Rock Paper Scissors

Finding that all four tires on Amelia’s car are flat, Adam storms back up to Henry’s study, followed by Amelia. The two accuse each other of being part of whatever plot they’re experiencing. Adam opens Henry’s desk and begins to see tokens and anniversary gifts that reflect to his marriage to Robin.

The ninth anniversary letter describes the slow dissolution of their marriage. As they grew apart, she writes, she suggested that Adam and she find a marriage counselor. On the night of their ninth anniversary, with nothing special planned, she’s surprised by the arrival of her best friend from work, who seems transformed, as she wears a red dress and has newly blonde hair. Her friend explains that because of a failed date she needs a place to stay for the evening. Adam and her friend hit it off immediately.

After allowing her to spend the night, the couple goes to bed and talks about her. Adam says he doesn’t find her attractive and that she’s an “actress,” which his wife accepts. They resolve to stay together permanently. She’s reminded of how much she loves him, saying,

I’m an eggs-in-one-basket girl when it comes to relationships, and it’s a dangerous way to be. One bad fall, or an unfortunate slipup, and everything I care about could get broken and smashed. I found my person when I found you, and I’ve never really needed or wanted anyone else since (225).

In Henry’s study, Adam demands that Amelia tell him what she knows about all the anniversary gifts ending up in Henry’s desk. As they leave Henry’s study, they focus on the long row of black-and-white photos on the staircase. The set is now mysteriously complete. Since the photos are portraits, Adam cannot recognize faces. He demands to know if Amelia recognizes any. She realizes that one is a photo of Henry as a young man. Following the pictures, she realizes that it’s Henry’s family tree.

Adam sees that one of the previously locked bedroom doors is open. It’s a child’s bedroom. In it, a Victorian dollhouse contains multiple carvings of Henry holding hands with a girl dressed in red. Adam also finds an eyeless jack-in-the-box with the name Adam written on it. He realizes that he’s being told about something he’s not seeing. Then, he recognizes that the fabric and walls are all covered with images of robins.

The 10th anniversary letter begins by confessing how she misunderstood what was happening in her marriage. Her one clue something was amiss was the sensation of being observed. She says, “For a long time, it has felt as though someone was watching us. I can’t quite explain the feeling, or put it into words, but I think we all know when we are being watched” (233-34).

The night before their anniversary, she found Adam continually watching an interview with Henry in which he confesses that he doesn’t like Adam’s adaptions of his stories. Because she felt certain that the experience depressed Adam, she left work early the next day to share some joy and celebration. Going upstairs, she found Adam in bed with her best friend. Looking back and forth between them, Adam said he thought he was in bed with Robin. When he started blushing, a tell-tale sign he was lying, Robin knew it wasn’t true. She went to the garden shed, got a shovel, and dug up the magnolia tree Adam had given her for a previous anniversary. She dragged the tree upstairs, put it in their bed, and tucked it in.

Having figured out who the perpetrator of the weekend is, Amelia shares what should be obvious with Adam. She takes him out of the bedroom full of robins and leads him to the last photo in the stairwell: “‘Who is it?’ he asks, although I’m fairly sure he must know by now. Having face blindness can’t stop someone from seeing the truth” (238). Amelia explains that it’s a photo of Adam at the registrar’s office getting married. Henry is visible in the street, photobombing the wedding. Amelia tells him that she’s not the bride in the photo.

Adam resists believing what he hears, even as Amelia breaks it down for him. Amelia shows him other photos of Robin as a child with Henry. Adam is astonished that Henry and Robin kept this secret and feels betrayed. Having uncovered all the pieces of the puzzle, Adam and Amelia wonder what Robin’s endgame is. Adam recognizes that this date, February 29, is the 12th anniversary of his first wedding.

The evening that Robin left Adam, with no idea where to go, was ironically the evening that Henry called Robin from the hospital to tell her that he was dying and to ask for her help. Robin reviews the misery of her life with her father after her mother died. Henry removed every hint of Robin’s mother from the Blackwater Chapel. Robin always believed that Henry killed her mother. When she hinted at it in a story she wrote in boarding school and the word got back to Henry, he punished her and cut lengths out of her hair. Robins says, “Henry Winter didn’t just write about monsters. He was one” (247).

Once Robin took over Blackwater Chapel, she began writing fiction as Henry and sending it to his agent. Henry’s agent got her first book published, saying that it was the best thing Henry had ever written. When Robin learned that Adam sent a copy of Rock Paper Scissors to Henry, asking him to novelize it, she conceived a way to get her life back with a happy ending.

