A Slow Fire Burning

While Laura and Miriam chat, Miriam explains that she lives on the boat next to Daniel’s and that she was the one who found his body. Miriam probes at Laura, whom she saw leaving that night, asking if Daniel hurt her. Laura is reluctant to respond, but she is intrigued when Miriam says that she suspects that Carla may have had something to do with Daniel’s death and that Theo might be covering for Carla.

Miriam is dismayed that Laura doesn’t believe her claims. Laura begins to mock Miriam, suggesting that Miriam might even have been involved in Daniel’s death. Laura taunts Miriam, saying, “come quick, there’s a madwoman in my house! There’s some psycho hobbit woman in my house!” (168). Hurt and offended, Miriam flees from Laura’s apartment.

Back at her boat, Miriam looks through a copy of The One That Got Away; she has annotated Theo’s novel, indicating all the key similarities to her memoir. Miriam also thinks back to her adolescence: On the fateful day, she and Lorraine had decided to skip school. Once they were at the farmhouse, Miriam became increasingly uneasy, and when Lorraine mentioned leaving, Jeremy hit her. Before Miriam could react, Jeremy dragged her to another room, and locked her inside.

In her desperation, Miriam broke a window, cutting her arm in the process. She managed to climb out the window and ran from the farmhouse. Since it was dark, she became lost and disoriented. At some point, she heard a car coming and realized that it was Jeremy looking for her. She hid in a ditch and eventually got to safety and called for help. However, by the time the police got to the farmhouse, Lorraine was dead.

An excerpt from the novel describes the killer coming in to taunt the girl whom he has locked up. He is humming a song as he watches her.

Carla continues searching her home, trying to find the bag with the sentimental items. She ignores Theo’s calls, because she is angry and suspicious about Irene’s claims that Theo went to see Angela. She even wonders if Theo could have been involved in Angela’s death. She thinks back to a conversation she had with Daniel after Angela’s death, in which she tried to tell him that he wasn’t responsible for his mother’s death. Carla urged Daniel to focus on his own future and happiness, pleading, “we cannot all be ruined” (179).

Theo receives another letter from Henry Carter; in this letter, Henry continues to ask Theo to respond to him. Henry also says that he has heard people call Theo’s book sexist because it provides perspective and even sympathy to the male killer; Henry, however, doesn’t think that claim is fair, and seems to have sympathy for the killer. Theo quickly forgets about the letter, as he is preoccupied. Carla is still not speaking to him. Theo has deduced that Irene likely told Carla that he had visited Angela, and he can see why Carla would be angry about this information.

Theo thinks back to the final time he saw Angela; Angela had asked him to come and see her at her home so that she could tell him something. Angela confided to Theo that she had finally spoken with Daniel, and she thought she had persuaded Daniel to leave Theo alone and stop asking for money. During the conversation, Theo showed Angela a drawing that Daniel had mailed to him: It showed Carla lying in bed, nude. Angela was horrified but Theo was angry: He was convinced that Daniel was merely projecting fantasies, and he blamed Angela for Daniel’s manipulative tendencies. Theo told Angela that “[Daniel] has no idea of what love is supposed to be, no idea of what a mother’s love is” (184). After Theo lashed out, Angela invited him upstairs so that she could show him something.

Laura feels guilty about the way that she lashed out at Miriam; since Miriam mentioned her boat, Laura decides to go to Miriam’s home and apologize. At first, Miriam is hostile, but she softens when Laura explains that she sometimes has outbursts of emotion and anger as a side effect of her brain injury. Miriam invites Laura inside, and as the two of them speak, Miriam explains that she also experienced a traumatic event early in her life. Miriam briefly explains that she and a friend were abducted together; Miriam was able to escape, but her friend was murdered. Laura expresses her sympathy, admitting, “I can’t even imagine this; I can’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like for you” (190). Miriam gives Laura the manuscript of her memoir so that she can read more about these events.

