“Did you ever meet with her about these papers? Did you ever... I don’t know... suggest therapy?”
She gave him a weary smile. “You didn’t send children to therapy back then,” she said. “Not unless they had real problems.”
He leveled his eyes at her.
“I know, I know.” She sighed heavily, the breath draining out of her until she seemed even smaller. “I didn’t think of her as a child with problems,” she said. “The April I knew was sweet and caring. And so very alone.”
“Even after she started seeing Gabriel LeRoy?”
“More so.”
“Really?”
“He wasn’t good for her. She knew it. He was needy and demanding. He wanted to marry her and she... she asked my advice about breaking up with him. She asked me how she should do it.”
“When?”
“Just before he took her away.” Her voice quavered. “I... I suggested she simply blame it on her stepfather. Tell Gabriel that he said she was too young to go steady.”
Quentin’s eyes widened. “You think he kidnapped her?”
“I know he did.”
“But the police reports... The one from the prom night murders. It says—”
“I don’t give a flying fuck about what the police reports say.” She took another long, wheezing breath. Her whole body was trembling now. Quentin worried she might collapse. “Pardon my French.”
“Can I get you anything? A glass of water? I didn’t mean to upset you.”
She shook her head, her body calming, slowing. “That poor girl,” she said. “All she wanted to do was grow up and have a baby.”
Quentin nodded, slowly. There was nothing he could say to that. Except maybe... “I hope she realized at some point, how much you cared about her.”
“I hope so too, Quentin.”
Quentin started to slip the papers back into the Bankers Box when he noticed something at the bottom of it—a postcard, addressed to Mrs. Brixton, not at her home but at the school. He took it out.
Edith said, “Oh, that shouldn’t be in there.”
The postcard was unsigned and read simply,Wish you were here!He stared at the rounded script, the circles over thei’s. He turned itover. A photograph of a maple tree with bright orange leaves. “What is this?”
“Wishful thinking,” Edith said. “She always used to say that she wanted to go somewhere where they had seasons... I got that postcard, and I thought maybe... Maybe... I know it’s crazy.”
“You got this after April’s death.”
“Like I said, wishful thinking.”
Quentin looked at the postmark: August 1977. A year and two months after the Gideon fire. And the same month and year, according to Wikipedia, that film columnist Robin Diamond had been born. Quentin’s pulse pounded. “She just wanted to grow up,” he whispered, “and have a baby.”
“Are you all right?”
“Can I photograph this postcard with my phone?”
“I suppose,” said Edith Brixton. “But why?”
Quentin forced a smile. “Wishful thinking?” he said.
The postmark read New York.