“He did say that.”
“And now he can’t.”
“It’s true. It’s not fair. He should be here to beat up that Kevin guy. I can do it if you want.”
She tilts her chin. “You’re joking again, right?”
“Of course I am. Or not. Your choice.”
I stroke the top of her head while she rests against me. Her room is in a transition phase, like her. Posters we put up years ago are half papered over with photos she’s printed up on our color printer of her friends. Thick books with black covers are perched on top of a confetti of others about magic and twins in high school. It’s like an archeological dig of her childhood.
“So, I get the hiding where you were going from me—not that it’s okay—”
“I won’t do it again.”
“You probably will. I’m not saying it’s allowed. I’m just being practical.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
“Good. But what about that led you to think I’d be marrying someone else and—God forbid—having more children?”
“You don’t want to have more kids?”
“Sweetheart, you know I love you and your brother to death, but no. I’m forty-three. I’m too old for that.”
“Janet Jackson had a baby at fifty.”
“Good for her! Come on, where’s this coming from?”
Cassie squirms, then settles. “We were just talking . . . I don’t know, about stupid stuff. How his brother was still obsessed with Pokémon and stuff like that. Anyway, then he kind of asked me about the memorial, and it felt good to talk about it because none of the kids at school ever ask me anything about Dad, like it’s contagious or something and their dad will die if they mention it. So I talked about Dad for a bit and how it’s been, and then he told me how he’d read this thing, or heard his dad talking about it, I guess, about how all these babies are being born now, like how there was this baby boom or whatever starting nine months after Triple Ten, and it’s still going on, and even some of the survivors’ families have new babies and . . .”
She pauses for breath.
“And then what?”
“And then he asked me if you had started dating ‘yet.’ And I just lost it, Mom. I ran out of the restaurant and all the way home. And now he’s never going to talk to me again.”
I can feel Cassie’s heart thrumming against her ribs. I know that feeling all too well. “I’m sure he will. And if he doesn’t, then he wasn’t worth it.”
“If you say so.”
“Trust me.”
She’s quiet for a moment, and then, “Is that what you were on tonight with Teo? A date?”
“I’m not sure.”
She pulls away.
“I know it might be upsetting to you and Henry to see me with another man, but that’s not what’s happening. Maybe it will someday and maybe it won’t, but it was just dinner.”
“But he likes you. I can tell.”
“And I like him, too. We all do. But I don’t know if I’m ready for that again or, even if I was, whether he’s the right person. This is complicated. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah,” she says, but she’s not looking me in the eye.
I turn her head gently to me with my fingertips. “How about this? Why don’t we agree that we’ll both keep each other up to date on our, for lack of a better word, love lives?”
She wipes her nose again. “Like, in detail?”
“Um . . . no, I don’t think that’s a good idea. But if I go on a date with him or you with Kevin, we’ll tell each other about it. Sound good?”
I smile bravely, because it doesn’t sound good to me, and I can’t imagine it sounds good to her, either.
None of this is how it should be, but it’s all that we’ve got.
Chapter 16
Downtown by Myself
Kate
I have a secret, Kate typed into the dialogue box. Last year, I ran away from my family.
She stared at the words on the screen. How had she ended up here? After some nearly sleepless nights, and desperate for an outlet for the thoughts chasing her through her days, Kate had discovered IKnowWhatYouDidLastSummer.com, one of those secret-sharing websites, where users could spill their innermost shame in anonymity. I cheated on my husband. I regret having children. I hate my best friend and I don’t know how to tell her. These were the easy secrets to absorb. Some were almost laughable, others criminal. Their combined effect was a white noise and a sense of relativity. What she’d done wasn’t so bad. Not truly. Especially not now that she’d written it down and the comments of support had started flowing in.
I’ve wanted to do that for years!
I think UR brave.
I left my kids when they were babies.
Kate knew she had to add more to the story. That, to actually unburden herself, this was only the beginning. But it had to come out in dribs and drabs. There was no point in setting it all out at once. Let them drag the details out of her, as she’d seen others do. That was part of the experience. The normalization of her immorality.
The wind rattled against the basement window. It was late, almost midnight. Kate should be asleep. Her alarm would sound too soon. But Andrea’s house, once so spacious, was starting to feel claustrophobic. Kate was giving serious thought to running again.
It wouldn’t be a frantic getaway this time. She could simply hand in her notice and scuttle away into the good night. She had some savings. She could last for a while. But where would she go? When she’d left her old life a year ago, that part of the decision had seemed easy. The location. How to get there. Those first steps.
It was frightening, how automatic it had been. The inventory she did of her situation, skipping past the fact that she was leaving her family behind. It was more like she was going through a checklist she didn’t even know she’d been building. All those years of fantasizing, planning coming to fruition.
First, money. She had $600 in cash in her purse to pay her nanny, the woman who took better care of her children than she did. The same miracle that had thrown her to safety left her cross-body bag in place. After a brief hesitation, she risked pulling another $600 out of their bank account when she passed an ATM twenty blocks past her building. Her husband never checked the bank statements; that was her job. Besides, all the statement would say, if he ever looked at them, was that the money had been taken out that day but not at what time. For that, he’d have to go looking. And why would he do that?
Second, walk away from the crowds that had gathered at a safe distance to watch the fire casually so you don’t draw attention to yourself. Pay attention to where the cameras are and try to avoid them. Walk in a crowd with your head down, one of many. Do nothing to stand out.
Third, take the SIM card out of your cell phone and crush it under your shoe in an alley. Leave the phone in a garbage can. Make sure no one sees you do either of these things.
Fourth, get rid of your ID, but not where someone might pick it up and use it, leading to awkward questions. Think about leaving your wedding and engagement rings somewhere, too, but decide instead to keep them to sell later for cash.
When she’d stopped at the ATM, she thought briefly about wrapping her scarf around her head in case the footage was checked. Then realized that might bring more attention to herself. Besides, no one would be looking for her. Certainly not if she didn’t do anything stupid. Didn’t give anyone reason to believe she was anything other than a victim of the day’s events.
Kate’s borrowed iPad chimed with another comment.
Why did you leave? asked Anonymous4Life. He was one of the cheaters who seemed to form the majority of the website’s users. Kate had the impression that many of them were simply looking for other like-minded people for further adventures. As if the site was a coy Ashley Madison. A4L had cheated on his wife twice with the same woman, three years apart, and claimed he’d joined the group as a way of avoiding telling her.