The Secret Scripture

One day, Dr. Grene found and read his wife Bet’s diary. In it, he saw that she had called the clinic and cancelled her appointments. He wants to mention this to her but thinks better of it. He worries that Bet’s swelling legs could be the result of clotting.

Interspersed with Dr. Grene’s thoughts about his wife are thoughts about Roseanne. He’s trying to figure out how to question her productively. He wonders if he can, given that he can’t even speak to his own wife about her health. Then again, Dr. Grene thinks that it would probably be easier to talk to a stranger. After all, one can play the “expert” (69). Still, Roseanne “confounds [him]” (69). He feels exhausted from these thoughts, having neither figured out Roseanne “nor resolved Bet’s recklessness” (69).

The narrative leaves Dr. Grene and switches to “Roseanne’s Testimony of Herself.” Roseanne writes about when her father one day took her rat-hunting in a 200-year-old Protestant orphanage. During the trip, Joe Clear told Roseanne a story about what it was like to be an orphan generations ago. He told her that her grandfather or great-grandfather was a building inspector “commissioned by the government in Dublin (71).