Homecoming

Mrs. Robinson tells Jess that when Thomas returns from England with Isabel as his wife, Nora was prepared to dislike her. Over time, however, she grew to love her sister-in-law and visited Halcyon often. Nora doted on their children, and when she herself became pregnant, she was excited that her own child would have cousins. However, by the time Polly was born, Isabel and her children were dead, Thomas was in London, and Nora was alone. Mrs. Robinson says that Mr. Bridges never sought custody of Polly and claims that the distress of the Turner Tragedy caused Nora to go into early labor when she was still alone at Halcyon on Christmas Day. Because Isabel mentioned depression in her journal and had a conversation with the local reverend about leaving her children behind, Mrs. Robinson believes that Isabel suffered from postpartum depression. However, Jess saw no mention of postpartum depression in the coroner’s report. Mrs. Robinson tells Jess that 20 years after the crime, Thea’s remains were discovered in Halcyon’s rose garden. Jess now understands why Nora removed the roses from her own gardens. That night, Jess sends the email to Daniel Miller’s lawyer, then resumes reading Miller’s book.

The rest of Chapter 16 recounts Miller’s quasi-fictionalized descriptions of the events leading up to the Turner Tragedy. Miller also provides an overview of the movements of several townspeople who may or may not have been directly involved in the tragedy, as well as their interactions with police after the fact. He asserts that Nora knew of Isabel’s habit of walking in the gardens each morning, recounting Nora’s observations that lately, Isabel has seemed uncharacteristically morose and forgetful. Nora suspects that Isabel is unhappy about Thomas’s absence. On Christmas Eve morning, Nora sees Isabel standing motionless in the garden before dropping her teacup. When Isabel gathers the shards and looks suddenly purposeful, Nora’s fears are assuaged, but later she will view that moment quite differently.

Isabel’s helper, Becky, walks to Halcyon, stopping to greet Meg Summers. Becky later tells officers that she saw Percy’s son Kurt in the alley, looking upset and assumed that he’d had an argument with Matilda earlier. On the day of the tragedy, Nora notices that Matilda’s mood matches Isabel’s and worries that something is wrong in the household. Since Becky started looking after Thea, Isabel nearly ignores the baby altogether. At breakfast, Isabel announces her plan for a picnic. Due to the heat and her pregnancy, Nora decides to stay home. Before leaving, Isabel asks to speak to Becky privately. Later, the police are very interested in this conversation, and in Becky’s subsequent possession of Isabel’s valuable netsuke (a small carved ornament). Becky tells police that Isabel gave her the rabbit netsuke as a gift. After the fact, Nora tells police that she thought Isabel was going to fire Becky for breaking a gravy boat, not give her a gift. In Nora’s opinion, Isabel fired Becky, who then stole the netsuke. Nora even wonders if the poisoned picnic might have been Becky’s revenge. However, the housekeeper, Mrs. Pike, disagrees—she remembers seeing the two women smiling at each other in the parlor, the netsuke in Becky’s hands.

Miller’s book resumes descriptions of the events leading up to the Turner family’s deaths. John sneaks away from breakfast to meet his new friend, Matthew. He was best friends with Marcus Summers, but the other boy saw Matilda and Kurt being intimate, and turned his anger on the entire family, including John. Now, John trades a half bottle of rat poison to Matthew for use of his camera and tells his friend about finding a letter in Thomas’s briefcase addressed to Rose. Later, when the police confront Thomas with the letter, he claims it is one-sided infatuation.

A few weeks earlier, Matilda realized that her period was late; she told Kurt a week ago that she is pregnant. She wants his help getting to the city for an abortion, but Kurt wants to get married and have the baby. Without giving Evie the particulars of her situation, Matilda enlists Evie, an amateur naturalist, to find a specific remedy. Evie wakes early Christmas Eve morning and slips out of the house unseen. After breakfast, she goes to Matilda’s room and gives her sister the sample she found.

