Is he right? Did I cause the miscarriage? Cried so hard today I can hardly see. God, this is awful. He said I can’t leave the house until I’m “feeling better.” He said he doesn’t want me bursting into tears at the meat market or the drug store. I don’t care anyway. All I want to do is sleep.
July 9, 1965
I just can’t seem to pull myself out of this. Today I slept until two o’clock, ate some toast, and went back to bed. Every time I look out the window I see mothers and children. In the cul-de-sac, on the sidewalk, mothers pushing strollers, children riding their bicycles, playing baseball in the street, little gangs of children roaming through the front and back yards.
I can’t bear this. I just can’t. Because if I’m not going to be a mother, then what am I going to be? Am I just supposed to roll around inside this big empty house, making three course dinners for Dickie and ironing sheets every day, for the rest of my life. Is this all there is, forever?
July 25, 1965
I know I should try to pull myself out of this, but I don’t have the energy. I’m exhausted. My stomach hurts. My skin is gray. I don’t have a purpose anymore. I can’t be a mechanic or an engineer. And now I can’t be a mother either.
Men can be fathers, plus anything else under the sun. But married women aren’t supposed to have jobs. Married women can’tbeanything but mothers.
And maybe ... maybe that’s the answer. Maybe I shouldn’t be married. Then I’d have the freedom to be a secretary again, or a teacher or a nurse. Something else. Anything else. Anything but Dickie’s wife.
Chapter Forty-Four
Kiersten
Kiersten shut the black cover, heart aching.
Then she heard a strange sound. Coming from the basement.
A rustling sound, followed by a faint tapping. She froze, trying to listen over her heartbeat pounding in her ears.
Silence. Then the tapping sound again.
I watch you.
The message on the blood-streaked note flashed through her mind as she rose from the sofa, grabbed her phone from the kitchen counter, and called Piper.
“I hear something ... in the basement,” she whispered.
“Unlock the mudroom door,” Piper said. “I’m coming.”
Moments later, Piper slipped through the side door, Glock holstered at her side.
“The basement?”
Kiersten nodded. She followed Piper as they began to move silently down the stairs, backs pressed against the wall.
The bottom step creaked as Kiersten landed on it. Then a high-pitched scream punctured the air.
Chapter Forty-Five
Piper
Piper rounded the corner of the stairs. Bella screamed again. Then she giggled.
Relief flooded Piper’s body, followed by confusion as her eyes took in the strange tableaux spread before her in the Cleaver basement.
“What thehellis going on here?”
All eight kids stared back at her, guilt and surprise etched across their faces.
They knelt on the floor, huddled around the small fire safe Kiersten kept in the nook beneath the staircase that she and her husband used as an office.
A stethoscope protruded from Matthew’s ears. Beside him, Caitlin pressed the round part of the stethoscope against the door of the safe.
