“See, I told you I was a good judge of character.”
And maybe he is, but his timing and mine, it’s always been skewed. Because he leans down to kiss me, and as his lips meet mine, I hear the click of a mechanical shutter.
I’ve been caught on film.
Again.
14
HOW A PERSON RUNS AWAY
KATE
Once she turned off the TV, Kate got through the rest of the day without incident. After the twins’ nap, she spent the requisite hour teaching them the alphabet and working through their flip-book so they’d be on track for the preschool they were already enrolled in for January. Then they played with their LEGOs scattered on the kitchen floor while Kate cooked. She ate dinner with the family—Andrea and, surprisingly, Rick, who looked tired and distracted, dark smudges emphasizing his light-blue eyes. She watched him as Andrea talked brightly about what she’d been up to that day. How the twins were progressing and, of course, Chicago. How sad it all was, and what it must be like for the families who still didn’t know for sure if they’d lost someone because they hadn’t found their r-e-m-a-i-n-s.
Rick nodded occasionally, not even always in the right places. He shoved the roasted chicken Kate had made into his mouth like he was starving. Maybe Andrea was right to worry. Rick had a look about him that Kate recognized. As if he was calculating the distance to the door. Whether he could simply get in his car and drive away.
Kate knew that look. She’d seen it on her own face more than once. Caught in the bathroom mirror in the morning or in her reflection in the glass behind the barista counter.
Could she escape? Was such a thing possible?
“And there was such a touching story about the people from that company,” Andrea said. “Oh, you know, the one that lost so many employees. Anyway, what an amazing group of people they were . . .”
As Andrea droned on about the virtues of the dead, Kate couldn’t help thinking that whenever more than five hundred people die together, odds are that at least some of them were assholes. It was the law of averages. And also: deep down, at least one person was probably glad when their wife, husband, lover, friend didn’t come home that day.
That was the law of averages, too.
Kate thought she was that person for a long time. The person no one would mind was gone. The one whose kids would be happier without her. The one whose hassled husband would sigh in relief when he was alone. It wasn’t that she blamed them. She’d done a lot of things she regretted over the course of her life, not the least of which was how she’d handled motherhood, her marriage—all the things that shouldn’t have been so challenging but somehow were. They’d be better off if she disappeared. Wouldn’t they?
Kate had fantasized about leaving off and on throughout her life. Whenever a tragedy occurred, she couldn’t help but wonder if someone had used the event as cover to escape, to start over. She thought about how she’d do it. Where she’d go. What she’d call herself. What would her new life look like? Racked with guilt or set free?
There were so many endless possibilities. So many new beginnings to contemplate. It became a constant she returned to. When things were bleak, mostly during those black autumns, she’d pick it up again. Modifying her plan, updating the technology involved, working through the details until she felt calm again.
She had it all planned out. If an opportunity arose, she was ready. And yet, she still couldn’t fully explain the way she’d acted on October tenth. How panicked she’d been feeling all morning. How she’d felt in the elevator as it raced toward the ground. The screech of the explosion, the sense of flying, then nothing. She’d woken moments later, thrown from the building as if it were as disgusted with her as her life. She’d stood on the shaking ground and then started jogging as fast as she could in her heels, joining the terrified crowd.
Two blocks later, she’d turned around and looked at the burning building. In an instant, she acknowledged the certain death of most of those within, though she was, somehow, alive. She loved some of those people; others she wished she’d never met. Some kind of miracle was at work here. Something that had let her walk away unscathed.
Because that’s what she’d done. Walked away.
No, that wasn’t quite right.
What she’d done was run.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
TJ: I’d like to discuss the Compensation Initiative. What made you get involved?
FM: It came up at one of the support groups I was attending. They were asking for volunteers.
TJ: But you do more than volunteer. You’re the cochair.
FM: That’s right.
TJ: You actually ran for the position.
FM: What are you getting at?
TJ: Nothing, Franny, I’m just asking questions.
FM: They feel a bit funny.
TJ: I’m sorry about that. Do you want to stop for today? I know talking about all this can be difficult.
FM: No, that’s fine. Why did Cecily say she joined?
TJ: Why do you ask?
FM: Just curious.
TJ: Did something happen between you and Cecily?
FM: What makes you think that?
TJ: Your tone just now when you mentioned her.
FM: What about my tone?
TJ: I thought you were friends.
FM: We are, but sometimes I think . . . Well, I feel like she blames me.
TJ: Blames you for what?
FM: For my mother. And it’s not my fault, you know.
TJ: What’s not your fault?
FM: That my mother . . . that Kaitlyn never told her about me. That’s not my fault at all.
PART
II
CECILY
One of the things I thought about on October tenth as paper and plastic and a wet, tacky substance I couldn’t think about the origins of rained down around me like confetti was that I didn’t know how to react.
Maybe that seems obvious. Who knows how to react to watching life evaporate before your eyes, particularly when you’ve loved that life? And yet, all around me, people were reacting. Running, crying, screaming. I did none of those things. It wasn’t until Teo grabbed my hand and made me move that I did anything
