If she’d been able to keep the secret from Daddy, she’d have kept it from him. As it was, she’d hidden the worst of the side effects from our father, sleeping much of the day when he was at work so that she was strong enough to prepare a meal in the evening, and managing her appetite so that she was able to eat at least part of the meal with him, to deflect his suspicions. She’d made up her face, she’d looked almost glamorous. Wore loose-fitting clothes so he wouldn’t notice how much weight she’d lost. As soon as her hair began to fall out she’d had it buzz-cut so that she could be fitted with a glamorous wig, virtually identical with her own hair when she’d been young and healthy and she’d made sure that Daddy never saw her without that wig.

Amazing! I am filled with admiration for my mother. Thinking how little I knew her.

And did that work?—I have to ask.

Katie laughs. “Well—maybe. You know what men are like.”

“Do I? What are men like?”

“They can’t face much reality. If they can tell themselves a woman isn’t sick, not seriously sick, if that’s at all possible it’s what they will tell themselves because to think otherwise is terrifying to them.”

“And was that the case with Dad?”

“He couldn’t face it, that Mom might be seriously ill. If Miriam or I tried to bring up the subject he’d cut us off. He stayed away from the house a lot. At work, and after work. Not so different from the way he’d always been, in fact. They had that kind of marriage—the wife stays home. The man screws around.”

“Oh, Katie! That sounds harsh.”

“Mom dealt with it, she was OK. Not happy, but OK. Every woman she knew who was married had the same experience. She couldn’t have left Dad even if she’d wanted to, she had no income. All she’d ever done was ‘keep house’—take care of children. Then this thing that came along, like a stake through the heart of the marriage.”

Thing that came along. The way our family had learned to speak of the murder of Hadrian Johnson. A thing, an event, an action that had come along.

“It wasn’t just that Daddy had affairs—had sex—with other women, that they couldn’t talk about. He and Mom never actually seemed to acknowledge what Jerr and Lionel did. It was like they couldn’t—just couldn’t comprehend it . . . All Daddy talked about was lawyers and appeals, how to get the convictions ‘overturned.’ He had his fixed beliefs, no one dared challenge him. The stress made him unbalanced, ill. And then it killed him.” Katie pauses, wiping at her eyes.