The Story She Left Behind

Twenty-five years later, Clara is living back in her childhood home. She works as a teacher and children’s book illustrator. While painting one day, she studies the landscape and remembers the night her mother, Bronwyn, disappeared. She was only eight, and it happened shortly after a house fire. Now, she has an eight-year-old, Wynnie. Realizing the time, Clara pushes away her memories to prepare for her newspaper interview with Margo. Margo is doing a story on Clara winning the Caldecott Award.

Clara heads through the yard to meet Margo, studying her home as she goes. During the interview, she tells Margo about working with Eliza Walker, the author whose stories she illustrates. The publisher found Clara’s work years prior and connected her with Eliza. They’ve never met since Eliza lives in Maine, but Clara loves illustrating her “Harriet the Hedgehog” stories. Then, Margo asks if Clara became an illustrator because of her mother. (Bronwyn published the famous children’s book The Middle Place when she was young.) Clara dismisses the question but keeps thinking about it afterward.

Three weeks after Charlie Jameson’s father, Callum, dies, Charlie goes to his house to clean out his library. He reflects on Callum’s life and their relationship while sorting his things. Then, he finds a “brown leather satchel” filled with mysterious papers (12). Inside, there’s a letter addressed to Clara Harrington and instructions to give the book to Clara in person. The pages are filled with words that a woman named Bronwyn invented.

Clara finishes the day at the school where she teaches art. She goes to the principal’s office to collect Wynnie. Wynnie is upset because she doesn’t want to spend the weekend with her father, Nat. Back at home, Clara reads Margo’s story in the paper. She feels silly about the things she said in the interview and is unsure about how she referenced Bronwyn.

Clara’s mind drifts into the past. One night, Bronwyn left a lit cigarette in an ashtray that Clara knocked over. The house went up in flames. Clara screamed for Bronwyn but was badly burned by the time Bronwyn carried her outside.

In the present, Clara sees Wynnie playing outside. She calls her and her imaginary friend, Emjie, who was inspired by Bronwyn’s storybook character, for dinner.

Wynnie tells Clara about her day while she makes dinner. Clara feels bad that Wynnie is being bullied at school but is glad that Wynnie has Emjie to comfort her. Then, Charlie calls, introducing himself and explaining that he found Bronwyn’s papers in Callum’s study. Over the years, Clara and Timothy have received many such calls from people who were convinced that they solved the mystery surrounding Bronwyn and her papers. Clara knows not to trust Charlie, but the way he describes the papers convinces her that he isn’t lying.

Timothy returns from the hospital where he works as a surgeon, and Clara tells him about Charlie’s call. Timothy is skeptical, but Clara feels desperate. When she and Nat divorced, Nat stole all her savings (largely comprised of royalties from Bronwyn’s book) and used the money to feed his gambling addiction. Clara has always wanted to open an art school for children, but now she can’t. She secretly hopes that Charlie’s papers might help her decode and translate the cryptic sequel to Bronwyn’s original novel. (The sequel is written entirely in Bronwyn’s invented language.)

Clara remembers the day she first found Bronwyn’s sequel. She and Bronwyn were playing hide-and-seek, and Clara hid in a closet where she discovered Bronwyn’s papers. Bronwyn hadn’t finished the sequel yet because she was still finishing her new language; she taught Clara a few words to appease her.

Charlie performs with his band at the Sheep and Lion pub. Throughout the gig, he remembers meeting and breaking up with his ex-fiancée, Chelsea. He still feels heartbroken that she cheated on him with his friend Graham but is thankful for his twin brother Archie’s support.

After the gig, Charlie chats with an attractive girl named Millie. He lets her stay at his place afterward because she’s drunk but assures her that she doesn’t want to get involved with him.

Clara can’t fall asleep while thinking about Charlie’s call. Restless, she calls her best friend, Lilia. The news thrills Lilia, and she insists that Clara go to London to retrieve the notebook.

Clara takes out the old papers, clippings, and scrapbooks she collected after Bronwyn’s disappearance. She studies the scraps, remembering how much she wanted Bronwyn to return. Then, she finds the article reporting the firefighter Alex Prescott’s death in the 1927 house fire. Clara still wonders if Bronwyn fled because she blamed herself for his death and Clara’s burns.

In the morning, Clara finds the key to Timothy’s security deposit box where they keep Bronwyn’s sequel. Then, she takes Wynnie to school. On the way, Clara’s mind drifts into memory. The day Clara went into labor with Wynnie, she had a dream that she saw Bronwyn in a field. Her water broke two months early. Clara’s labor was so painful that she called out for Bronwyn. Afterward, she felt that she’d experienced the “unseen world” about which Bronwyn always talked. Convinced that Bronwyn was calling her into this realm, Clara named the baby after her mother. Later, Clara learned that she wouldn’t be able to have any more children and that Wynnie had weak lungs.

Clara goes to the bank to retrieve the sequel. Meanwhile, she remembers Timothy telling her about Bronwyn’s difficult past. When she was young, Bronwyn’s mother, Martha, believed that Bronwyn was a child prodigy. However, her imagination became too much for Martha, and she had Bronwyn admitted to a psychiatric hospital. She was mistreated and diagnosed with schizophrenia. Thereafter, her parents wouldn’t send her to school and later sent her to live with strangers on the opposite coast.

Clara thinks about Bronwyn’s role in her childhood. Bronwyn was “a rare genius” (53), but she was often absent. Clara also muses on the biography that Brian Davis wrote about her; neither Clara nor Timothy likes how he represented Bronwyn.

Back at home with the sequel, Clara calls Charlie. He tells her that Bronwyn left her a sealed letter and insists that she come to London, offering to pay for her passage. Clara explains who her mother was and the importance of retrieving her papers but declines his offer. Charlie reiterates his desire to help and encourages her to bring Wynnie along. Off the phone, Clara tries to decide what to do.

Clara tells Lilia about her situation. Lilia encourages her to go overseas, assuring her that Nat will be fine. Afterward, she sits alone on the dock, reading a London guidebook.

Clara tells Timothy, Nat, and Wynnie about her London plans. Nat insists that she can’t take Wynnie and is upset that she’s using her savings to fund the trip. Clara stands up to him but feels upset afterward. She wonders if she’s as desperate as Nat suggested.

Charlie visits the library to research Bronwyn’s story and work. He finds a few articles on her disappearance and copies of The Middle Place and Davis’s biography, Child Genius. The biography is heartbreaking and details Bronwyn’s tragic upbringing. She often escaped into imaginary worlds and her writing. She started inventing a language when she was a child, wrote The Middle Place when she was eight, and published it when she was 12. Her father helped her with the publishing process after he abandoned her and Martha. Not long later, Bronwyn traveled the world with her mother, but Martha abandoned her in California with acquaintances. Bronwyn later ran away and ended up in juvenile detention. Sometime thereafter, Bronwyn made her way to Boston, where she began copy editing and met Timothy. They fell in love, married, and had Clara.

On the boat to London, Clara and Wynnie meet a friendly man named Finneas Andrews. Wynnie tells them why they’re going overseas, and Finneas encourages them to visit the Lakes District. He thinks that they’d appreciate his hometown, Cumbria. Their local theater is showing an adaptation of The Middle Place. Clara and Wynnie are shocked and thrilled but unsure if they’ll make it to Cumbria.

Clara and Wynnie make their way through the foggy London streets. On their way to Charlie’s apartment, Wynnie notices that Clara is nervous and reassures her with a line from The Middle Place.