All That Is Mine I Carry With Me

The novel opens in 2015 with Phil Solomon, a novelist stalled by years of creative silence, receiving an email from Jeff Larkin, a childhood friend he has not spoken to in decades. They reunite at a Boston pub, where Jeff reveals that his father, Dan Larkin, a once-prominent criminal defense attorney, has Alzheimer's disease. Jeff refuses to visit Dan, describing himself as trapped in what his sister Miranda calls "the maze of hate." Jeff suggests Phil contact Miranda, hinting the story might give him something to write about.

Phil visits Miranda at her art studio in Waltham, Massachusetts, and she begins recounting the disappearance of their mother, Jane Larkin, on November 12, 1975. Miranda was almost eleven when she came home from school to find the house empty, her mother's pocketbook still in the front hall. She waited alone for hours as the house darkened. The next morning, a detective named Tom Glover arrived, his face marked by a large port-wine stain, a reddish-brown birthmark, on his forehead. Dan told the children their mother had not come home. Miranda retreated to her parents' bed, pressing herself into the hollow her mother's body had left in the mattress.

Glover mistrusted Dan from the start, sensing something wooden and calculated in his distress. During a chance encounter with Miranda near Crystal Lake, he gently questioned her about her parents. Miranda recalled vivid details of her father's appearance that morning: a gray suit, a light blue shirt with a white collar, and a red necktie with a floral pattern. A few days later, Jane's car was found at a train station, unlocked and wiped clean of fingerprints. Investigators could not confirm Jane had boarded a train.

Jane's older sister, Kate, arrived at the Larkin house and immediately suspected Dan. In a private conversation, Dan admitted to feeling "not completely satisfied" in the marriage. Kate sensed a hollowness in him she could never quite articulate.

Jeff also confides in Phil that months before the disappearance, he had discovered his mother sitting in her car in the closed garage with the engine running. Jane claimed she had fallen asleep, but Jeff recognized it as a likely suicide attempt. He never told anyone, and the family pretended it never happened.

Glover confronted Dan by raising the case of Dan's former client Vincent Tancredo, a doctor Dan had defended against charges of strangling his wife. Dan dismissed the comparison, denied any wrongdoing, and told Glover to go find his wife. On December 2, police executed a search warrant at the Larkin house, seizing Dan's gray suits, shoes, and a digging shovel. Glover asked Miranda to identify her father's red necktie from a pile spread across her parents' bed. She sorted through them and concluded the tie was missing.

In a 2017 interview with Phil, Alex Larkin, the eldest sibling and now a partner at a prestigious law firm, reveals that shortly after Jane's disappearance, he witnessed Dan passionately kissing his girlfriend, Sarah Bennett, at the back door. Alex told Jeff but never reported the affair to police. Investigators discovered the relationship through phone monitoring, but the affair alone did not establish a clear motive. District Attorney John Kearney, a veteran prosecutor who had early-stage Lou Gehrig's disease, held a charging conference and decided the evidence was insufficient to indict. He refused to clear Dan's name but announced no charges were forthcoming.

The second section is narrated in Jane's voice, later revealed to be a creative work by Miranda imagining her mother's perspective. Jane narrates her courtship with Dan at Brookline High School in the 1950s, their early happiness, and the slow erosion of their marriage. She describes Dan's lavish spending, his hidden cash from questionable clients, and a dinner party where he compared wives to depreciating stocks. That same night, Dan forced himself on Jane sexually despite her refusal. Jane told Kate, who called it rape, but Jane refused to report it or leave the marriage.

After Jane's disappearance, Dan announced he would seek a court judgment declaring Jane officially dead. Sarah moved into the house along with her teenage daughter, Jamie Bennett. Miranda found a surrogate mother in a neighbor named Mrs. Bowers, but when Dan violated the family's one boundary by appearing at the Bowers home, Mrs. Bowers told Miranda she could never return. This became Miranda's emotional low point. Jeff and Jamie began a secret romance, while Dan groped Jamie repeatedly over nearly a year. Jamie delayed reporting the abuse because she feared losing access to Jeff.

Jane's narration concludes with the morning of her murder. Dan returned home after dropping Miranda at school, entered the bedroom without his suit coat, his red necktie dangling from his hand, his watch and wedding ring removed. He looped the tie around Jane's neck from behind and strangled her. Jane describes the shock, the inability to scream, the desperate convulsions of her lungs, and then a warm peacefulness.

The third section shifts to Jeff's narration in June 1993, when he flies home after learning that his mother's bones have been found at a construction site in Trout Lake, Vermont, where the family once vacationed. District Attorney Martin Leary meets with the family and announces he will not indict Dan despite being personally certain of his guilt. Detective Glover suggests the family consult George Bailis, a lawyer who served as the original DA's right-hand man.

Bailis proposes a civil lawsuit for wrongful death, where the burden of proof is "fifty percent plus a feather," a preponderance of the evidence rather than proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Jeff agonizes over the decision and spars with Alex, who urges him to protect the family. At a settlement conference, Dan offers his entire savings plus the house, but Kate demands a confession he will not give. Jeff commits to the lawsuit.

At trial, Dan represents himself. He dismantles each piece of circumstantial evidence and asks jurors who would trade places with a man accused on such thin proof. Kate delivers the most damaging testimony, repeating Jane's account of the rape, but Dan attacks her longstanding animosity. The jury returns its verdict: not liable. Miranda bolts from the courtroom.

The final section opens with a 2017 newspaper article revealing that Norris White, a serial killer serving life in a California prison, has confessed to murdering Jane among approximately 60 other victims. White described details including Jane's shoulder scar and her white Thunderbird. Law enforcement closes the case. Jeff, however, refuses to accept the confession, pointing to inconsistencies, including White's failure to mention Jane's engagement ring.

The narrative shifts to Dan's deteriorating consciousness as Alzheimer's erases his memories. Miranda cares for him, conducting memory exercises with photographs and Billie Holiday records. Dan can identify some family members but not Jane. When shown her photograph, he says he does not know her.

On Dan's chosen final day, as Miranda helps him go through his belongings, Dan finds a ring in his jewelry safe: a gold ring with interlocking hearts containing tiny diamonds. It is Jane's engagement ring, the ring she never took off, the ring never found with her bones. He offers it to Miranda, not understanding its significance. Miranda recognizes it immediately. The ring's presence in Dan's possession confirms what the trial could not prove and what White's confession obscured: Dan killed Jane and kept the ring.

Phil arrives as a witness for Dan's planned suicide by pentobarbital, a lethal barbiturate. Dan takes a sip, spits it out, and says he wants to stop. Phil calls Miranda, who takes the glass and tells Phil to wait outside. As she enters the room and begins closing the door, Phil calls her name. She closes the door, and the novel ends.