Composed letter to Grandmother.
Ate supper: roast, potatoes, pudding.
Brought tragedy to the table (book, not event).
Father did not notice.
Retired.
Slept.
Dreamed of him.
But now—now when something huge and momentous had actually occurred (which it never did) she had nothing to say except—
I can’t believe he said that.
“Well, Miranda,” she murmured, watching the ink dry on the tip of her quill, “you’ll not achieve fame as a diarist.”
“What did you say?”
Miranda snapped her diary shut. She had not realized that Olivia had entered the room.
“Nothing,” she said quickly.
Olivia moved across the carpet and flopped on the bed. “What a horrible day,”
Miranda nodded, twisting in her seat so that she was facing her friend.
“I am glad you were here,” Olivia said with a sigh. “Thank you for remaining for the night.”
“Of course,” Miranda replied. There had been no question, not when Olivia had said she’d needed her.
“What are you writing?”
Miranda looked down at the diary, only just then realizing that her hands were resting protectively across its cover. “Nothing,” she said.
Olivia had been staring at the ceiling, but at that she quirked her head in Miranda’s direction. “That can’t be true.”
“Sadly, it is.”
“Why is it sad?”
Miranda blinked. Trust Olivia to ask the most obvious questions—and the ones with the least obvious answers.
“Well,” Miranda said, not precisely stalling for time—really, it was more that she was figuring it all out as she went. She moved her hands and looked down at the journal as if the answer might have magically inscribed itself onto the cover. “This all I have. It is what I am.”
Olivia looked dubious. “It’s a book.”
“It’s my life.”
“Why is it,” Olivia opined, “that people call me dramatic?”
“I’m not saying it is my life,” Miranda said with a flash of impatience, “just that it contains it. Everything. I have written everything down. Since I was ten.”
“Everything?”
Miranda thought about the many days she’d dutifully recorded what she’d eaten and little else. “Everything.”