Henrik Drumming takes the day off to visit his wife in the psychiatric hospital. Later, when police discover his wife’s tranquilizers in Isabel’s bedside table, he tells them that he gave the tranquilizers to Isabel because she had trouble sleeping. He is upset by the idea that the pills may have played a part in the tragedy.

In town, Meg Summers puts Isabel’s delivery order together and asks Marcus to take it. At Halcyon, Marcus chats with Nora and Isabel, who is embarrassed after receiving Meg’s gift, not to have anything for the other woman. Nora leaves the room to find something to give Meg. When John enters the kitchen, he and Marcus avoid each other. Matilda comes in, looking ill, and complains it is too hot for a picnic. Later, Nora tells police about Isabel stirring the tea endlessly. Finally, the family is ready, and Isabel hugs Nora before they leave. Afterward, Nora can never decide whether she imagined the uncertainty in Isabel’s eyes.

After that point, no one knows what happened. Only crumbs are left of the picnic when they are found, and it looks as if the family simply fell asleep. Above, the sky is darkening in preparation for a storm. In Tambilla, residents are preparing their celebrations. Drumming, after seeing his wife, is in the hotel when he hears about the search party. At Halcyon, Nora lies down for a nap.

Jess realizes that the Turners could have died due to the rat poison, Matilda’s plant sample, or even Isabel’s tranquilizers, although the tragedy was ruled a murder-suicide at the time, and the coroner was unable to identify the poison. From Miller’s book, Jess deduces that it is plausible that Isabel knew about poisons; Isabel was a scientist, and her father was a naturalist. Realizing that it might still be possible to identify the poison using modern technology, Jess emails a professor at the University of Sydney, asking for a list of available yet unidentifiable poisons in 1959.

Jess speaks on the phone with Daniel Miller’s niece, Nancy, who tells Jess that Miller originally went to Australia to write a series of articles for Esquire about his travels. When he found out about the Turner Tragedy, he traveled to Tambilla immediately. Jess and Nancy discuss Miller’s writing style, which Jess connects to New Journalism. Nancy emphasizes Miller’s desire to represent the family, the community, and the crime truthfully. She still has all his research, interviews, and notebooks. She also reveals that Miller helped the police by passing information from the local reverend, who had insight into Isabel’s state of mind.

Nora was one of Miller’s most important sources, and even when Nora came to believe that Isabel was the most likely culprit, she still insisted that he represent her as a person, not a murderer. Nancy agrees to send Nora’s interviews with Miller to Jess. While Jess waits for Nancy’s email, she reads more of Miller’s book.

Part 2 of Miller’s As If They Were Asleep describes Reverend Lawson’s activities immediately after the murders. As he finishes his Christmas sermon, May Landry tells him that something terrible happened at the Turner house. He remembers a conversation with Isabel, in which she asks if a mother who leaves her children because it is best would still be considered a good mother. He also remembers his advice to her: that no matter how difficult it might be, a mother should try to take her children with her. Now, he sees the conversation in a new light. In Tambilla, the residents discover that Isabel and her children are dead and remember that Nora, who is pregnant, is still at Isabel’s house. Nora is awakened from her nap by the police knocking on the door. She wonders where Isabel and the children are. The sky is dark with the impending storm. She is uncomfortable and tries to adjust the baby in her belly, who kicks her, making her smile. Later, she remembers this as her last happy moment.

The novel returns to the narrative present. Jess is charmed by Miller’s description of the small scene between Nora and her baby, for the tender moment highlights the horror of what Nora endures immediately afterward. She also wonders why the police would take the reverend’s conversation with Isabel so seriously, as it is a secondhand account. She wonders if this is the information that the coroner suppressed at the inquest.

Jess texts Nancy to ask for transcripts of the reverend’s interviews. Nancy sends Nora’s interviews, with a note that Daniel and Nora met many times and became close. However, the reverend’s interviews were never recorded in deference to his position. Jess prints off the pages of Nora’s transcripts and goes out to the garden to read them. She doesn’t hear the phone ring.