When the Rings’ claim was turned down because they couldn’t match Franny or the girls’ DNA to anything in the wreckage, I’d been the one to console Franny when she wept about what she’d done. It was a stupid rule, stupid So stupid, she said over and over until I was worried she’d gone into some sort of autistic trance. I had to hand it to Franny, though: when she’d pulled herself together—a shot of whiskey had done it—she hadn’t given up on the idea that the decision could be reversed. And here we are today, with that possibility.
“What’s the new evidence?” Jenny, the twenty-three-year-old, asks. Her thin limbs concern me. I didn’t know her before, so it’s possible that she’s naturally this skinny, this almost-see-through. But she doesn’t have anyone looking out for her anymore, so I feel responsible, as if I should paint her back in, make sure she’s visible.
“It’s the mug,” Franny says, her voice wavering.
A few weeks ago, the search team found a coffee mug in pristine condition. It seemed impossible that the explosion and the fire and everything else hadn’t shattered it into a million pieces, but like the pottery that survived Pompeii, there it was, covered in dust but intact.
It wasn’t only its survival that was so arresting. Other whole things had been found—a desk, phones, paintings, many bodies, including Tom’s. It was the fact that it was a mug that obviously belonged to someone, one of those mugs kids make for their mothers at school, with We Heart Mom on one side and her picture on the other. And on the rim, the thing that made it eligible for consideration: lipstick that had been left—presumably—by its last user. The media had become obsessed with this mug, debating its provenance, wondering what we were going to do with it, and while they weren’t allowed in this meeting, it wouldn’t be long before the results of it became known, analyzed, dissected.
Franny puts a white square box on the table. It looks like a cake box, something that generally houses something delicious, something perfectly frosted rather than tragic. None of us has seen the mug in person, only photographs, though it still was a blow when I caught sight of it on the nightly news. I remember when her children gave her this mug, almost two years ago, on Valentine’s Day.
Franny opens the box, then puts on a pair of surgeon’s gloves, snapping them into place with practiced ease.
“Is that necessary?” one of the men asks. Robert’s always been hostile to Franny and only slightly less so to me. He’s not used to being anything other than in charge is my take on the matter, so he has to lash out whenever he feels someone else’s authority. “It’s already been through testing.”
“It belonged to my mother,” Franny says. “I want to treat it with the appropriate respect.”
This logic is hard to argue with, and Robert keeps any further thoughts to himself. I watch Franny lift the mug from the box. She unwraps it and places it on the table in front of her, turning it so we can see the imprint of someone’s lips left like a kiss along its rim.
And then I couldn’t speak even if I wanted to, because I know that shade of lipstick. She wore it every day, a deep cranberry that would’ve looked awful on anyone else but fit her perfectly.
I’m not sure why it’s this thing rather than all the others that breaks me, but it does. As the rest of the room watches the cup like it might spit out the entrants to this year’s Triwizard Tournament, I lay my head down on the cold glass table and weep.
8
MORNING NEWS
KATE
“What’s going on here?” Andrea asked as she walked into the kitchen. She was wearing her standard day uniform: lululemon yoga pants and a thin cotton hoodie that showed off her toned arms. Although her hair was on its third day after her weekly blowout, it was still as beach-wavy as when she’d left the salon.
Kate straightened up. She kept her back to Andrea as she wiped her tears away with the sleeve of the dark-blue sweatshirt she’d bought on sale for $12.99. It itched where it met her collarbone, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“Willie was just being the sweet little boy he always is,” Kate said, ruffling his head. “That’s all.”
Andrea sighed, then tapped a finger against the touch screen in the wall to turn it on. Perhaps this was what Kate’s tears were about. An advance reaction to the fact that Andrea always had the television on when she was at home, usually the news. The morning news was how Andrea stayed “connected to the world,” she always said, “now that I’m not in the paid workforce.” Then she’d get this wistful look on her face. Remembering back, Kate supposed, to her job as the CFO of a magazine distribution company, which she’d given up a month after she found out she was having twins.
The television sprang to life with a loud chime. Kate didn’t have to look to know what the day’s banner would be: “A Year Later. Remembering Chicago,” or something similar. She tried to block out the low murmur of the announcer speaking in a somber tone about the upcoming memorial.
Kate walked to the sink. She should’ve told Andrea where she came from and why. Some version of it, anyway. Enough. Andrea wouldn’t foist the coverage on her if she knew the toll it was already taking. She wasn’t cruel. Perhaps she’d even have given her a day off. Allowed her to hide in the dark basement all day rather than face the cold sunshine. The darkened orange leaves as they fell from the trees. Her memories.
Kate filled up the sink
