out about one of these fibs, her mother would say, “I’m just trying to make things easy for you.”
So of course Darcy had asked Louise to watch out for her daughter. But now Kate was thinking about how many conversations her mother and Louise must have had, prior to her coming out here. Talking behind her back about how fragile she was. How easily rattled. Now they would want evidence of her stability, and she had nothing to show. She had a job, but so what? Lots of people had jobs—and kept them. Her stability, such as it was, was fleeting. She was a spun quarter wobbling to a stop, on the brink of falling over. Look at this dinner spread. You had to be a real failure for your family to think that seven hours of work deserved a celebration.
Her earlier optimism was draining away. She wondered if coming to California had ever been fully her decision, or if it was just a plan her mother and aunt had hatched together. Give Kate a life, but add training wheels. And the woman charged with watching her pedal around the cul-de-sac believed both that Kate’s boss might have killed his mother, and that he might be held off by a two-ounce bottle of TresEmmé Super Hold.
When Kate picked up her glass again, her fingers felt unsteady on the stem. “You should have told me what people were saying,” she said, not quite meeting her aunt’s eye.
Frank cleared his throat and held out an oyster. Kate took it dutifully. The shell’s pearlescent sheen made her think of the fog that morning, wrapping around the house, and how Theo had emerged out of it so suddenly. Go ahead, get down on the ground. See what it feels like. The oyster’s liquid sloshed onto her hand. She tipped the shell back into her mouth and swallowed the creature whole.
MIRANDA
SERIES 2, Personal papers
BOX 8, Medical records
FOLDER: Birth certificate
* * *
Certificate of Live Birth State Department of Health Bureau of Vital Statistics
COUNTY: Morris
STATE: New Jersey
TOWNSHIP: Morristown
1204 S. Marmion St.
FULL NAME OF CHILD: Miranda Rose Planchart
SEX: female
FULL TERM: X
LEGITIMATE? Yes
DATE OF BIRTH: December 18, 1956
FATHER
FULL NAME: Michael Andrew Planchart
AGE AT LAST BIRTHDAY: 27
BIRTHPLACE: Manchester, N.J.
MOTHER
FULL NAME: Leanne Lessig Planchart
AGE AT LAST BIRTHDAY: 24
BIRTHPLACE: Allentown, Pa.
NUMBER OF CHILDREN OF THIS MOTHER BORN ALIVE AND NOW LIVING: two
NUMBER OF CHILDREN OF THIS MOTHER BORN ALIVE BUT NOW DEAD: none
STILLBORN: none
I hereby certify that I attended the birth of this child, who was born alive on the date above stated at 4:19 P.M.
SIGNATURE H. M. Helliwell, Physician
SERIES 2, Personal papers
BOX 5, Childhood papers, 1956–1974
FOLDER: Report cards & transcripts
* * *
Harry S. Truman Elementary School Ridgetown, New Jersey
Progress Report
STUDENT: Miranda R. Planchart
TEACHER: Miss Graham
GRADE: 3
ENGLISH: Excels
READING: Excels
WRITING: Excels
MATH: Needs Improvement
SCIENCE: Excels
HISTORY: Satisfactory
ART: Satisfactory
HOME EC.: Needs Improvement
PHYS. ED.: Not Applicable
NOTES:
Miranda is a smart and capable child. She reads above her grade level and did very well in our storytelling unit (understands beginning, middle, end).
When Miranda completes her homework it is exemplary. However, she does not always complete her homework. She has told outlandish lies about her missing homework on several occasions resulting in disciplinary measures. She disobeys teachers and works on her own projects even when the rest of the class is focused on the assignment. She must learn to be more compassionate and polite.
Overall Miranda is a gifted child but needs to cultivate respect for authority. Her most recent disciplinary hearing (the Duck and Cover incident) indicates not enough progress has been made on this front. She might benefit from more discipline and structure at home.
3.
KATE
Over the next few days, Kate fell into a routine. Leave Louise and Frank’s place just after nine, up to the Brand house by ten. Polite hello to Theo. Work for a few hours, a quick lunch in the kitchen with the leftovers Louise had packed her, and back to it.
She started work on the collection by establishing general categories, weeding out the miscellaneous objects (toys, pens, used batteries) that had been scattered in with the papers and prints, and setting up spreadsheets. Eventually, once she had a sense of the extent of the materials, she would start listing each document in the spreadsheets—a painstaking, messy process that involved shifting items around seven or eight times and muddling over whether a letter about an informal loan qualified as “Correspondence” or “Financial documents.” For now, the categories were rough. Personal letters, photographs, miscellaneous weird junk. It required little brain power, and she was grateful for the