We had a low-energy class that morning, the kids fuzzy-brained. They each had a final project due for their other class tomorrow as well; Alyssa had stayed up all night, something to do with a suspension bridge model.
They were only halfway out the door when I checked my email （a reflex, the worst habit） and called for Britt and Alder to stop. Between hate mail about Jerome and hate mail about me, an answer from Vanessa. It was curt but not angry.
I do have Thalia’s planner, she wrote. But if you’re asking for scans I’m afraid I’m not comfortable with that. I live in Lowell, Mass, and could meet you somewhere between here and Granby if you’d like a look. I’m not keen on student involvement, but I can show you pages. I’d need to see some ID from you just for my own peace of mind. Perhaps this weekend?
I was flying out Saturday morning. I could delay my flight, but it would be expensive and I didn’t know what shape Jerome was in, how much longer he could watch the kids, whether they were keeping him sane or making things worse. But I couldn’t miss this chance.
I wrote back saying early tomorrow morning would be significantly easier, hoping she wouldn’t find me pushy. I could come all the way to Lowell, I wrote. I’d ask Fran to drive me, or I’d hire a Lyft. By the time I checked email again on the way into that afternoon’s film class, she’d agreed, named a coffee shop where she could meet at seven a.m.
#7: YOUR WIFE
Let’s say it was your wife.
Was it your wife?
58
Fran barely concealed her displeasure at my mission. She had no interest in getting up at five, but was fine with me borrowing her car. She said, “I hope this gives you closure.” I kept myself from laughing, from bleating back the word closure, the very opposite of what I sought. Better to let Fran think we were wrapping things up.
In the still-dark of Friday morning I set off, flying over hills, watching out for moose. I hate LA driving so much that I’d forgotten I actually love regular driving.
I refilled her gas tank on the way and used, on impulse, the credit card I only use for business expenses. Because yes, wasn’t this now my only job? I hadn’t yet suggested to Britt and Alder that I’d help them continue the podcast—I couldn’t show favoritism before the class ended—but I’d tell them that afternoon.
I found Vanessa at the corner table where she said she’d be, in yoga clothes and Uggs, her face older than I could reconcile with either the child I’d met or the young woman on Dateline. I pulled out my driver’s license as I sat, and she looked at me like I was nuts. “You said,” I started, and then she remembered, scanned it quickly, laughing at herself.
“I recognize you, believe it or not. When you’re a kid, your older sister’s life is fascinating.”
She slid my latte across the table; she’d texted to ask my order.
I said, “I want to make sure I’m not misrepresenting myself. We weren’t close friends, but we did live together, and—”
“It’s fine,” she said. “It’s good, actually. Her close friends didn’t protect her, did they? If you were one of them, it wouldn’t help me trust you.”
This was unexpected, a reassurance that sank deep in my bones.
She said, “I don’t even know why I agreed to this, but I hate the way they talk about the planner online. That the marks are because she was bulimic or whatever.” I didn’t interject that I was pretty sure Thalia was at least a little bulimic. “I guess if you think you know something, I’d like to know it, too.”
I nodded, worried I’d disappoint her.
She said, “So many terrible people reach out to me about the case, but after all these years, you’re the first person from Granby, the first one who knew Thalia there, who’s ever gotten in touch. Well.” She reached into the tote bag hanging on her chair and pulled out an ancient spiral-bound Granby planner, the green cover worn to pulp. I received it gently, worried it would disintegrate. Inside, though, everything looked brand-new, as if Thalia might at any moment cross off one commitment and enter another in her neat, loopy writing.
It was an August-to-August planner, and I flipped through the pages of preseason tennis, the phone numbers jotted in corners, the project due dates and homework reminders and choir practices. Monday through Wednesday on the left pages, Thursday through the weekend on the right. On December 8, Camelot auditions. On December 9, the Lessons and Carols concert. The week of the twelfth, midterms. And all through it, the three kinds of marks: red dots, blue Xs, purple Xs. Sometimes the dots were roughly four weeks apart, and sometimes they were six weeks apart, or eight. But Thalia’s period wasn’t predictable—hadn’t that been part of the problem? She had been so thin. No wonder she didn’t always bleed, no wonder she had those scares. She didn’t mark off all the days she bled, like I did—just what was probably the start date. That made it harder to interpret, but I was sure.
I said, “You know the red dots are her period.”
Vanessa nodded. “That’s one theory.”
“No, seriously. I taught her how to keep track like this. You don’t have the one from the previous year, do you?”
And to my surprise Vanessa pulled a second planner from the bag, the ’93–’94 one, with its yellow-gold cover.
“Oh my God, perfect.” I turned to the end of junior year Feb Week. There, that Thursday, the day she’d come back early, was a red dot. I said, “She had a pregnancy scare, and she was so relieved when her period came. This was it.”
Vanessa nodded slowly. “Okay, so that—yeah, we know she wasn’t pregnant when she died, but I guess some people thought maybe she believed she was. But there was a dot—” She took the senior year planner back and opened easily to the two facing pages that were viewable online. This was where the book had been pressed flat in Xerox machines and scanners at some point in the investigation. Monday, February 27, four days before she died, a red dot. She said, “I never liked that theory anyway. That she told Omar she was pregnant or something. Because they weren’t together. I’m sure of that.”
Perhaps this was just an inability to picture Thalia in a relationship with the killer she believed Omar was, but still her opinion was validating.
I turned forward from Feb Week in the junior planner. A blue X on Tuesday, a purple X on Thursday. Blues and purples scattered all through the spring, tucked into the bottom right-hand corners of days.
I said, carefully, as if Vanessa would be scandalized after all this time, “The Xs, I’m pretty sure, are times she slept with someone.” And here, as I flipped, was Spring Dance, which she’d attended with Robbie. Two blue Xs in the corner. Spring Dance was at the Hanover Inn, and students who signed out for the weekend could take off afterward, ostensibly for home but really for party houses. There was a blue X the next day, too. I turned the planner toward her, pointed at where Thalia had written SPRING DANCE in orange highlighter, had outlined the letters with a black gel pen. I said, “The blue is Robbie. I think the purple is someone else.”
Vanessa shook her head quickly, hair against her cheeks. “She wasn’t sleeping with Omar. If they’d had a relationship he would have said so even after he recanted his confession. He would’ve used it to explain his DNA on her.”