Homecoming

At the time, Polly argued with Nora, protesting that no one in America would have heard of the tragedy, but Nora told Polly about the success of Daniel Miller’s book. In the end, Polly broke the engagement without telling Jonathan the true reason, and two weeks after he left, she discovered that she was pregnant. Contrary to Polly’s expectations, Nora was ecstatic at the news and convinced her not to tell Jonathan or even name him as the father.

When Nora refused to tell her more about the Turner Tragedy, Polly requested Daniel Miller’s book from the library and never returned it. In his book, Miller portrayed Nora as a good mother, in contrast to Isabel. Reading this, Polly worried that she would not be able to live up to Nora’s example. Soon after Jess was born, Daniel Miller visited Nora, and Polly met him. Although he and Nora only spoke for an hour, Nora was visibly upset when he left. Later that night, Nora made Polly promise never to tell Jess about Halcyon.

Back in the present moment, Polly wanders through her rose garden, thinking about what an awkward mother she was at first and how Nora always stepped in. Once Polly and Jess moved out of Darling House, she had improved, and those early years with her daughter were wonderful.

After reading Miller’s interviews with Nora, Jess feels like she knows her grandmother better. When Polly calls, she ignores it, intending to call her mother back on the way to the hospital to see Nora. Before then, however, she wants to look back over Miller’s pages.

Written from Nora’s perspective, Miller’s account details the years before the murders, discussing Nora’s disappointment when Thomas and Isabel move to Halcyon. However, once Nora visits the house, she understands the power of the property. The English house and formal gardens stand in stark contrast to the surrounding bushland. When Thomas leaves for the war, Nora is lonely and quickly marries Richard Bridges to start a family. She gets pregnant several times but is never able to carry a baby to term until Polly. Nora looks forward to finishing her pregnancy at Halcyon with her family, and once she arrives, she realizes how alone and unsupported she felt at home. After the pain of their failed pregnancies, Richard was prepared to be satisfied with their one child, but Nora thought his attitude weak.

At Halcyon, Nora realizes that Thomas is gone more than usual, and Isabel is slightly resentful of this. Although Nora feels loyalty toward her brother, she understands Isabel’s perspective, remembering when Thomas left to go to war. When Isabel introduces her to Thea, Nora sees that the baby doesn’t look like any of the other children. She mentions her baby growing up alongside cousins and can’t decide if she’s imagining Isabel’s eyes darkening for a moment.

Jess reflects on her new insight into Nora and Isabel’s relationship and Isabel’s apparent attitude toward motherhood. She also notices the implication that Nora’s marriage was troubled before Polly was born and wonders if Nora went to Halcyon because she was afraid that Richard would take Polly away. She again returns to the question of why Nora went into the attic. Jess has not found the letter that Patrick mentioned and wonders if it was someone whom Nora consulted at the time of the tragedy. With time left before she is due at the hospital, Jess continues reading.

Miller’s notes relate that in January 1960, Nora wakes to contractions, signaling that her labor is beginning. Nora is disoriented but knows that she is alone in the house. Reading this, Jess wonders what happened to Isabel’s journal and whether Daniel ever saw it. Polly calls again, and this time, Jess answers. With the news of Nora’s death, the afternoon becomes a blur of paperwork and solicitors. That night, she is lonely. She knows that she should call Mrs. Robinson and others, but she isn’t quite ready. Instead, she pulls out Miller’s book again.

The next chapter of Miller’s book recounts the events of Christmas Eve of 1959. Sergeant Duke receives the call about the Turner tragedy just as he is leaving the office. At the scene, they work frantically to wrap up before the storm hits when a constable tells him that one of the children, a baby, is missing. Later, the coroner’s report is inconclusive, and Duke receives a steady stream of reports about the ongoing search for Thea. After the holiday, a town meeting is held in Tambilla, and although Duke refuses to speculate on the identity of the murderer, he is privately beginning to suspect Isabel.

Jess sleeps terribly, with strange dreams about her younger self and Nora, and wakes dreading the day ahead. When Nancy calls, she breaks the news of Nora’s death and explains the estrangement between Nora and Polly; this confuses Nancy because Miller’s book emphasizes Nora’s devotion to her baby. Jess admits that she doesn’t quite understand the rift herself; she only has vague memories of when she and Polly left Darling House, and a story from Nora about Polly’s dangerous behavior toward Jess. Nancy has found new material that she agrees to send: passages written from Daniel’s perspective, as well as conversations with Nora.

The notes describe Miller’s first encounter with Nora at Sergeant Duke’s town meeting in January 1960, which he attends with other journalists. As she carries her newborn baby out of the room, he sees the grief-stricken expression on her face and feels a connection to her. She asks to meet him, and when he goes out to Halcyon, she confronts him about his investigations into her family. He tells her about his brother’s recent death by suicide, but she insists that Isabel would never have killed herself or her children.

At one of their later meetings, she offers him Isabel’s journal. He knows they should give it to the police, but she insists there is nothing useful in it, and he can’t resist the impulse to take it. There are pages torn out, which Nora says Isabel did herself. The journal gives him insight into Isabel, but he wonders what was written on the missing pages. As he and Nora continue to meet, her well-being improves, and he knows it is because of her daughter, Polly. However, one day there is an incident in Tambilla in which Becky attacks Nora, claiming that her baby is Thea. The following day, Nora tells Miller that she remembers once seeing Isabel standing over Thea’s crib with a pillow.

