“I was just reading to him from Thoreau.”

“I know very well what you were reading,” I said. “Kingsley has a trained tutor who is helping with his reading. He doesn’t need your interference with his studies. You are not to see him again, do you understand?”

“He’s a sweet boy, but lonely I think.”

“His state is not your concern, ever. Any further interference in his affairs by you or your mother will have dire consequences to you both.”

“My mother is too ill to even rise from her bed,” she said, as she reached behind and pushed herself awkwardly to standing. “There is not much more you or your family could do to her now.”

It was only then that I noticed what should have been obvious from the first, the grotesque fullness of her stomach that even the loose frock could not hide. I am not proud of the words that next came from my lips before I turned and stalked away but they were drawn from my throat by the glaring triumph in her eyes as surely as water from a hand pump.

And so I went to Father and once again pleaded that they be sent away. It is bad enough that they have stayed in that house as a reminder for all these many years, but that they should plague us with their bastard is too too much. My only solace is that the deed grants the mother only a life estate and that upon her death the land and that house revert back to our family. With the mother’s evident illness we should soon be finally free of the shackles of their enmity

April 3, 1923

My Dearest Sisters,

This night, in the strange light of a full moon, I felt compelled to again walk down the sloping hill of our rear yard and around the pond to the house in the woods, despite the danger posed by the predator cat that stalks our county. I have not stopped thinking of my encounter the other day with the Poole daughter and of learning of her shameless pregnancy. The Pooles have been a presence in that house for most of my life, ever since the death of the father, but I had never come to know them, never had a conversation with either woman until our remarks that afternoon. Their whole lives, I had been certain, were devoted entirely to the deep wounding rage they held for our family. It was a shock to imagine that girl filled with another emotion, lost in a passion that, even if for only a moment, cut her off from her angry sense of deprivation. The image of that girl rolling on the ground with another, lost in a world that admitted not the Reddmans, has haunted my mind. I see it as I bathe, as I prune the dying stalks in my garden, as I awake alone and cold in my bed.

I stood behind the tall thin trunk of an oak and watched the house through the windows. The mother was in a bed on the first floor, weak, white, her face drawn and tired. The room was lit by a harsh bare bulb in the ceiling. The girl sat by her mother, book in lap, and read out loud. Once, while I was there, the girl rose and walked into the kitchen, bringing back a glass of water, and she helped her mother hold it to her thin lips. There passed between them the habitual tenderness of family and I thought of you, dear sisters, as I watched and I wept for what we have lost. After a time the mother’s eyes closed and the girl laid the back of her hand softly upon her mother’s brow. She sat there, the pregnant girl, alone with her sleeping mother, before she rose and turned out the light.

I walked back up the hill and into our monstrously empty house. Kingsley was asleep in his room and I stood over him and stared as he slept, transfixed by the very rhythm of his breath. In many ways my boy is as foreign to me as those people down the hill, so full of mystery. There was a time when I was his whole world.

How is it possible to survive in this life when we can never forget all we have destroyed?

April 5, 1923

My Dearest Sisters,

Her movements, as she works about the kitchen, are full of a surprising grace, despite her condition. She was making a soup tonight, and I watched as she chopped the vegetables and placed them into the pot and fed the old wood stove as the water came to a boil. With an almost dainty movement of her wrist she pulled from the pot one ladle full of scum after the other. There was a innocent intentness about her work, as if nothing was in her mind to disturb her preparations other than the necessities of the soup, not her evident poverty, not the failing health of her mother, not the bleak prospects for the bastard child she carries within her. For a short moment she came outside, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, and lit for herself a cigarette. I pulled back behind the tree I was leaning against but still I stared. The light from the house was streaming from behind her as she smoked and so I could not see her face, but there was an ease in the way she held herself, even with her bloated belly, a comfort in the way she casually brought the cigarette to her lips. She is a woman who feels secure in the love that surrounds her. There also must be more than I could ever have imagined to the old woman awaiting death in that house, if her love can provide such comfort

April 7, 1923

My Dearest Sisters,

It is a wonder that I had once thought her ugly. It is true that her features are not perfectly regular, and her nose is somewhat long, but there is about her movements and her face a brightness and a beauty that is unmistakable. All day I think about her in that house, hopelessly pregnant but still caring for her mother. I await anxiously for the night so I can see her. When Kingsley is to bed and Father alone and drinking in a vain effort to quell his shaking hands, I slip from the house as quietly as I am able and I glide down the hill to my spot at the oak. This evening I watched as she prepared for bed, watched her disrobe and wipe the sweat from her body with a sponge. Her round belly, her swollen breasts, the areolae thick and dark as wine, the nipples erect from the cold of the water. She must be farther along than I had imagined. Her skin is fresh and taut about the white round of her belly. She carries her burden with a dignity that is remarkable. I feel cleansed just in the watching of her. She prepares for the night as if she were preparing for a lover, which is heartbreaking, knowing that she has only her dying mother to keep her company. We are sisters in our loneliness.

I have been thinking of that child she is carrying. It may be a chance to make amends with all that has colored our past. When the time is right I will raise the possibility with Father

April 8, 1923

My Dearest Sisters,

When I returned from my nightly vigil I was startled to see Kingsley at the twin French doors to the rear portico, waiting for me. He asked me if I had heard it. The light mist of the evening had turned suddenly into a rain and I wiped the wet from my face.

“What are you talking about, dear?” I said, fighting to compose myself.