Introduction

A haunting, evocative novel about a woman who might have to face the disturbing truth about her own daughter.

Hanna and Joe send their awkward daughter Dawn off to college hoping that she will finally "come into her own." When she brings her new boyfriend, Rud, to her sister's wedding, her parents try to suppress their troubling impressions of him for Dawn's sake. Not long after, Hanna and Joe suffer a savage attack at home, resulting in Joe's death and Hanna's severe injury and memory loss.

Rud is convicted of the crime, and the community speculates that Dawn may also have been involved. When Rud wins an appeal and Dawn returns to live in the family home, Hanna resolves to recall that traumatic night so she can testify in the retrial, exonerate her daughter, and keep her husband's murderer in jail.

But as those memories resurface, Hanna faces the question of whether she knows her own daughter-and whether she ever did.

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Excerpt

The detective told us, “Mr. Petty says something of his is missing, too. Apparently, his camera was stolen along with all your property.” His tone made it clear that he did not believe what Rud had told him.

“I don’t remember seeing any camera,” Joe said, as we watched Rud walk over to Dawn and put his hands on her shoulders.

He said, “Really, Mr. Schutt? You didn’t see me yesterday after dinner, taking pictures of the birds out there?” He pointed to the yard. “There was that gorgeous cardinal, remember? I must have shot a whole roll.” Same smile on his face, same charm in his voice as during the rehearsal dinner before Iris’s wedding, when I fell for it all. Only this time, I was aware of the duplicity behind it. There had been no camera, no photographing of birds in the backyard.

“That never happened.” Joe shook his head, looking at Rud with a smile I’m sure he didn’t even realize was there. Knowing my husband as I did, I could tell that as angry as he was about Rud having robbed us, he also felt fascinated by the arrogance it took for him to lie about it.

“I set the camera right down there on top of the hutch,” Rud said. “And now it’s gone. They must have gotten that, too.”

They. The fictitious burglars who, having noticed someone in the house and probably the dog as well, still chose to enter in broad daylight and search for valuables before removing those items and restoring order behind them.

Rud turned to Dawn and said, “I know you remember, Kitten. You said you couldn’t remember seeing anything so red as that little birdie.”

I watched my daughter freeze for a moment – just a moment; no one but a mother would have caught it – before she turned her face up to him, her features brightening conscientiously along the way.

“Of course I remember,” she agreed, but she could not look at Joe and me.

It was clear that the detective understood what was going on. But as Joe and I walked him out to the driveway, he told us that with Rud reporting himself as a victim, too, and no actual evidence, there wasn’t much the police could do but file a report.

“You can’t search his car?” Joe asked. “I mean, our daughter’s car?”

Thornburgh said hopefully, “Do you own it?”

Joe pursed his lips, shook his head. “No. It’s in her name.”

“Then she’d have to consent.”

Joe turned toward the house and called for Dawn. In a moment she appeared, trailing Rud behind her with her hand locked in his. “What now?” Something had changed in her expression even in the short time since we’d left them alone in the house. Her features were hardened against Joe and me, as if Rud had whispered a promise she’d been wanting to hear.

“Would you let the officer take a look in your car?” Though I could see that Joe also felt shaken by the shift in our daughter’s demeanor, he would not let it deter him. When she hesitated, he added, “After all, if there’s nothing to hide, there’s no reason not to allow a search, right?”

He was right, of course, and I saw that Dawn wanted to say yes, so she’d have the satisfaction of proving us wrong. But that was when Rud stepped in front of her and said, “We are not going to stand here and listen to you accuse us like common criminals. I was taught to respect my elders, but if you wanna know the truth, Mr. and Mrs. Schutt, I think you should be ashamed of yourselves.” He lifted his chin and, literally standing by her man, Dawn did the same.

I thought about reminding him that nobody was accusing Dawn of anything, but I recognized it as one of those cases that called for restraint of tongue. At that moment I wished Joe were the type of man who would just say The hell with it and pop the trunk before anyone could stop him, or that I had the courage to do it myself, but neither was the case and I knew it. A silence followed, after which Thornburgh cleared his throat and told us that if anything changed we should call him, and he’d let us know if the police came up with any leads. Rud said to him, “You have my number if that camera turns up,” and Thornburgh – also exercising restraint, it seemed -- barely acknowledged the statement before getting into his car.

Back in the house Dawn said to Rud, “Honey, Mom made you a sandwich.” I hadn’t done so and she knew it, but she offered him the plate I’d prepared for the detective.

Rud took the plate and set it back on the table with an exaggerated delicacy, as if he considered it contaminated. “We won’t be staying for lunch,” he said. “Get our things together, Kitten. We’re obviously not welcome here.”

