Gwen ran downstairs again and returned with a torch. She asked if she could give it a try. I worked my way out and she crawled in, clicking on the light as she went. I could see the beam dancing on the confines of the little space.
I told her I had placed the box on the ledge on the inside of the door frame. She swung the light around to shine it on the back side of where the door and the wall met.
It wasn’t there.
She crawled out again and we both sat there looking at the dark space we had unearthed.
Sorry,Gwen finally said.
I was sorry, too. The numbness was already settling on me, like a heavy coat against wintry gusts that would chill to the bone if they could get to you.
We closed the door, and returned the bookcase to its rightful place and the books to their shelves. Then we went back downstairs.
There didn’t seem to be a reason to stay, so I thanked her again and asked her if she was going to get into trouble for having let me in.
She shrugged like she didn’t care.
I told her I’d be happy to talk with her mother by phone and let her know how kind and helpful she had been, but she just smiled and said I didn’t have to do that.
I told her to give her mother my name and number just the same.
When I left, she was standing at the door, watching me drive away.
She’s not going to give her mum that piece of paper with my name and phone number on it.
That girl is just like you were, Emmy. Wanting to make her own way in life, and the world isn’t willing to grant her that freedom.
I guess I am just like her, too.
When I got home and told Simon what had happened, he asked me what I was going to do now. I know what he meant. He wants to know what this means for us.
I can’t answer him.
I feel as if I am underwater. Suspended. Hovering between where I was and where I want to be. I am in no place to decide.
I am sorry I lost your brides, Emmy. I am so very sorry.
Julia
Forty
August 5, 1958
Dear Emmy,
I am trying very hard to do what I said I would do—and that is live with the fact that the brides box is gone. I told Dr. Diamant before I started looking that I would be okay with not finding it. I told Simon the same thing.
Simon said this evening he wished he had talked me out of looking.
But then I would always wonder,I said.
And he said sometimes wondering is better than knowing.
Dr. Diamant told me truth is a strange companion. It devastates one moment and enthralls the next. But it never deceives. And because of that, in the end, it comforts.
Julia
August 7, 1958
