Part of me wants to run to her. Part of me wants more time to prepare.
Then she looks up and our eyes meet.
I walk over and she stands up quickly. She reaches out unhesitatingly and hugs me.
When we draw back, we wipe our eyes in unison. Then we burst into laughter.
I slide into the booth across from her.
“It is really good to see you, Sam.” I look at her bright, beaded necklace and smile.
“I’ve missed you, Vanessa.”
I’ve missed me, too, I think.
But instead of speaking, I reach into my bag.
And I pull out my matching happy beads.
EPILOGUE
Vanessa walks down the city sidewalk, her blond hair loose around her shoulders, her arms swinging free at her sides. Her street is quieter than usual in the waning days of summer, but a lone bus lumbers by the spot I’ve staked out. A few teenagers loiter on the corner, watching as one spins on a skateboard. She passes them and pauses at a flower stand. She bends down, reaching for a generous cluster of poppies in a white bucket. She smiles as the vendor makes change, then continues on toward her apartment.
All the while, my eyes never stray from her.
When I’ve watched her before, I’ve tried to gauge her emotional state. Know thy enemy, Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War. I read that book for a college course and the line resonated with me deeply.
Vanessa never realized I was a threat. She only saw what I wanted her to see; she bought into the illusion I created.
She thinks I am Emma Sutton, the innocent woman who fell into the trap she laid to escape her husband. I’m still stunned by Vanessa’s admission that she orchestrated my affair with Richard; I thought I was the one spinning a web.
Apparently we were unwitting coconspirators.
Vanessa has no idea who I really am, though. No one does.
I could walk away now, and she’d never be privy to the truth. She looks completely recovered from all that has happened to her. Maybe it’s best for her not to know.
I look down at the photograph I am clutching. The edges are worn from age and frequent handling.
It is a picture of a seemingly happy family: a father, a mother, a little boy with dimples, and a preteen girl with braces. The photo was taken years ago, when I was twelve, back when we lived in Florida. A few months before our family shattered.
It was after ten P.M. and I should have been asleep—it was past my bedtime—but I wasn’t. I heard the doorbell ring, then my mother call, “I’ll get it.”
My father was in his room, probably grading papers. He often did that at night.
I heard the murmur of voices, then my father scrambling down the hallway toward the stairs.
“Vanessa!” he cried. His voice sounded so strained it propelled me out of my room. My socks slid silently along the carpeted floor as I crept past my younger brother’s bedroom, to the top of the stairs, and huddled there. I could see everything unfolding directly below me. I was a spectator in the shadows.
I witnessed my mother fold her arms and glare at my father. I witnessed my father gesture with his hands as he talked. I witnessed my little calico cat wind between my mother’s legs, as if trying to soothe her.
After my mother slammed the door, she turned to my dad.
I will never forget how her face looked in that moment.
“She came on to me,” my father insisted, his round blue eyes, so like mine, widening. “She kept showing up during my office hours and asking for extra help. I tried to turn her away, and she kept— It was nothing, I swear.”
But it wasn’t nothing. Because a month later, my father moved out.
My mother blamed my father, but she also blamed the pretty coed who’d enticed my dad into an affair. She would throw out the name Vanessa during their fights, her mouth twisting as if those three syllables tasted bitter; it became shorthand for everything that went wrong between them.
I blamed her as well.
After I graduated from college, I came to New York for a visit. I looked her up, of course; she was Vanessa Thompson by now. My name was different, too. After my father left, my mother reverted to her maiden name, Sutton. When I became an adult, I changed mine to it also.
Vanessa lived in a big house in an affluent suburb. She was married to a handsome man. She was gliding through a golden life, one she didn’t deserve. I wanted to see her close up, but I couldn’t find a way to get near her. She rarely left her home. There was no way we could naturally intersect.
I almost cut my trip short. Then I realized something.
I could get close to her husband.
It was easy to find out where Richard worked. I quickly learned that he liked double espressos from the corner coffee shop every afternoon around three. He was a creature of habit. I brought my laptop and camped out at a table. The next time he came in, our eyes met.
I was used to men hitting on me, but this time I was the pursuer. Just as I imagined she had been with my father.
I’d given him my brightest smile. “Hi. I’m Emma.”
I’d expected him to want to sleep with me; men usually did. That would have been enough, even if it was just for one night; eventually, his wife would have found out. I’d have made certain of that.
The symmetry of it appealed to me. It felt like justice.
Instead, he suggested I apply for a job as an assistant at his company.
Two months later, I replaced his secretary, Diane.
A few months after that, I replaced his wife.
I look down at the photo in my hand again.
I was so wrong about everything.
About my father.
I was deceived once by a married man when I was college, Vanessa had said on the day we’d met at the bridal salon. I thought he loved me. He never told me about his wife.
I was wrong about Richard.
If you marry Richard, you will regret it, she’d warned me when she confronted me outside my apartment. And later, while Richard stood beside me, she’d tried again, even though she was visibly scared: He will hurt you.
I think of how Richard pulled me to his side, wrapping his arm around me, after Vanessa uttered those words. The gesture seemed protective. But his fingertips dug into my flesh, creating a little trail of plum-colored marks. I don’t even think he knew he was doing it; he was glaring at Vanessa in that moment. The next day, when I met Vanessa at the bridal salon, I made sure to keep her on my other side.
And most of all, I was wrong about Vanessa.
It is only fair that she knows she was wrong about me, too.
I make myself visible as I cross the street and approach her.
She turns around even before I call her name; she must have sensed my presence.
“Emma! What are you doing here?”
She was honest with me, even though it wasn’t easy. If she hadn’t fought so hard to save me, I would have married Richard. But she didn’t stop there. She risked her life to expose him, preventing him from preying on yet another woman.
“I wanted to say I’m sorry.”
Her brow creases. She waits.
“And I wanted to show you a picture.” I hand it to her. “This was my family.”
Vanessa stares at the photograph as I tell my story, beginning with that long-ago October night when I was supposed to be asleep.
Then her head snaps up and she searches my face. “Your eyes.” Her tone is even, measured. “They seemed so familiar.”
“I thought you deserved to know.”
Vanessa hands back the picture. “I’ve been wondering about you. You seemed to materialize out of nowhere. When I tried to look you up online, you didn’t exist until a few years ago. I couldn’t find much more than your address and phone number.”
“Would you rather not have known who I really was?”
She considers this for a moment.
Then she shakes her head. “The truth is the only way to move forward.”
And then, because there is nothing more for either of us to say, I signal for an approaching cab.
I climb into the taxi and twist around to stare out the back window.
I lift my hand.