“Dawn is most certainly welcome here,” Joe said. Until then Dawn had only looked anxious as we all waited to see how the scene would unfold, but at her father’s words, she erupted in tears.

“How can you do this,” she cried, pushing past us to run up to her bedroom, where we heard her packing up their things. Rud did not move to help her, but pulled a chair out and sat down at the table. Despite his stated refusal to remain in our house for another meal, he picked up the policeman’s sandwich and finished it in a few bites, all the while ignoring Joe and me as we stood by watching him, stunned by his nerve.

When they drove off a few minutes later, it was without any further words among the four of us. “We shouldn’t have let them leave,” I told Joe. “It’s snowing, they’re angry, and we’re not really sure what happened.” I was pleading with him to agree with me. “Are we?”

“Oh, God, Hanna.” I could see that it wearied him to have to insist, again, upon what we both knew. I was grateful that he didn’t invoke our private expression: Lacy eye. “Yes, we’re sure.” He stood and rinsed Rud’s plate, as if knowing that I would not want to touch it. (He was right; it was the kind of moment I loved him for.) Without even talking about it, we decided not to go to see Hamlet that night as we’d planned; we were in no mood for a tragedy. Instead, we stayed in and ordered a movie on cable.

I did not remember doing this; when Kenneth Thornburgh came to question me in the hospital, I could not tell him anything about the hours leading up to the attack. The last thing I remembered was deciding to call Dawn to make sure she’d gotten back safely to her apartment. I resolved not to mention anything about the robbery, so that our conversation wouldn’t disintegrate the way the Thanksgiving visit had; I would keep it short and sweet, a check-up call just to say I love you, no matter what.

But Dawn wasn’t home. Her roommate Opal answered and told me she hadn’t seen Dawn since Tuesday night. I asked her to have Dawn call me when she got home. But if she did so, I could not remember.

At the trial, one of the investigators testified that our cable records showed that Joe and I purchased a movie that Friday at 8:11 p.m. When the prosecutor asked the witness what the movie was, he answered as matter-of-factly as the situation called for, yet the prosecutor allowed a pause before her next question, to ensure that the irony was not lost on anyone in the room. Just hours before someone came into our house and crushed our skulls with a croquet mallet, my husband and I had ordered – and presumably watched – Catch Me If You Can. Even the judge raised her eyebrows as a nervous titter bounced off the courtroom walls.

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Discussion Questions

1. How would you characterize the marriage between Hanna and Joe?

2. Throughout the novel, Joe does challenge Hanna somewhat about her “lacy eye”; should he have pushed her further to challenge it more in herself?

3. Do you blame Hanna for not acknowledging the truth sooner – for practicing “lacy eye”?

4. Why do you believe Hanna does practice “lacy eye”? What does she gain by doing so? What does she lose?

5. Was Claire’s confrontation of Hanna about Dawn’s role in the attacks a breach of friendship, or an act of friendship?

6. Among other things, Hanna feels guilty about the attacks. To what extent, if any, do you believe that those feelings are justified?

7. To what degree, if any, is Hanna complicit in Rud Petty’s plot to keep her from testifying in the new trial by frightening or even killing her?

8. Do you believe that Hanna ever actually considered Emmett to be the culprit in either the dog’s poisoning or the attack against her and Joe?

9. The others in the family think that Rud was using Dawn to gain access to money he believed she had. Dawn believed he was in love with her. How would you characterize Rud and his motivations?

10. What role does money and socioeconomic status play in the events of the novel?

11. Hanna speculates about this question herself, but never quite comes up with an answer: Why do you think Dawn participated in the attack against her parents? Do you think there any justification for her to do so?

12. How should a parent behave toward a child who has done such a thing?

13. To what extent, if any, do you think Hanna’s experience with her parents influenced the tragedy that occurred within her own family years later?

14. The relationship between Hanna and the family dog, Abby, is one of mutual affection and unconditional love. To what extent is that similar to or different from the relationship between Hanna and Dawn? Hanna and Iris? Parents and children in general?

15. Do you think Hanna did the right thing in acquiescing to Iris’s insistence that she never see Dawn again, if she wanted to maintain a relationship with her other daughter and her daughter’s family?

16. From what you know of Dawn, do you think she is redeemable? Do you think Hanna believes she is? What do you imagine the rest of Dawn’s life will be like, especially if and when she is ever released from prison?

17. The epigraph of the novel, from Ralph Waldo Emerson, is “Of all the ways to lose a person, death is the kindest.” Do you agree?

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