“You don’t have to talk about it,” Jessie says.

“I have to tell someone, don’t you see?” Kate says. She squeezes Jessie’s hand, and for the first time ever in her life, Jessie understands that her mother is real.

It’s a revelation. Her mother is a human being who feels pain—sadness, loneliness, confusion. Jessie thought all grown-ups lived in a different atmosphere, one that was like a cool, clear gel. Adults had problems, Jessie knew—money and their children—but one of the benefits of reaching adulthood, she thought, was that you outgrew the raw, hot, chaotic emotions of adolescence.

“The night Wilder died was a couple of days after I received a letter from Lorraine telling me that she was pregnant with his baby.”

Jessie’s stomach drops.

“I wanted to confront him while the children were asleep,” Kate says. “I found him in his workshop, cleaning his gun.”

Jessie bows her head and closes her eyes. She knows she should be honored that her mother has chosen her as a confidante…but she doesn’t want to hear another word. Already the story is different from the one Jessie believed to be true her whole life. She thought that Kate had walked into the workshop and found Wilder dead.

“I let him read the letter from Lorraine,” Kate goes on, “and I said, ‘It looks like you’re to have a bastard child. I’m taking the children and leaving you. I’m moving back to Beacon Hill with my parents. I’m through, Wilder, and there’s nothing you can do about it. I’ve contacted a lawyer and I’m filing for divorce.’”

Jessie holds her breath. She had been told long ago—by whom, she can’t remember—that Wilder shot himself accidentally and that Kate had hired David Levin to prove it wasn’t a suicide and he had done that.

“I closed the door and walked away,” Kate says. “But do you know what I regret?”

Jessie senses that she’s not expected to answer, and she can’t find her voice anyway.

“I regret not slamming the door,” Kate says. “If I’d shown anger, Wilder might have snapped to his senses and come after me to argue or plead his case. He had…dramatic mood swings, problems with pills and whiskey…but I didn’t realize how low his low points were. Honestly, Jessica, I wasn’t thinking about him in that moment. I was thinking about myself. I was thinking that he had betrayed me. He had been unfaithful with someone I knew, someone I liked. And he’d been careless enough to get her pregnant, which meant that the whole wide world would know that Wilder preferred Lorraine Crimmins to me, and I would be humiliated on top of my heartbreak.”

“What happened?” Jessie asks.

“A split second after I’d closed the door quietly but firmly, with a click, and walked away, I heard a shot.”

“He killed himself,” Jessie says.

“Yes,” Kate says. “I wasn’t a hundred percent certain at first because Wilder was prone to drama. I thought it was possible he’d fired a shot into the wall to make me think he’d killed himself. And he was so unstable that I also thought it was possible that I’d open that door and he would be pointing the gun at me.”

“What did you do?” Jessie asks.

“I waited a few minutes and when I heard nothing but silence, I opened the door and I saw what he’d done.” Kate eyes are dry, her face calm. She might be telling Jessie that she opened the door to find Wilder had fixed the vacuum. “My first emotion was completely irrational: anger. I was furious that Wilder had taken the easy way out. I wanted him to face what he’d done. I wanted him to feel shame in front of my father, in front of my mother.”

This is so unexpected, Jessie doesn’t know how to arrange her expression.

“And then I felt guilt, like an ocean wave crashing over me, a really powerful wave, the kind that knocks you down and fills your nose and mouth with burning salt water. Because…” Kate laughs sadly. “I can’t believe I’m telling you all this. I should stop.”

Yes, Jessie thinks. Stop. Stop! But somehow she knows Kate isn’t able to stop.

“I felt guilty because I had lied to Wilder. I hadn’t contacted a lawyer and I didn’t plan on divorcing him. I would have moved to Nonny’s temporarily, then we would have worked it out. I only said what I did in order to upset him.” Kate pauses, thinks for a minute, then says, “The only person in the whole world who knows the truth is Bill Crimmins.”

“Mr. Crimmins?” Jessie says.

“I called him on Nantucket and told him what happened. He got on the ferry and made it to our house by midnight. He fixed it.”

“Fixed it how?” Jessie asks. Her hands are numb, her lips are tingling. She will never, ever be the same. Nothing matters anymore—not Pick, not the Tree of Life, not Anne Frank discovered by the Nazis and dying in a concentration camp. Her mother lied about Wilder Foley’s death. He killed himself because of something Kate said. And Mr. Crimmins knows.

“He just fixed it,” Kate says. “He made it look like an accident.”

“Dad?” Jessie asks.

“David was the main person we were trying to fool,” Kate says. “And the insurance company, of course, because they wouldn’t have paid a settlement for a suicide. And I wanted to hide the truth from my friends and neighbors. When they heard Wilder killed himself accidentally while cleaning his gun, they felt sorry for us. That is a tragedy. Suicide, however, carries a stigma. I couldn’t bear to pass that legacy on to the children. So, only Bill knows. And now you. I’m trusting you with this secret, but I will not burden you with it. If you want to call the authorities right now, call the authorities.” Her eyes are shining with tears. “It might be a relief. You have no idea what kind of hell it has been living with this for so many years. I waited each day to be punished. Because no one gets off scot-free, Jessie. And when they called up your brother, although the rest of the world might see that as random bad luck, I knew that Tiger was being drafted because of me. And he’s likely going to die.”

“Mom,” Jessie whispers. “Please don’t say that.”

“It’s my fault,” Kate says forlornly. She lays her head on the table, and finally, the tears fall. “It’s my fault. I drove Wilder to his death.”