mother’s funeral.”
“I told you, I don’t want a funeral. There’s no one but us.”
“We could have her cremated and just have the ashes placed in a vault.”
“Do they make little vaults just for ashes?”
“I don’t know. I’ll make the arrangements. Do you want to speak to a minister, or have someone say a few words?”
“Who? About what? That’s not my mother at the morgue.”
“Because she’s Eleanor Drummond?”
“It’s Eleanor Drummond’s remains, and it’s my mother’s remains.” She looked up into Miranda’s eyes ingenuously. “Will they need two caskets?”
Miranda blanched.
“My mom’s gone. I want to forget that she’s dead. No funeral, no words over ashes, no fuss. Please, okay?”
“Forgetting’s not easy, Jill. And maybe not right.”
“I don’t want to think about dead!” She took a deep breath. “Not a dead body, a corpse, a cadaver, ashes formerly known as …” Miranda put her arm lightly over the girl’s shoulders, but Jill sat upright, untouched. “I just want her to be inside my head. You know what I mean?”
Miranda understood. She remembered when her father died, trying in bed to summon up good memories only, or to avoid him entirely in the dark. She couldn’t bear images of absolute stillness, silence, and decomposition.
Thinking about murder victims, Miranda tried to maintain the fine line between clinical disinterest and common humanity, a line occasionally erased by a personal detail, an imaginative leap, and then there was loneliness in the dead of night and fear that was both visceral swarming through her mind.
“That pin you were wearing …” she said to Jill.
“At the morgue?”
“You said your mother gave it to you.”
“Why are you asking?”
“It was pretty.”
“Yes. She didn’t like fish, but she liked the design.”
“How did you know what kind it was?”
“A Shiro Utsuri? She told me.”
“Jill, did you know Robert Griffin?”
“No.”
“Does the name seem familiar?”
“I’ve heard it. Like, that’s where they found my mom. At his place.”
“Did you ever go there?”
“I didn’t know him. He was an associate of my mother’s.”
“As Eleanor Drummond?”
“I guess. I’m not sure. Could you take me to where she died? I would like to see where she died.”
“I don’t think so, Jill. Why?”
“It’s just — she was alive, and then she wasn’t alive. I need to see where that happened, where she changed from one thing to another like that. Do you know what metamorphosis means?”
“Yes, I do,” said Miranda.
“We read stories about metamorphosis in school, stories from Rome a long time ago. And we studied metamorphosis in science. I just want to see where it happened.”
“All right. Tell Victoria I’ll get you back in a couple of hours. We’ll have lunch downtown. Tell her I’ll have you back after lunch.”
When Miranda pulled into the Rosedale garage, she knew Jill had been at Robert Griffin’s before. They were both a little windblown. Jill had insisted they drive with the top down.
Miranda was self-conscious about the Jaguar. She expected Mrs. de Cuchilleros would be watching them from among the ferns in her receiving-room window. As far as the neighbours were concerned, she was a police detective investigating a possible homicide and she was driving the dead man’s car. She hadn’t returned it the previous night, and somehow that made her feel even more truant.
As they had approached, Miranda saw Jill avert her eyes, keeping the house out of her line of vision, then stare up at it abruptly when they turned down the ramp and descended into the depths. Parked, Miranda smoothed her hair back while Jill resolutely got out of the car as if she were obeying a command. Together they raised the top back up into position, and Miranda locked the doors. She started toward the inside entrance, then realized Jill was already striding back up the ramp. She followed her onto the front steps where the girl was pushing at the door.
“It’s locked,” said Miranda.
“I’ve got the keys.” Inside, Jill’s eyes followed the stairs in the direction of the study where her mother had died, but she walked through the hallway to the side, down the stairs into the den, and stopped at the French doors, waiting for Miranda to catch up, looking out through the portico into the garden. Miranda moved beside her, careful to give her enough distance.
“Jill, tell me about it. Why did you want to come here?”
The girl turned to her and stepped back. “To see what it was like.”
“You’ve been here before?”
“No.”
“Jill, you have.”
The girl looked angry and hurt. “What do you want from me?”
“Jill?”
“I can be anything you want.”
“What do you mean?”
“I could be the daughter she wanted. She would see if she came back. I can be his Shiromuji girl if that’s what he wants. I didn’t mean for all this to happen. I can be whatever, whatever.”
Miranda was stunned by her compliant ferocity. “Did he call you that?” Panic rose in her gut.
The girl didn’t answer.
“Did Robert Griffin call you that?”
No answer.
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
“Jill …” A great wave of despair rolled through Miranda from deep inside to the surface, where it was quelled by an icy chill, and for a moment she felt nothing at all. She stood very still. Then her skin seemed on fire. “I was there, too …” She didn’t know if she had said that aloud. Miranda touched the girl, and neither of them burned. She took the girl in her arms.
At first they stood stiffly upright, the girl defiant. Then Jill leaned into Miranda, letting her
