Chapter 14

In a “then” timeline, fourteen-year-old Elsie attends Lord Mayor’s Camp despite her parents’ nearby holiday home. Pressured to fit in, Elsie attempts the flying fox in an ill-fitting harness. It spins and fails; she falls hard, sustaining multiple fractures and excruciating pain that she later feels darkened her outlook.

Paramedics administer strong narcotics and rush Elsie to hospital for surgery. Her mother arrives from a garden party, distraught and apologetic, which Elsie experiences as rare, tender attention amid agony. Elsie reassures her mother despite the pain, sensing that this moment of care is what she has long craved.

After surgeries, Elsie wakes bandaged and sedated. Her mother is still at her bedside, weeping. Prompted by Elsie’s question about “Kitty,” her mother reveals that Kitty—short for Katharine—was Elsie’s baby sister who died of poliomyelitis at one year old, while Elsie herself had polio and recovered.

Her mother recounts the 1950s outbreak: young Elsie was isolated on the patio; one day she was found playing with Kitty outside, despite the door supposedly being locked. Kitty contracted polio, rapidly became paralyzed, and died within a week. The family never told Elsie once she seemed to forget.

When Elsie asks what she did wrong, her mother admits Elsie’s father believes Elsie called Kitty out and somehow unlocked the door, driven by jealousy. Though her mother denies believing this, her uncertainty shows. The revelation leaves teenage Elsie grappling with the possibility of blame, cementing a seed of lifelong guilt and a darker self-concept.