The Nature of Fragile Things

Content Warning: This section features scenes of domestic violence.

Sophie can tell by Kat’s face that she “fully recognizes the situation Belinda and I are in” (119). She asks Kat if she has any questions for her. Kat is preoccupied with Belinda’s baby and asks if she will have the sibling she always wanted.

They all go to the library, and Sophie opens the locked desk with a hairpin. In the desk, she finds duplicate marriage and birth certificates for Martin—one where he is born in White Plains, New York, and another where he is born James Bigelow in Las Animas County, Colorado. However, she also finds a death certificate for James Bigelow, dated 1876. To her shock, she finds a wedding photograph of Martin and James Bigelow’s older sister Annabeth, dated June 4, 1896. His name is listed as Percy Grover. She figures out that the cattle ranch Martin told them about belonged to his ex-wife Annabeth, and Martin inherited it when Annabeth died in a riding accident. They figure out that Martin might have killed Annabeth for the inheritance. Afterward, Sophie desperately checks for Candace’s death certificate, eager to know if Kat’s mother really died of tuberculosis. Sophie finds no death certificate, although she does find a bill of sale for a Los Angeles house dated four months before Martin married Sophie, along with two death certificates for stillbirths dated 1897 and 1898.