“It’s okay.”
I kiss the top of her head. “Let me go find Daddy, all right? You stay here?”
“Can I play in the basement?”
“Of course you can.”
I watch her scuttle off. I take out my phone and make a call.
“This is Franny, leave a message.”
“Franny, I’m at Joshua’s house. Where are you; what’s going on?”
I end the call and text her.
Where are you?
I watch the screen, waiting for a bubble to form, to show me that she’s writing back. I see it after a moment. Then it disappears. Reappears. Appears again. Then, finally, a text.
Have you spoken to Joshua? Franny writes.
Not yet.
Tell him I’m sorry, okay?
Sorry for what? I’m going to call you.
I don’t want to talk right now. Just talk to Joshua. He’ll explain everything.
Why didn’t you tell me what was going on?
The bubble appears again, leaves, appears. But no text comes.
Franny?
I wait and wait, but there’s nothing.
I tuck my phone away and walk up the stairs. I can hear Emily crying in her room. I should go to her, but I need to find Joshua, I need to understand what’s going on. How could he be marrying Franny? She’s so different from Kaitlyn, and her daughter, and too young, and what could they possibly have in common?
I stop at the top of the stairs. I feel winded, panic gripping at my chest.
I lean against the wall. It’s been years since I’ve been upstairs in this house, but not much has changed. The same pictures, the same hamper full of children’s clothes at the end of the hall. One of the bedrooms was an office, but I assume it’s where Franny’s been staying since she moved in. Or is she sleeping with Joshua now? How did I let that slip by without notice? Not that it was my job to monitor this house, this family, but yet, it kind of is. It was.
“Joshua?”
“In here.”
I open the door to his bedroom. The blinds are drawn, the bed in disarray. I get a sudden image of Franny sleeping between these sheets, occupying the place Kaitlyn used to. I feel sick to my stomach.
Joshua’s sitting at his desk, his back to me, his face half illuminated by the glow of the computer screen.
“Joshua, what the hell? You scared me half to death, and then when I get here Emily and Julia are freaking out, and they told me you and Franny are getting married. Is that true?”
“Yes. At least it was. I don’t know anymore. I don’t know anything anymore.”
Joshua’s shoulders start to tremble. I step forward and put my hands on them. He’s still wearing the shirt he slept in, wrinkled and soft, and his hair’s matted down. The last time I saw Joshua like this was in the first days after October tenth.
“Joshua, I’m at a loss here; can you please tell me what’s happening?”
“Was Tom having an affair?”
My stomach knots again. “Why are you asking me that?”
“Is it true? Was he?”
“Yes, but I don’t . . .”
He turns his chair around. His skin is pale and mottled.
“I found some e-mails. Or, I should say, Franny did. She showed them to me.”
“Franny? How does Franny know about Tom? Why are we even talking about this?”
“Did he tell you about the affair?”
“No, I . . . I found out by accident.”
“And do you know who he was sleeping with?”
“He didn’t say. And then . . . Oh no, Joshua. Whatever it is you’re thinking, it’s not true. It’s not possible.”
“I’m afraid it is, Cecily. You can read it for yourself.”
He turns and pulls the screen toward us. It’s open to a Gmail account, Kaitlyn’s Gmail account. Joshua stands and guides me gently so I’m sitting in the chair.
I don’t want to look, I don’t want to look, at the end of everything, I don’t want to know this. But my eyes are not mine to command, and so I read.
And now I know.
Chapter 28
Winding a Spring
Kate
Riding the bus back from Montreal to Chicago was like winding her life back onto the coil she thought she’d escaped from.
Saying goodbye to the twins had been hard. Kate didn’t tell them she was leaving. But Willie sensed something was off and started crying when she tried to put him to bed. Kate felt the tears spring into her own eyes. But she pried Willie’s arms from around her neck and laid him back down in his bed. She soothed him as best as she could until he drifted off to sleep.
Then she went downstairs and packed up her things. She wrote a final post on IKWYDLS.com as she waited for Andrea and Rick to get home from their event. I’m going back to make things right, she wrote. Wish me luck. There was a flurry of replies, mostly against her returning. Kate found their caution comforting. Going against the grain felt right to her. Even when the friction was created by the liars and cheaters who populated this website.
Andrea and Rick arrived home around eleven. Kate sat on the edge of her bed and listened to them moving around. When she was sure they’d gone upstairs, she slipped out the back door with everything she owned on her back. The last thing she did was remove the stack of cash she’d stashed in the basement ceiling. This time she left a note. Not an explanation but a goodbye. A thank-you.
At the bus station she moved with purpose. She was afraid; she wanted to bolt in some other direction, but she couldn’t. She’d been so selfish. This was the only way she could think of fixing any of it.
A hazy day on the bus. Jolts and jumps and fractured sleep. She felt the beginnings of a migraine coming on. The fingers of it gripping at her brain, pushing at her optic nerve. She took some pills she’d lifted from Andrea’s medicine cabinet, something she used for anxiety. That put her into another blurring space, one where she didn’t have a real grip on time or her emotions. Every bad choice she’d made in her life seemed front and center.
She tensed up further at the border. Had the connection finally been made between her two selves? She needn’t have worried. The border guard came onto the bus, no scanner in sight, and barely looked at her passport. Within minutes, they were on their way.
And then she was back in Chicago. It was Halloween, night coming on early. She saw children in costumes, adults holding their hands as she should be holding her daughters’. At the bus station, she changed her money for US dollars and hailed a cab. She directed it to Evanston. Even before the cab pulled off I-94, everything was familiar. The smells. The lights. The way the houses looked against the night. Orange pumpkins and costumed children lugging bags heavy with candy.
It was lovely. Perfect. Why hadn’t this been enough?
She paid the cabbie and stood outside the house. The cold bit at her nose. But that wasn’t why she was shaking.
There wasn’t a pumpkin outside, but the lights were on. She could imagine the activity inside; she’d seen it often enough. All she had to do was walk up the front steps like children were doing all around her, ring the bell, and none of this could be taken back. She’d cause more havoc, more hurt, more pain. The alternative was impossible to weigh.
Her feet made the decision for her. Her hand raised and pushed the bell.
The front door opened.
Cassie was standing there. “We’re not—omigod, omigod. Mom!”
“What is it, Cassie? And what did I tell you about—”
Cecily appeared. When she saw Kate, she turned white. Kate stepped forward to hold her up.
“Don’t touch me!”
Kate recoiled. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”
“How can . . .”
A group of happy kids ran past the house, their parents calling after them to wait up.
Cecily stepped back. “You need to leave or come inside.”
“What?”
“If you don’t want the whole world to know you’re alive, come inside right now.”
Kate stepped inside. Cecily closed the door quickly behind her. Kate was overwhelmed. There in the entranceway surrounded by boots and hooked coats, she felt dizzy. Cassie and Cecily stood there, echoes of each other, both casual in jeans and warm sweaters. Staring.