Over the next days, Logan lives and sleeps in his study. Discreet knocks at the door signal the leaving of sandwiches, cups of tea, glasses of water; tokens of filial love, he thinks, for the prisoner in solitary confinement. He fills the rest of his journal with the same three words. Flora is dead. Flora is dead. He must write them until they have no impact. He must write them until they are as meaningless as a brand name. He must strip them of their power.
May 2nd is looming, and May 2nd, he has been formally notified, is the day he must turn up at the Old Bailey, push through a press of cameras and boom microphones, take the stand fully in control of his mind and emotions, and swear a Bibleless affirmation before expressing his expert opinion that April is mad. He must say it sane. But grief is in his way, and the more he hacks through its thorns, the more he comes to understand it is he who is planting the brambles, making the rescue of himself an impossible task. Only part of him wants to stop grieving: the practical part that is tired of being in pain and incapacitated. Another more powerful part wants to grieve for her forever.
Because to stop grieving for Flora, he must finally let go of her, and that feels like betrayal. Shouldn’t the loss of a beloved child destroy a loving father forever? A love easily surrendered is a love less than total. To lose himself in grief for his daughter has been his shout to the world: This mattered! Flora mattered! His refusal to get on with his life like she never existed has been his badge of fealty. Out there in the world, hardly anyone knew her. The world is wide, and preoccupied, and she was only a name on a funeral notice. Having moved away from where she grew up, he meets no one who knew her. But even for the months he remained in their neighbourhood, those who did know her avoided her name like a curse. When she was all he could think about, all he desired to talk about, they would rattle on about weather, and celebrities, and the news. Here, in the forest, not a soul seems to know she existed. Move on, says the world. She’s gone.
His grief is a tribute to Flora; the only tribute he can make; his life laid down like a wreath. The last time he spoke to Rachel, she said she had come to terms with the loss of their daughter. Tom has forgotten his sister in a mist of Anesthine and Mei Mei. Even at her wake, he saw some of Flora’s friends laughing.