Summary

It is approaching Thanksgiving, 2017. In the wake of the newspaper article on Strane, Browick suspends him from teaching. Vanessa struggles against the impulse to contact him until he calls her. He dismisses the allegations as hysteria, a response to the “epidemic” of such accusations in the #MeToo culture. As they hang up, Strane repeats over and over how much he loved Vanessa. Vanessa has a bad feeling—she knows what is happening and is not surprised the next afternoon to read in the newspaper that Strane jumped to his death off a bridge over the Norumbega River. Just days later she receives a box from Strane containing mementoes of their time together, including the suggestive posed Polaroids, essays she had written for his class, poetry she had written about him, and even the strawberry and cream pajamas she had worn the first time...