woodstove and put the coffee on.
She also found Honoré sprawled by the front door. He’d gotten himself into his snowsuit, and was struggling to put his boots on the wrong feet.
His trusty toboggan lay at his side, and Henri and Fred were circling and nudging him, anxious to go out. Little Gracie, the ratmunk, was still in Stephen’s room, both fast asleep.
Reine-Marie and Honoré had taken the dogs for a walk around the village green. Henri and Fred played in the snow while Honoré dragged his toboggan on a rope behind him and asked his grandmother questions.
What’s a year? Why do we need a new year? Is the old one broken?
How many pancakes can I have?
He showed her the Big Dipper, which was really just a random star still visible in the early-morning sky, and they went inside.
By the time they got to the kitchen, others were already up, coffee was poured, the maple-smoked bacon was sizzling in the huge cast-iron pan.
Reine-Marie cooked up the first batch of blueberry pancakes.
