She checks May 2, the night Lydia disappeared. The first page she sees, April 10, is blank. The key is missing, but Marilyn jams the tip of a ballpoint into the catch and forces the flimsy lock open. With one finger, she tugs out the last diary: 1977. Of strange men who might lurch out of the shadows. Now she thinks of all those crossed-out phone numbers, that long list of girls who said they barely knew Lydia at all.
What secrets could a daughter keep from her mother, anyway? Still, every year, she gave Lydia another diary.
“For writing down your secrets,” Marilyn had said with a smile, and Lydia had smiled back up at her and said, “But Mom, I don’t have any secrets.”Īt the time, Marilyn had laughed. Her daughter had unwrapped it and turned it over and over in her hands, touching the tiny keyhole, as if she didn’t know what it was for. Marilyn had given Lydia her first diary the Christmas she was five, a flowered one with gilt edges and a key lighter than a paper clip. And there, on the bottom shelf of the bookcase, she sees the neat row of diaries lined up by year. Somewhere in this room, she is sure, is the answer to what happened.
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