Chapter 37
Jack
Two days later, he finds the photograph she left on his desk. Under a folder but positioned intentionally with the edge peeking out. She wanted him to find it. A photograph of her father holding hands with another woman while her mother dressed in riding clothes sits on the fence next to them, staring fixedly away.
He’d seen the photograph before. Jackie showed it to him once, years ago. She said that by the time it was taken, her mother had decided it didn’t matter what her father did. She’d accepted her marriage for what it was. He can’t quite remember the words Jackie used when she told him this. Only that, years later, she came across that photograph and understood everything she thought she’d known as a child in a new and awful light.
Outside the window behind his desk is the Rose Garden. Caroline and John are tramping through the snow near an unfinished snowman; a hat, a pipe, and a carrot, some black pieces of something scattered on the frozen surface. Caroline has gotten distracted. She’s standing over an angel she made, studying the outline among the mess of shapes.