Chapter 16: Lydia's Notebooks

The lease for the Somerville apartment was in my name, so I let myself in with my own key.

Keith stayed in the car at the curb with the engine off.

Lydia was at the kitchen table in her robe, with a cup of tea and her hands around it.

The gray notebook was closed in front of her, and the silver pen lay beside it.

"I thought you'd come before noon," she said.

"Where's Calvin?"

"At the lab. He slept on the couch there. He's very upset."

"I'm sure he is."

"Sit, Dee-Dee."

"Don't call me that."

Something moved across her face, quick and small, and then the soft look came back.

"I'm not going to lie to you," she said. "I thought about it all night. I decided I wouldn't."

"That's new."

"I'm not sorry about the work. It's the best work anyone has done on how a person turns out."

"The part I regret is that you read the title page before I could give you the introduction."

I stared at her.

"Where are they?" I said.

She didn't ask what.

She stood, tightened the robe, and walked down the hall to her room, and I followed.

The bookcase beside her bed was built into the wall.

On the third shelf stood a row of gray hardcover notebooks, all the same size, with a number on every spine.

One through twenty-one.

I touched the first one, and my hand was steady.

"You started when we were six," I said.

"My father asked me to watch you at the fence, and I wrote down what you said before I knew why."

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