Chapter 3 - The Back Pages
I had spent thirty-nine years thinking my mother was incapable of cruelty. Rose's notebook took ten minutes to ruin that belief.
April 6: Elaine told Wren that girls who complained were sent to boarding schools.
April 19: Celia locked the reading room during Wren's birthday visit from cousins. Elaine kept the key.
May 2: Wren asked why Grandma said her mother's photographs were "bad for the family."
"You saw all this?" I asked.
"Some of it. Some Wren told me afterward. I marked which was which. I wasn't sure how to make somebody listen."
Hannah sat beside me. "Mark, don't turn this into an argument about whether Rose used the right words."
"I know." Except I hadn't known. I had mistaken Rose's quietness for approval.
June arrived with tea. "Wren is asleep. She asked whether the guest-room door locks from the inside."
I stared at the notebook again.
"What's in the reading room?" Hannah asked.
"Books. My old desk. Boxes of Nora's things."
Nora, Wren's mother, had died in a highway accident three years earlier. I had shut her belongings behind a door because I couldn't bear opening them. Celia had offered to organize the room. I had been grateful.
My phone buzzed. A video from Celia showed Wren crying in the kitchen, Rose at the sink, and Celia standing with the empty pot. The message beneath read: THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ROSE LEAVES HER UNSUPERVISED. I HAVE THREE WITNESSES.
"Three?" Hannah said. "There were four of you."
I played it twice. The clip began after Wren had screamed.
Rose leaned closer. "I heard Celia tell Wren to scream before she threw it."
Then another message came through, this one from my mother.
May you like
FIRE ROSE TONIGHT, OR WE'LL TELL THE POLICE YOU LET A STRANGER TAKE YOUR DAUGHTER.
And below it: ASK ROSE WHY SHE WAS IN THE READING ROOM ON TUESDAY.
