Read Online Anonymous Sources by Mary Louise Kelly - Free Book Online

they average the scores. So even if Thom rocked it the next time, he’d still score pretty low. Thom said—I mean, he realized there are worse problems in the world. But law school was . . .” Joe struggled to find the right words. “The whole time I’ve known him, Thom never talked about doing anything else. It was a very big deal to his family. A very big deal to Thom. When he told me about his LSAT score, he sounded just lost. He hadn’t figured out yet how to tell his dad.”
    â€œWhat about Petronella Black? He must have talked about it with her.”
    â€œNo idea. I guess so. He was crazy about her. He was talking about marrying her, did you know that? But then every time I talked to him, they were fighting or not speaking to each other or something.”
    â€œAnd you never met her yourself, you said.”
    â€œNo. Maybe I will on Tuesday.”
    â€œTuesday?”
    â€œThe funeral. Memorial Church, at Harvard. They just announced it.”
    THAT NIGHT, IN THE ENORMOUS, claw-footed tub of my hotel bathroom, I leaned back and scowled at my drink. Didn’t the bloody English invent gin and tonics? Why, then, when you ordered one from room service—at a hotel in the heart of sodding England—why did they deliver it without a trace of a lime or lemon? And God forbid they include an ice cube or two. I sipped. The drink was tepid. The tonic was flat.
    Then again: at least it was large. At least it was gin.
    I sank lower into the scalding water. I was exhausted. The overnight flight, the time change, the not particularly productive day of reporting. I didn’t have much of a story yet. But I was beginning to see the outlines of a feature I could cobble together for the Sunday paper. A ticktock account of Thomas Carlyle’s last days. It would not exactly be Pulitzer material, but it would advance the story a little. I could make it a pretty piece of writing to help set up the funeral on Tuesday. I still needed to track down a professor and ideally a rowing friend or coach. Then there was Petronella Black. I wasn’t sure how to convince her to talk. But I would need to go back and interview her on the record.
    For tonight, though, I was done thinking about her. I wanted more gin and then I wanted to get to bed.
    I gulped at the drink and ran my fingers through my hair and over the soft, saggy skin of my stomach. Over the silvery stretch marks. Try explaining those on a third date. The marks are the only physical evidence that I have given birth. I was so young when it happened that the rest of my body snapped back into place.
    For a long time I rarely thought of her. Now, as I’ve said, some nights it hits me so hard I can’t stand up. But losing my daughter has also made me strong. It has made me a better reporter. Because it has made me fearless. It is easy to be fearless when you have nothing to lose. And what do you have to lose, when you’ve already lost the thing that matters most?

    
12
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    SATURDAY, JUNE 26
    T he next morning I needed the cooked breakfast.
    Sausages, two eggs, beans, oily mushrooms and tomatoes, fried bread, the works. A big pot of tea that I was allowing to steep too long to boost the caffeine content.
    Luckily room service had shut last night at eleven, cutting me off after four drinks. Otherwise I might not have made it down for breakfast at all. As it was, I was feeling ravenous. I ordered an extra basket of toast and marmalade and gobbled it down.
    My plan, such as it was, was to get back to Petronella’s room early enough that she would still be in bed. If I could catch her off guard, beforeshe’d dressed and done her makeup, I might be able to coax something out of her.
    So I swigged down the tea and was back outside Petronella’s door by eight o’clock. Practically the middle of the night by grad-student standards.
    This time it was quiet.
    I knocked lightly. No