It was after ten. Only a few lights were on in the house. The living room. The den. She could see the flicker of the television through the windows. The lights were all off upstairs. Of course. What was she thinking? That her daughters would come conveniently to the front windows, perfectly lit for secret viewing? Called there by her presence? Those sorts of things didn’t happen in reality. Even in her alternative reality.
Kaitlyn crossed the street. Her boots were silent on the pavement. She walked up her driveway, then hugged the house the way she’d hugged Cecily’s. She approached the side window to the den. The curtains were pulled back. Joshua never closed the curtains. It was always Kaitlyn who’d closed out the light. Closed out life. She’d had it all in front of her, but she hadn’t wanted it. Or couldn’t reach for it. It amounted to the same thing. She felt like a visitor in her own life, a guest who’d stayed too long.
Joshua was sitting alone on the couch. An episode of Ray Donovan was playing. They’d started watching it together a few months before Kaitlyn left. Kaitlyn found parts of it too violent. Another casualty of parenthood. Things she used to be able to tolerate easily became hard to watch.
Kaitlyn leaned in. She caught a few lines of dialogue. It was from the pilot. He was cycling back to the beginning. Was he thinking of her? Wondering if the e-mails she wrote while she sat next to him were the ones he’d read the other day? Matching up the time stamps with events in their life?
She’d meant to erase all those e-mails. Delete that account. She’d almost made it, too. But she felt like she needed evidence. That it wasn’t all in her head. That what they’d had existed. She wasn’t sure why. So she kept one or two threads. Had kept the account alive. She knew she’d never read them again. And in this last year, to the extent she thought about it at all, she assumed time would do for her what she couldn’t bring herself to do. Erase the traces. Put their messages in the trash where they belonged.
A shadow shifted in the room, and there was Franny. Or Eileen. She never did find out her real name. She sucked in a cold breath. It was strange to see her in her house. Sitting in her old place. The look of tenderness that crossed Joshua’s face made her question her plan. They’d clearly made up. He deserved to be happy. But the girls. Franny would raise the girls. She was a . . . She wasn’t sure of the diagnosis, but it wasn’t right. She wasn’t right. Kaitlyn had left in part to take her own diseased mind away from her daughters. She couldn’t be replaced by someone far worse.
Joshua leaned over and kissed Franny. And there it was. The moment she’d also come looking for.
Her life, through the looking glass.
Interview Transcript
TJ: What did Sherrie tell the police?
FM: That I killed my parents, of course. Don’t look so shocked. She told you all this already, right?
TJ: Not exactly.
FM: Hmm. That’s interesting. Anyway, I didn’t do it.
TJ: Why would she say you did?
FM: Because, it’s like I told you. She has it in for me. Always has.
TJ: But why would the police take that claim seriously, then?
FM: Because the brakes on my parents’ car failed. So maybe they could’ve been tampered with or something. And I was the bad seed, right? I’d been to that boot camp thing and arrested a few times.
TJ: How far did the investigation go?
FM: Far enough. The police questioned me for hours. I was under investigation.
TJ: Were your parents’ brakes tampered with?
FM: No! The brake light had been on in my dad’s car for weeks. He was so stingy, he didn’t want to get “taken for a ride” by the mechanic.
TJ: Just a car accident, then.
FM: Yeah, but then I’m forever the “suspect,” you know? And Madison’s not that big a town. Everywhere I went, everywhere, people were looking at me funny.
TJ: So you left?
FM: Yeah, that’s right. I was sick of being that person. Living in that narrative.
TJ: Which narrative?
FM: Me as the bad guy. The antagonist. That’s what I am, right? You know those “learn to write screenplays” ads you always see on Facebook or whatever, with famous writers? I took one of those classes once. Anyway, it talked about how every piece has to have a villain, an antagonist, and I saw your board, the one you have up in the other room, and it’s obvious that’s who I am in this story.
TJ: Maybe we make our own place in stories.
FM: In your own story, sure. I agree with that. But I’m not in my story. I’m in yours.
Chapter 35
Night Music
Cecily
The last thing I want to do is go to a church and watch a kids’ Irish dancing show, but I’d promised Sara weeks ago that I’d attend her son Ben’s recital with her, and she’s done so much for me this year I don’t feel like I can back out. Besides, if anyone’s looking, I should stick to my routine and show up where I’m expected. These are new thoughts. Before, I never ascribed any real credit to those who might look into my background. But after this afternoon, I can’t feel that way anymore. I know better now.
A half inch of snow fell this afternoon when I was meeting with Teo. The driving’s dicey, and the entranceway to the church basement is scattered with boots. I add mine to the collection, hang my black coat on a wire hanger next to six others, and pay for my ticket. I pay another ten dollars to enter the wine raffle because: wine. Then I take a program and search the room. Sara’s sitting midway up, glaring across the aisle at her ex-mother-in-law.
Sara and Bill’s divorce a couple years ago was awful, an example that gave me pause even as my own marriage was collapsing around me. I understood her acrimony, but his family’s wholehearted decision to blame her and turn their backs on her was a puzzle. My own mother might hate Tom, but she’d never have spoken badly about him to the children even if he’d lived. Bill’s mother, on the other hand, regularly denigrated Sara, saying such charming things as, “Your mother should be a personal shopper; she’s so good at spending other people’s money,” and actively encouraged Bill’s paranoia that Sara might take the kids and run away.
“What’s the witch done now?” I ask as I sit next to her. She’s wearing her hair in a ballet bun, which suits the clean lines of her face.
“She tried to keep me from coming tonight. Said it was Bill’s night with the kids, and I wasn’t welcome. As if I’m somehow a bad mother for wanting to come to my son’s dance recital in a public venue. What the fuck?”
“She’s evil.”
“And to think I used to like her.”
“I always thought she was batshit crazy myself.”
She laughs. “Thank God for you.”
I open the program. “What’s on the bill tonight? Lord of the Dance?”
“Probably.”
“And the alcohol is where exactly?”
Sara looks sheepish. “Did I say there’d be alcohol?”
“Pretty sure you did.”
“Do super-fattening cookies count?”
I sigh. I could use a drink. “They’re at least going to be wearing cute costumes, aren’t they?”
“I can guarantee that.”
“Phew.”
We lean back in our chairs, those wooden hard-backed kind I don’t think they even make anymore.
“Where have you been for the last couple days?” Sara asks. “Feels like forever since we talked.”
“It’s been busy with the new job and . . . everything.” I wish I could tell Sara what’s going on. I need someone to talk through all this with like a girlfriend, not just a therapist like Linda, and the only person I have is the person who screwed it all up in the first place.
“That Franny news is crazy. Have you spoken to her? Or Joshua?”
“Franny, no. Joshua, briefly.” I hesitate, then fill her in quickly on what Joshua found, the e-mails between Kaitlyn and Tom. Surely this much is safe to share.
“Oh my God,” Sara says several times while I’m speaking and one more time when I’m finished.
“I think I used some more colorful words.”
“That is . . . I don’t even know what that is.”
I look down at my program. There is, in fact, going to be a Lord of the Dance starring her son.
“I’m having trouble processing this,” Sara says.
“Join the club.”
“She always seemed so innocent.”
“Did she?”
“I thought she was a prude. Remember that time when I was telling the story about”—she lowers her voice—“my one-night stand with that guy from yoga?”
“You guys never got along, though.”