Where'd You Go, Bernadette

TUESDAY, JANUARY 25

Fax from Soo-Lin

Dear Audrey,

Keep that last letter I wrote you, and frame it, for it is an artifact from a fleeting moment when I could call true happiness my own.

You know how I said Elgie was heading back east to see Bee? Which I found kind of strange? It turns out Elgie withdrew Bee from Choate. He just returned to Seattle with her in tow!

Remember what a sweet, quiet girl Bee always was? Well, the child is unrecognizable, I tell you, absolutely consumed with hatred. Elgie moved back into the Gate Avenue house to be with her. But Bee refuses to sleep under the same roof as him. The only place she wants to sleep is Bernadette’s Airstream. Saint Bernadette!

Elgie is so guilt-ridden, he’ll do anything Bee wants. She won’t go back to Galer Street? Fine! She refuses to step foot in my home for our weekly dinners? Fine!

You’d never guess the source of all this turmoil. It’s the most incredible “book” Bee wrote. She won’t let anybody see it, but from what little Elgie will tell me, it’s based on emails between you and me, Audrey, plus the FBI report, even handwritten notes between you and the blackberry specialist. I have no idea how Bee got her mitts on all of this. Not to point fingers, but the only person who could possibly have had access is Kyle. (The old Kyle.) Perhaps you can confront him during your next therapy session. I, for one, would like some answers. I’m even paranoid this fax will fall into enemy hands.

Elgie wants Bee to go to Lakeside in the fall. All I can say is she had better get over herself because there is no way we’re moving that Airstream over to the new house. Can you imagine? We’d be the hillbillies of Madison Park. “We”! As if Elgie would ever want to live together as a family!

I’m sure you think I’m being horribly selfish, but my life has been turned upside down, too! I gave up my job, I’m pregnant at age forty by a man whose life is in turmoil, plus I have terrible morning sickness. The only thing I can hold down is French toast. I’ve already gained eleven pounds, and I’m not even in my second trimester. When Bee finds out that Bernadette perished, not to mention about the baby, who knows what she’ll do?

Here’s a letter from the cruise company along with the captain’s report, plus the forensic analysis. And those gorgeous pictures I promised of the poppies from Ushuaia. I’m late for a VAV meeting, and boy do I need it.

Love,

Soo-Lin