The Stillwater Girls

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental illness, child death, and child abuse.

Wren tells the still-sobbing Sage that she should lie down and offers to lie down with her, to hold her “like Mama used to” (196). Once Nic and Brant are alone again, Brant hesitantly asks Nic whether she thinks he is having an affair. She points out that he has been calling another woman secretly and has a picture of a nine-year-old child hidden away. Brant gently explains to her that the child in the photo is Hannah, his and Nic’s daughter. Nic is furious that he would tell her such an obvious lie. Brant tells her that Beth is the FBI agent assigned to their case. Nic has suppressed her memory of what really happened many years ago, he says, but the truth is she gave birth to a daughter and then suffered complications. These complications led to the hysterectomy, and Nic nearly died. Severely traumatized, Nic developed postpartum psychosis. One day when she was out on a walk, she gave their baby to a woman at the park near Stillwater Forest, who then disappeared with the child. Brant offers to show Nic the medical records and tells her that she can check his story with her parents or Cate, because everyone else already knows the truth.