The story returns to the narrative present in 2018. Polly flies to Sydney, lamenting the fact that Nora’s death will prevent her from learning who her father really is. When Polly was younger, Nora denied that Mr. Bridges was Polly’s father and refused to tell her any more. When Polly was 18 and pregnant, she found Mr. Bridges and introduced herself, but a DNA test confirmed that Nora was telling the truth. Polly never told Nora what she’d done, but she never stopped thinking about the puzzle of her father’s identity. Now, Polly is nervous about seeing Jess. She remembers when she made the decision to move the two of them to Brisbane. At the time, if felt like a step toward independence and a better connection with her daughter. Living with Nora chipped away at Polly’s confidence, and the closer Nora got to Jess, the more her daughter pulled away from her. Looking in her bag, she finds her copy of Daniel Miller’s book, which she intends to give to Jess.

In Chapter 14 of Daniel Miller’s book, Sergeant Duke’s instincts tell him that Isabel committed the murders. A few days after the crime, he sends his deputies, Doyle and Kelly, to Halcyon to search for anything strange. They are greeted by Nora and her newborn baby. In the search, they find a pill bottle labeled with the name of Henrik Drumming’s wife. Henrik later says he gave Isabel the pills when she complained of insomnia. In Matilda’s room, the officers find a dried sample of pennyroyal, which was used as an abortifacient but would not be an effective means of murdering the Turner family. Their most important finds are the empty thallium bottles, which contain a colorless, odorless poison commonly used to kill rats. To Duke, this looks like the most likely murder weapon, except for the fact that it is normally administered over a longer period of time.

The question of motive also bothers Duke, but his receptionist reminds him of the story of Medea, who famously killed her children to punish her husband. Duke has heard gossip of Thomas’s mistress in England and wonders if revenge might be the motive. Nora, however, is adamant that her brother Thomas wouldn’t cheat on Isabel. Although Isabel was admired in Tambilla, she didn’t have any close friends, and the only insight into her state of mind comes from the reverend, whose story supports Duke’s theory. In addition, an anonymous source comes forward, claiming to have stopped Isabel from hurting Thea, and they begin to believe that postpartum depression played a role in the deaths.

The townspeople accept Duke’s theory and shift their perspectives on Isabel accordingly, reinterpreting her past behavior as odd and unstable. One day, Nora walks her baby into town in the Turner’s perambulator, and Becky claims that the baby is Thea. Duke decides that the murder case must be definitively settled, but the coroner is still puzzled over the absence of trauma, so he concludes that the murder weapon was an unidentifiable poison. At the inquest, a number of witnesses, one of whom remains anonymous, support this theory with their testimony. No official finding is ever made, but Isabel’s guilt becomes the accepted story.

In 2018, Jess handles the funeral arrangements for Nora, leaving Polly feeling useless. She can tell that something is bothering Jess and plans to give her Miller’s book despite her promise to Nora. She remembers the excitement that she and Jess felt about the prospect of moving to Brisbane until Nora pointed out the need to change schools in the middle of the term. She offered to keep Jess until Polly was settled, but as the weeks and months went on, Nora kept Jess busy with activities in Sydney and kept Polly from speaking with her on the phone by claiming Jess was busy or sleeping. Nora told Polly that she was a good mother for putting Jess’s needs first, and after a time, Polly believed it.

Now, Jess is grieving terribly for Nora, feeling as if she has lost her anchor. She knows that Polly has dinner waiting downstairs, but she doesn’t want to see her mother. However, Nora has taught her to accommodate fragile, sensitive Polly, so she goes downstairs.

The narrative offers a retrospective on events from Polly’s past. Over time, being a mother got easier for Polly. She got a job and saved enough money to consider moving out of Darling House. She looked for an apartment before telling Nora, thinking that Nora would be upset. However, when Nora found out, she was supportive, finding her an apartment near Jess’s school and close to Darling House. Even though it was the best option, Polly felt coerced into taking it.

The narrative returns to 2018. At dinner, Polly is uncertain and Jess is impatient. When her mother gives her Miller’s book, Jess is surprised and hurt that her mother knows the truth, which Nora kept a secret from her. She feels betrayed by both Nora and Polly and lashes out before leaving the room. The betrayal feels similar to when Polly announced their plan to move to Brisbane together and then abandoned her. However, Jess is also upset because the closing chapters of Miller’s book include Nora’s story about Isabel standing over Thea’s crib with a pillow. (The narrative will later reveal that this mirrors the story that Nora told about Polly’s dangerous behavior toward the infant Jess.) Upstairs, Jess examines the copy that Polly gave her, which has photocopies of the 1980 addendum tucked inside. This is the final chapter, written after the discovery of Thea’s remains in the Halcyon rose garden. Jess reads the addendum to the book, which describes how, as the years pass, the Turner tragedy at Halcyon fades, and Thomas rents the property to people who set up a commune. In 1979, the group decides to dig up the abandoned rose garden to plant tomatoes. When they dig, however, they discover the bones of an infant.