For the next few months we didn't speak about the hotel or Fred. We hardly spoke at all. She spent a lot of time out in the city. I don't know what she was doing there. When she got back she'd lock herself in her bedroom.
Once a week I'd take the big measuring jug from the kitchen and water Fred's garden. Sophie did the same thing but on a different day. One day I was watching out the kitchen window as she watered the garden and I saw her pick something out of the garden bed. It was a dead plant. She stood there looking at it for a long time, then she took it away and hid it in the tall grass so I wouldn't find it.