“Are you sure?” Kiersten asked. “Because it doesn’t seem right—”
“Yes.” She cut Kiersten off with an imperious wave of her hand. “I am sure.”
“Gosh.” Kiersten sank into a chair, blinking back tears. She’d wanted this experiment to work so badly. And it wasn’t working. Not even a little bit. But with this woman’s help ... maybe things could change.
She swallowed back the gratitude clogging her throat. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she whispered, trying not to cry.
“This is true,” Valentina gave a little shrug. “But not important.”
Kiersten smiled and wiped away the tears that escaped her lashes and trickled down her cheek.
“Write down everything about your son and what you hope to accomplish with this”—she looked around the dining room with a skeptical expression—“with this ...school. Tell me his interests and strengths. Give me the names of all books he is reading. Put this in my mailbox. I will write plans for him. I will start on Monday.”
“Um. Thank you?”
“You are welcome. And remember ...” She was a tall woman, and she had to stoop slightly to look Kiersten straight in the eye. “A good education ispriceless.”
And with that, Valentina Luciana Rossellini swept out of the room, leaving a whiff of perfume behind.
Chapter Forty-Two
Kiersten
Later that night, Kiersten collapsed on the couch with a cup of tea. The boys were in bed, the kitchen was clean, and Garrett would come home tomorrow.
Weariness made her limbs heavy, her mind dull. She’d been up since dawn, running with Reggie, and she was tired, but it was agoodtired. The exhaustion of someone who has accomplished important things.
Is this what teachers felt like at the end of each school day? If so, why weren’t they paid like hedge fund managers?
But instead of reaching for the TV remote to hang out with Ross Poldark in a Cornish tin mine on PBS, her usual escape, she reached for the diary she’d left sitting on the ottoman.
Dottie felt like a friend at this point, a friend she needed to check in with every day. She opened the black cover and began to read.
Chapter Forty-Three
Dottie
June 25, 1965
San Diego
We go home tomorrow. We’ve been here for two weeks. The nurses keep telling me what a lucky girl I am, to have such a wonderful husband. He smiles and gives me tender kisses and brings me magazines and candy.
“How’s my beautiful girl today?” he asks when he arrives for a visit. The nurses smile and titter and he brings them little gifts. A bouquet of flowers for the nurses’ station to thank them for taking such good care of me, or a box of chocolates for the break room.
In some ways, this helps. It proves I’m not crazy, that Dickie really was a different person when we got married. He wasthisperson, the person the nurses see every afternoon during visiting hours. Handsome and charming and thoughtful.
But it also makes things worse. Because even if I admitted the truth, even if I told someone, they wouldn’t believe me. Everyone loves him. The nurses here at the hospital. The girls in the office at the dealership. Our neighbors. Even Daddy.EspeciallyDaddy. No one will believe me. And I’m as stupid as Dickie says I am to think otherwise.
June 26, 1965
Beaverbrook Lane
We flew back from San Diego today. The neighbors walked by as we pulled up to the house. Dickie smiled and waved and told them what a wonderful time we had, and how exhausted I am from the trip. Traveling for two, he said with a wink.
And then we went inside, and he started yelling again about how this is all my fault, how working on his car and changing the oil caused the miscarriage. He says that’s why women aren’t mechanics. He said I’m abnormal. Unnatural. Then he told me not to tell anyone about losing the babies.
June 28, 1965
