Martin nodded.
“I mean it, Martin. Don’t think you can do this on your own. Don’t think you have to.”
Martin arrived home to find Sara working in the kitchen. There was stew simmering, biscuits just out of the oven, and the smell of something sweet—Sara had baked molasses cookies.
“It’s nice to see you up,” he told her, kissing her cheek. “Supper looks wonderful.”
To see her up and cooking—cheeks pink and a little smile on her face—seemed nothing short of miraculous. He wished Lucius were here to see it.
He’d been so worried about her last night. He was sure, in those dark moments, that Sara had slipped away from him completely.
But therehadbeen something in that closet, hadn’t there? Something scrabbling, trying to get out.
Mice. A squirrel, maybe.
But hadn’t he seen the doorknob turn?
A trick of the light, he told himself.
He pushed it all out of his mind. It didn’t matter. Sara was back now. Well again. Everything was going to be all right.
“I ran into Amelia in town. She’s going to come by tomorrow. She wants to take you to her house for lunch.”
“Lovely,” Sara said. “That’s just lovely.”
Martin sat down at the table, put a napkin on his lap, and watched as Sara served him, ladling stew into a bowl, then bringing the biscuits and butter to the table.
There was something odd about Sara’s movements: they were quick and jerky, almost puppetlike. She seemed terribly excited, the way she got at holidays. She sat down and began picking at a biscuit, just pulling off flakes of it onto her plate.
“Tell me what our Gertie looked like,” Sara said, eyes glimmering in the lamplight.
His skin prickled. “You know what she looked like,” he said.
“I don’t meanbefore. I mean when you found her at the bottom of the well.”
They had not let her see Gertie’s body, knowing that she was too fragile, that it would break her into a thousand pieces, never to be put back together again.
“I want to see my little girl!” Sara had cried, but Martin remembered the way she’d clung to Baby Charles, and shook his head.
“No, Sara,” he’d told her, voice as firm as he could make it. “It’s best if you don’t.”
“But I need to see her one more time! For God’s sake, Martin, you must understand,” Sara had begged.
“Sara,” Lucius had said, taking her hand firmly in his own. “We want you to remember Gertie the way she was. Not like this. You need to trust us. It’s for the best.”
Now Martin kept his eyes down on his bowl of stew, as if the image were trapped there. “She looked peaceful. Like Lucius said.”
Martin took another spoonful of stew and swallowed.
“Did she have any…injuries?”
Martin looked up into Sara’s eyes. “Of course she was injured, Sara. She fell fifty feet down a well.”
He shut his eyes, pictured Gertie down there, turned on her side, as if she’d just fallen asleep.
Sara nodded, her head bobbing too fast. “But Lucius examined her, didn’t he? Did he find anything…unusual? Injuries that might not have occurred in the fall?”
Martin looked at her for a long time. “What is it you’re asking, Sara?”
