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Rose pulled a thick plastic sheet off a piece of art on the wall. Her heart dropped into her stomach.
Natalie.
Here was a glossy portrait of Oren’s first wife, dressed in her wedding gown. She was probably twenty or twenty-one in the painting, so terribly delicate and young, her pretty hands crossed on her lap, her blue eyes crystalline. Rose’s eyes filled with tears.The woman who died in the fire. The woman who lost her life in this very home.
Oren’s great love.
Rose continued to remove plastic sheets and bedsheets to reveal a quaint little room with a secretary desk, a Turkish rug, and maybe two hundred books—Rose’s favorite books. Inside the desk were fountain pens and photographs from Rose’s life before Oren, photographs that weren’t pressed into any books and hung loosely in drawers. The photos showed Natalie as a beautiful and pale little thing, her arms around her girlfriends, her eyes alight. Based on her clothes, Rose guessed that Natalie hadn’t come from money, either. She didn’t know why that surprised her so much. She’d initially thought Natalie came from Oren’s world, that they’d met because they were blessed with families with deep pockets. But it looked like Oren had scooped Natalie out of nowhere.
She’s like me,Rose thought.
She cursed herself for never asking Oren where he’d met Natalie. She’d thought it better to avoid the topic at all costs.
Here I am, faced with the mystery of Natalie—the woman my husband could never get over.
Tucked away in the bottom drawer of the secretary's desk was Natalie’s diary.
It was the size of Rose’s hand. No lines. Soft pages. Her tight, feminine handwriting.
Rose’s heart thudded. She couldn’t believe this. Then again, wasn’t something like this part of the reason she’d wanted to buy the house in the first place? She’d wanted to dig into the undiscovered pieces of a past she couldn’t fully comprehend. She’d wanted to make sense of her life—and therefore Natalie’s life, cut too short?
Rose flipped to the last entry to find the date:June 16, 1993.
Tears filled Rose’s eyes. She stared at the date—the date of the fire—and felt as though she floated. She imagined herself at twenty-one on the opposite side of the forest, watching the smoke and the helicopter. At that very moment, a young and beautiful woman had been here. At that very moment, she’d been dying. Nobody had been able to save her.
Rose filled her lungs and read:
June 16, 1993
Sometimes I think back to my first days with Oren. I remember the way he held me, the way he kissed me, the way he promised me everything. The entire world and everything I wanted inside of it. His entire heart.
I never could have imagined this.
I live in terror of him.
It’s impossible to say what he’ll be like when he wakes up in the morning. On the rare mornings we wake up in the same bed, I peek over and watch his face, watch his mood come over him. If his eyes glint evilly, I make myself scarce.
If I don’t run away from him if I don’t give him space? There’s no telling what he’ll do. The bruises up and down my right arm are proof of that.
I don’t know if I’ll make it out alive.
Rose snapped the book closed, her blood pressure skyrocketing, her tongue scratchy. Slowly, she walked to the window and peered out at the construction workers, lined up in raincoats and smoking cigarettes. She breathed a sigh of relief.I’m in the year 2024,she reminded herself.Natalie has been gone for thirty-one years. I haven’t seen Oren in what feels like forever.
But Natalie’s words felt so prescient, so terrifying. They rattled through Rose’s mind.
Rose protected the diary with a plastic bag and left the Grayson Estate a few minutes later. Although she initially planned to drive straight to Hilary’s for a Salt Sisters dinner, she cut early and went into town, parking outside the police station. It was nearly five thirty. Sean Slagle had said he was in every day till seven if something didn’t take him out of the office.
Rose approached the front desk at the police station with the plastic-wrapped diary pressed against her stomach. She felt like a girl in the principal’s office. She wondered if anyone ever felt fully grown up or if it was always just an act.
“Hi! Is Officer Slagle still here?” she asked.
“Let me check,” the receptionist said. She dialed into his office, and the phone rang and rang and rang.
Rose felt despondent. She wasn’t sure she could wait another day before sharing what she’d found.It’s taken thirty-one years for anyone to dig deeper into this. Why?
“He’s not there,” the receptionist said. “But I can leave a note and have him call you back tomorrow?”
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Rose said. “Thank you.”
