Jack kissed my nose. “Don’t beat yourself up. Your cluelessness is one of your more endearing attributes.”
Mrs. Houlihan bustled into the kitchen, the dogs following behind her, knowing she was bound to drop scraps while she prepared food for the party. “Out you go, you two. Nola and her friends just brought down JJ and Sarah fresh from a nap, and they look sweet enough to eat.” She smiled, her round cheeks dimpling, and for a moment I could, indeed, imagine her snacking on my children.
“Let us know when you need us to help bring out trays. The tables are all ready in the garden,” I said.
“Will do. But first, if you wouldn’t mind, would you please remove that old notebook from the hall table? It’s unsightly, and I don’t want it to be the first thing guests see when they arrive by the front door.”
Jack sent me a quizzical look. “It was in my study. Why is it on the hall table?”
I gave Mrs. Houlihan a thumbs-up as I took Jack’s hand and led him to the foyer. “Don’t worry—there’s no hocus-pocus here,” I said, using my father’s words for anything resembling psychic activity. “I put it there.” Thomas had taken the bottles and syringes for analysis, but had given Hasell’s notebook to Jayne, who’d in turn shared it with me.
Hasell had been a gifted artist, her whimsical dreams of exploring the world from the confines of her attic room carefully drawn with colored pencils on alternating pages. She’d used images from the mural and the snow globes, entwining them with those in her vivid imagination, creating a magical world where she could fly among the clouds and visit the four corners of the earth.
On the facing pages her small, childish penmanship told the stories that went with each picture, except they didn’t. They were fairy tales, the characters disguised as animals or fairy-tale creatures, their actions exaggerated, their journeys to happily-ever-after convoluted and difficult to follow. It was only after reading it through more than once that one began to read the story she was trying to tell, a story of a loving mother who slipped up a hidden staircase to poison her daughter. It must have been Hasell’s way of trying to solicit help from other adults. Maybe it was her isolation that didn’t expose her to enough outsiders, with or without her mother’s constant presence, or maybe it was the complexities of the stories that allowed those who did read them to dismiss them as the ramblings of a childish, yet creative, mind. We guessed that Anna had hidden the notebook along with her secret stash of bottles after Hasell’s death, and then forgotten about them in their secret hiding place.
When Jayne had given me the book, she cried, grieving for the half sister she’d never known who’d led such a short and horrific life, and had known what was being done to her, yet was powerless to stop it. But she’d still found beauty around her, and in her brilliant imagination. I’d hugged Jayne, assuring her that she still had a half sister, and that if she could ever forgive me for thinking she was having an affair with Jack, I’d be the best half sister she could hope for. As Sophie had suggested, the embrace had been one of comfort after Jack had told Jayne the truth about who she was. My insecurities had led me to jump to the wrong conclusion, a mistake for which I’d be beating myself up for a long time to come.
I picked up the notebook and stuck it inside a drawer. “It’s for Cooper. He wants to go to medical school, perhaps specialize in psychiatry. He thought this would be an interesting case study.” I smiled up at Jack. “Just think, we could have a doctor in the family.”
He didn’t smile back. “Humph. He’ll have to be allowed to date her first, and that’s not happening for at least another decade.”
We headed for the drawing room, where we could hear the babies chortling, stopping halfway at the sound of a doorbell. I pulled open the door, surprised not only to discover that the doorbell was working consistently, but also to see Meghan Black, leaning on crutches. She had on an amazing necklace and what I was sure was a dress from Anthropologie, and on one foot she wore a beautiful striped espadrille with a grosgrain ribbon encircling her ankle. On the other foot she wore a cast, which explained the crutches.
She smiled, adjusting a bag from Sugar Snap Pea, my favorite children’s clothing boutique. “I’m sorry I’m so early, but Nola told me to get here whenever.” She held out the shopping bag to me, nearly toppling over in the process. I wondered if clumsiness was a regular thing with her, accounting for the X-ray machine falling on her foot. Jack caught her elbow and she blushed. “Thanks,” she said, looking up at Jack and then quickly looking away. I forced myself not to roll my eyes.