November morning, across the breach, into the wild unknown.
“You were in shock,” she said. “And you were eleven, and you were used to following your dad’s orders.”
Theo shrugged. Seemingly exhausted by his disclosures, he walked over to the clothesline where the photos of him as a child were hanging. He studied them, his expression imperturbable, then went over to the rack and pulled out the one of him and Miranda laughing.
Without looking up, he said, “What did you mean earlier? About the baby?”
Kate was confused. “You didn’t know?”
“Know what?”
She hesitated.
“She was pregnant when she died,” she said.
A small tremor of surprise passed through his shoulders, then vanished, as if his body was too exhausted to react. Silence pressed at the room’s walls, changing the air pressure until Kate’s ears felt like they were about to pop.
“The police said she was only a few months along,” she said, to fill the space. Then, desperate to prove all her work hadn’t been in vain, she added, “I found a receipt for two pregnancy tests.”
He nodded vaguely. He wouldn’t look up from the photo. He was watching it like it was a film, moving before him.
“I should have known,” he murmured.
“She probably wasn’t showing.”
“No, I mean … if I had finished the diary. If I had read it when I first got it. She must talk about it in there. I would have known.” He slid the photo back into the tray. Like it mattered that he put it right back where it had been.
Kate shook her head to clear it. “What do you mean, when you first got it? I assumed you found it up here when you were putting stuff in the dining room.”
“My mom’s friend Lynn gave it to me when I graduated college. It was all sealed up. My mom had sent it to her to give to me … it was postmarked the day before she died. I guess she didn’t want my dad to find it.” His mouth turned up at the side, a little sardonically. “So her dying wish was that I get it, and I still never read it. I did try. A couple times. And I thought maybe up here, it might turn out to be … easier. But I never made it past the first few entries.”
Reading those first entries, the ones right before Nangussett, had been hard enough for Kate. Reading them as a son must have been impossible, especially a son plagued by guilt. Yet she was still a little surprised that he had put it down, not only because she herself had been so absorbed by the little book, but also because she couldn’t imagine Theo failing at anything. She had to work to wrap her mind around the idea.
“I guess it’s all a moot point now,” he said, caustically.
The sudden return of his bitterness made her uneasy. “You can still read it. It’s not too late.”
“If you give it back to me,” he said. “I figured you had already sold it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Kate. Come on.”
“No, really. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She stared at him blankly. “You’re the one who moved the diary.”
They stared at each other for a moment.
Then the truth dawned on Kate.
“Jemima,” she said.
MIRANDA
SERIES 2, Personal papers
BOX 9, Diary (1982–1993)
* * *
NOVEMBER 13 1993
I took Theo outside today and arranged him by the side of the house for photos. Against those gray shingles that Jake painted when we moved in here, and I thought, He is painting a shell on, he is building us a carapace, he is making us safe.
Theo will be alone after this.
He’ll prefer it that way.
His whole life, I have been strung up like a puppet. I have been held back.
When I developed the photos, I took such care. Even so, one has a stain at the bottom, a chemical reaction. It looks like the shadow of a man.
NOVEMBER 14 1993
I keep thinking about all the moments when I should have known who Jake really was.
The one that replays in my head is this. Beers at a bar, I don’t remember the name. Windows papered over. My mouth like ash. Pussy still sore where he had fucked me an hour earlier. We were a couple months into dating. We had already started talking about marriage. I asked him about his last girlfriend. He said she was crazy.
Crazy how? I asked.
You know. Crazy.
There are a lot of types, I said.
He hesitated. His eyes flicked to my face and then