Later that evening, they sat on a boulder on the stony lake shore, looking out to where Arthur Russell’s body had eventually risen with the stormy waters. An innocent man whose wife and daughter had died because of the insanity of the past. The ease with which people could cover up their secrets had confounded Lottie.
‘How many other poor souls were abandoned behind high walls because of land, money, and children born out of wedlock?’ she said.
‘Too many,’ Boyd said.
‘Who am I, Boyd?
‘You are Lottie Parker, that’s who.’
‘I’m not the Lottie I thought I was. I’m another person entirely.’
The final leaf fell from a tree, fluttered down and lay at her feet. A gust of wind lifted it and carried it to the water’s edge. They sat there and watched it float out on the wild lake.
‘A fragile leaf at the mercy of nature’s will,’ Lottie said.
‘And human life, just as fragile, is at the mercy of human greed and shame,’ Boyd said.
‘Will it ever end?’
‘The bad weather?’
‘The lies, Boyd, the secrets and the lies.’