Chapter 14 Summary

Main Novel, the late 1940s

Iris finds old school exercise books after Laura dies. In the mathematics book, there appears a long column of numbers with words opposite some of them. Iris recognizes the numbers as dates. The first date coincides with Iris's return from Europe and the last day was just a few months before Laura was sent to Bella Vista. Iris concludes that these are the dates Richard raped Laura. Iris was grateful that Laura had never seen Aimee because she would have known right away that Aimee was Alex Thomas's daughter and not Richard's.

Iris keeps all of Laura's notebooks, bound together with string, plus other manuscript pages in the steamer trunk once used in her wedding trousseau. After Laura's funeral, Iris leaves Richard. She sends the steamer trunk out to Port Ticonderoga and then takes Aimee away while Richard...