Miriam runs out of sugar and goes to get more, leaving Laura alone on the boat. Bored, Laura begins to snoop through some of Miriam’s possessions and comes across the box that contains (among other things) Laura’s keys. Miriam returns and catches Laura with the box; Laura confronts her, demanding to know why Miriam has her keys. Realizing that Miriam must have picked up the keys from the crime scene, Laura wonders if Miriam could indeed have been the one who killed Daniel. Miriam claims she took the keys in an effort to protect Laura. Laura tries to flee and ends up struggling with Miriam, who tries to prevent her from leaving.

A short excerpt from the novel describes the scene in which the two girls are picked up while hitchhiking. The scene depicts the girl who survives having a sense of foreboding and asking her friend not to get in the car.

On the birthday of her late son, Carla visits his grave. She encounters Theo there. Carla tells Theo about losing the medal and confronts him about lying to her. Theo admits that he went to see Angela and claims that he went to see her because Daniel was badgering him for money. Theo also explains that he hid these visits from Carla because he recognized that it looked suspicious since Angela died shortly thereafter. Carla and Theo tentatively reconcile and reflect on the pain of losing their son. Theo gives Carla the manuscript of his latest novel, asking her to read it and share her thoughts.

After Theo leaves, Carla scatters some of her sister’s ashes on Ben’s grave. As she does so, she thinks back to a conversation with Angela in which they reminisced about happier times with their sons and how quickly their lives had been shattered: “just a few moments of carelessness, an hour or two of unthinking neglect, a door left open. And here we are” (201).

An excerpt from the novel depicts an earlier scene, in which the two girls are drinking in a local pub. A young man approaches them, but the prettier girl mocks him. The other friend feels an increasing sense of dread and foreboding; she can sense that “something bad is going to happen” (203).

After the confrontation with Laura, Miriam tends to her injuries and cleans up the boat. She thinks back to the period immediately after her abduction and how Lorraine’s parents were very kind to her, even though their own daughter was dead. The police searched for Jeremy based on Miriam’s description; they found his car abandoned near some cliffs and suspected he may have killed himself. When a severed foot washed up some time later, it was presumed to belong to Jeremy, and police stopped looking for him. These events traumatized Miriam, and she was consumed by guilt because she hadn’t helped her friend.

An excerpt from the novel describes the killer catching up to the girl after she has escaped from the house and tried to run away. Panicked, the girl thinks about alternative decisions that would have prevented her from being in this situation. She also imagines how she might have tried to defend herself from the killer.

Irene is startled by Laura abruptly arriving at her home. Laura is visibly upset, and Irene tries to comfort her though Laura laments, “You shouldn’t. You shouldn’t be kind to me” (210). Laura confides that she has stolen money from Irene and also that she stole Carla’s bags from Angela’s house. Laura goes on to explain that she spent the night with Daniel shortly before he was killed; she has hidden this information from Irene because she was ashamed. Irene points out that, given Laura having seen Daniel right before his death, it looks suspicious for her to have stolen items from his mother’s home.

Laura explains the altercation between her and Miriam: Laura was initially touched by Miriam’s kindness but became upset when she saw that Miriam had Laura’s keys. After a physical struggle, Laura got away with the key, and she also has the manuscript of the memoir (which Miriam gave to her before their confrontation). While Laura cleans up and eventually goes to bed, Irene begins reading the memoir. Irene has a nagging sense that there is something familiar about the events, particularly Miriam’s reference to a song that played over the car radio while the girls drove with the killer. Trying to place this memory, Irene begins leafing through Angela’s copy of The One Who Got Away.  

Irene’s reading is interrupted by Laura waking up to a phone call. The police are asking her to come to the station, and Laura leaves immediately. Irene continues leafing through the book and comes across an envelope addressed to Theo. Inside the envelope is a drawing depicting Carla lying in bed, naked. The drawing has a taunting message written at the bottom. Irene suspects, based on the style and handwriting, that the drawing was done by Daniel.