Gibbes nodded, then headed toward the stairs. She watched him for a moment, wondering how long it would be before he could no longer remember his mother’s face or the sound of her voice. The young rebounded from grief more quickly than adults, but that also left them with more time to chastise themselves for forgetting.
She thought of Cal and his bloody knuckles and his cry for justice, and for the first time in a long while she felt her old anger return, along with the sense of purpose that had propelled her into the police department with her first nutshell study.
Turning to Deborah, she said, “I have something I need to see to—would you mind taking the serving dishes from the refrigerator and placing them on the dining room table and then starting the percolator? I’ll be right back.”
She trudged up the stairs, but instead of turning toward her room, she headed up to the attic. It was chilly in the unheated space, and she was glad she’d left on her coat. She went immediately to the corner where she kept the plane hidden from Cal, who sometimes joined her in the attic to watch her work on the nutshell studies. He enjoyed the attention to detail, and hearing the stories of how the crimes were committed and what mistakes the perpetrators had made that led to their being caught. It appeased his sense of rightness.
But she would not let him know about the plane, and what she’d discovered. She had the knowledge to point the finger of blame at the person responsible, but she could not condemn her, could not pass judgment. Because Edith understood her motives, understood that desperation was sometimes all that was left.
Maybe that was why, during the funeral service, she’d kept thinking about the anonymous woman and the suitcase she most likely believed to have been destroyed in the crash along with her letter. How all these years she believed her secret safe. And how Edith wished she’d told Cecelia what she knew, that she wasn’t alone. That some women were sometimes pushed to the point of desperate acts if they didn’t seek help. Maybe that would have changed things. But hindsight was as useless now as Cal’s fists against the stalwart trunk of a tree.
It had been while Edith was thinking about that suitcase that she remembered the missing dopp kit, and that empty space where one might have been. It was the last part of the puzzle she hadn’t figured out, the how. And suddenly the answer had clarified itself so finely in Edith’s mind that she was afraid she might smile in the middle of the service.
She quickly found the bag where she stored the passenger dolls who’d been found outside the fuselage and all of her notes, as well as the passenger list. She placed them on the table next to her sea glass, then lifted her reading glasses to her nose before running her finger down the names. She missed it the first time and so went more slowly the second, her unvarnished nail sliding down the list until it stopped on the name she remembered seeing written in bold, black ink on a luggage tag. Henry P. Holden. And then, in very small writing, she wrote down the address she still remembered from memory, and imagined the faceless woman now against the backdrop of a cold Maine winter.
chapter 25
LORALEE
Loralee opened her eyes, watching the shadows of the oak leaves shimmy against the wall of her room. The buttery yellow of the sun told her it was later than it probably should be for her to still be in bed, but it seemed her eyelids were the only part of her she could willingly move.
She remembered vague snippets from the night before: of Merritt driving them back to the house and Gibbes being there, handing her medicine and water and talking quietly to her, and then a smaller hand brushing her hair from her forehead. Gibbes knew her secret now, of course. She didn’t remember telling him, but he was a doctor and would have figured it out. Loralee knew that with as much certainty as she knew he wouldn’t tell Merritt, even if he could. She also knew that he would expect her to do it as soon as possible. Soon. She would tell Merritt soon. She just needed a little more time.
She closed her eyes, assessing how she felt. Her doctor in Georgia had told her to rate her pain level from one to ten, with ten being the worst. Loralee figured the day before had been a six, and that scared her. Because six was almost eight, and eight was the number to dread, the number where Loralee would have to make plans.
Without moving too much, she reached out her hand for her Tums and instead felt a warm hand holding hers and placing the Tums in her palm. She opened her eyes and saw Merritt, in her hideous gray nightshirt, staring down at her.
“Gibbes said you might need this when you woke up.”
Loralee nodded gratefully and took two. She studied Merritt as she chewed, trying to pull in her thoughts. “What time is it?”
Merritt looked at the bedside clock. “It’s almost eight o’clock.”
Loralee blinked. “Why are you still in your . . . um . . .” She waved her hand in front of Merritt.