Phần I
Diane drove.
She didn't ask Nora if she wanted a ride. She simply walked to the short-term parking lot, unlocked the Range Rover, and opened the passenger door, and Nora got in, because some part of her was still nine years old and had never once said no to her mother.
Caleb took a cab. He didn't argue either.
For the first twenty minutes on I-5, Diane talked about the gala. The florist had quoted an obscene number for white peonies in April. The Hendersons couldn't be seated anywhere near the Kaplans after what happened at the Tahoe Club. Someone's foundation had tried to buy two tables and then asked for a discount, which was just vulgar.
Nora let her talk. She watched her mother's hands on the wheel. Diamond on the left ring finger. Nails the color of pale shells. Perfectly steady.
"Grandma Ruth was in Dayton in July of 1999," Nora said.
The hands didn't move.
"Your grandmother has lived at Willow Creek for nine years," Diane said evenly. "Most days she believes it's 1987 and Reagan is president."
"She wore a cream suit and pearls. She knocked on Grace Holloway's door and offered her fifty thousand dollars. She called herself Mrs. Callaway."
Diane put on her turn signal. She pulled onto the shoulder, very smoothly, and turned on the hazard lights. Trucks roared past and shook the car.
She took off her sunglasses. Her eyes were dry.
"I'm going to say this once," Diane said. "I was very sick in 1999. I don't remember most of that year, and the parts I do remember, I would cut out of my own head with a knife if I could. Whatever my mother did that year, she did to save my life. If you need someone to blame for it, you blame me." Her voice didn't rise at all. "But don't you dare go near her."
"What happened in the bathroom, Mom?"
Diane flinched.
It was small. A twitch at the corner of her eye, as if Nora had raised a hand to her. But in twenty-seven years, Nora had never once seen her mother flinch.
Diane put her sunglasses back on. She turned off the hazards and pulled back into traffic.
Neither of them spoke again until the car stopped outside Nora's apartment building.
"The gala is April eighteenth," Diane said as Nora opened the door. "I've put you down to speak. Wear the blue dress, it photographs well."