This letter was written on what would’ve been their 11th anniversary. She confesses to calling Henry and asking him to allow Adam to adapt one of his novels. She says that leaving her former life behind has cleared her mind. She writes, “[p]eople confuse what they want with what they need, but I realize now how different those things are. And how sometimes the things and people we think we need, are the ones we should stay away from” (252). She describes her simplified life, how much she has learned, and how good she feels. A studied criticism of Amelia points out the flaws and deception she should have seen before. She tells Adam that she has authored a book and is starting on another, reminding him that his book is all about choices: “[T]he time will come when you need to make yours” (255).

Amelia justifies her action in the lives of Robin and Adam, saying their relationship was over. She describes her intent in breaking into Robin’s marriage and taking everything from her. Regarding taking Adam away from his wife, she says, “I knew I could make him happier than he was with her. She didn't know how lucky she was, and two out of three happy endings are better than none” (257). Amelia vacillates between saying that she and Adam are happy and that they’re not happy but she’s going to fix it.

She tries to lead Adam out of the chapel to the road, to walk away to safety if necessary. As they start down the stairs, Adam sees the red kimono that Robin has left on their bed. He wonders why Robin would bring up his mother.

This day, February 29, 2020, would have been their 12th anniversary. This last letter is one she intends Adam to read. It comprehensively describes her relationship with Henry, her life with Adam, and what has happened to her now that she’s on her own. She offers Adam the possibility of restoring their relationship if he will choose her instead of Amelia. She spells out what this means for them as a couple—and for his literary career. He’ll finally get his screenplay turned into a movie. She tells him about the private detective who checked into Amelia’s past and reveals that she was the teenage girl who stole the car that ran over his mother, writing, “Nothing you think you know about Amelia is true. Your wife was to blame for your mother's death when you were a child, and I think it's only right that you know that, before making a decision” (265). She closes the letter by giving Adam three options—rock, paper, scissors—to choose from.

Amelia confesses that she’d all but given up hope for her relationship with Adam. Although she hoped the weekend away would bring them closer, she now knows that won’t happen. Still, she has already planned her next moves. As she tries to get Adam to understand the gravity of their situation, she says, “[W]hoever Robin used to be, it seems pretty clear to me that she is now a full-time psycho” (269). As Amelia and Adam argue about Robin’s nature, a banging sound draws them downstairs, where they discover that they’re locked in the chapel. An envelope slides under the door with Adam’s name on it.

Adam has the 12th anniversary letter from Robin, in which she tells the story of her relationship with Henry and the offer she’s making to Adam. As he reads, while Amelia continues to ask what Robin has written, he finds himself recalling Robin with renewed affection. When he reads the information about Amelia being the person who stole the car that killed his mother, Adam begins to ask Amelia questions about that night. Amelia has an asthma attack and finds her inhaler—but it’s empty.

Adam continues to press her about the facts on the night of his mother’s death. It’s clear that she was the girl who stole the car. Panicked, Amelia grabs a kitchen knife and starts toward Adam. Behind her, another face appears, holding a sharp pair of scissors.

Writing six months after the events of February 29, Robin describes her happy home in London, with Adam, herself, Bob, and Oscar. She pronounces, “Nobody knows what happened in Scotland and nobody ever needs to” (59). For Robin, the most exciting change is that she’s now a writer of well-received bestsellers. She attributes them to her late father, who’s still alive and well as far as the public knows. Her husband will see his own screenplays turned into movies.

In the last big reveal, Adam explains that on the night Amelia stole the car, he was on his own and brooding about his mother’s boyfriends. Adam ended up drinking and having sex with Amelia. She challenged him to drive the stolen car, and he was the one behind the wheel when they hit his mother. Amelia pushed him out of the car and drove away, leaving him beside his mother’s body. He writes, “I just want to put everything behind me, and now I finally can. Sometimes a lie is the kindest truth you can tell a person, including yourself” (283).

This chapter, written in the third person, past tense, tells the story of Henry’s detective, who was a fan of his writing before ever working for him. Sam successfully represented Henry for years, and they developed a close relationship—so much so that Sam pouted when Henry didn’t give him advance notice of newly released novels.

Henry’s lack of phone contact gets Sam’s attention, though they still correspond via email and he still provides data, especially about the goings-on in Robin’s old house. However, when Henry breaks all contact, Sam eventually uses his skills to track down Henry’s physical location.

Sam arrives late in the evening. He finds the cottage abandoned. The chapel is locked and chained shut. Walking through the graveyard behind the chapel, he finds the Henry’s headstone, which has been amended: “HENRY WINTER FATHER KILLER OF ONE, AUTHOR OF MANY” (291). Walking through the darkened cemetery, he stumbles over a recently dug grave with no headstone. On it, he finds several items, including a sapphire ring on a human finger. Frightened by whispered voices calling his name, Sam “ran to his car as fast as he could and didn’t look back” (291).