It was the name she’d grown up with. The person she’d been before Joshua and motherhood and the slow erosion of herself. Kate Lynch had started out as a carefree girl. Someone who laughed. Never planned. Was often irresponsible. She’d met Joshua after those traits had gotten her into trouble. Trouble she decided she’d never tell him about because he seemed the right mix of stability and love. And if Kate wasn’t broken inside, he would’ve been. She became Kaitlyn Ring willingly, soberly. She’d move forward without looking back. When second chances came around, you grabbed them.
This last year, it was, at times, as if she wasn’t Kaitlyn Ring anymore. As if she’d never been. But that had been a mistake. She should’ve surveilled her old life. She should’ve kept up with the news. Today, with Andrea, perhaps that wasn’t a close call. But next time, with someone less self-absorbed, it could be. Hell, even the twins had recognized her. She hadn’t actually changed beyond all recognition.
She typed a few key words into Google and started reading from the beginning, the oldest post she could find. A year’s worth of stories about her old city, her family, her friends. Her fingers were so slick with sweat she had to wipe them to get the iPad to swipe to the next story. But she didn’t look away. She read and read and read, every word she could find.
It was late. Time to sleep. But first she hit the “Reload” button one last time, and a new story appeared. Cecily had been photographed again, out at a restaurant with Joshua and the girls.
She clicked on the link. And that’s when she saw her.
Franny Maycombe.
The Triple-Tenner You’ve Never Heard Of
by TED BORENSTEIN
Special to VANITY FAIR
Published on OCTOBER 29
I start off by reading everything I can about Franny Maycombe. There had been scattered articles here and there when she’d surfaced soon after the tragedy. Her mother, Kaitlyn Ring, worked at a software company that lost twenty-three employees, including its cofounder, Tom Grayson. Mr. Grayson was Cecily Grayson’s husband, the woman whose photograph became one of the enduring images of the day.
“Cecily and Kaitlyn were great friends,” a neighbor and mutual friend tells me. “Cecily doesn’t get enough credit for what she’s had to go through. Losing her husband and close friend on the same day. And then having to learn about Franny. A lot of people would crack under the pressure, but not Cecily.”
Franny’s appearance at Kaitlyn Ring’s funeral was the first story about her in print. It ran in the local paper and managed to capture the attention of a neighborhood already in shock. It was a distraction, perhaps, something to gossip over rather than the complexities of grief. Some secrets were expected to come out with so many dead, so many gone, but not something like this.
“That whole funeral was a . . . That’s probably not fit to print. Let’s just say it was dramatic. Kaitlyn hadn’t told anyone about Franny. Not even her husband, Joshua.” She wipes a tear away. “But I don’t blame Franny. She had no idea. Kaitlyn told her she’d told her family about her, and can you imagine? Meeting your mother and then losing her like that?”
Was she mad at Kaitlyn for keeping Franny a secret?
“Oh, no. A lot of people did that then . . . still do it, I expect. Give a baby up for adoption and don’t tell anyone. She must’ve felt so ashamed and sad and . . . And though I’m sure she was thrilled to meet Franny again, how do you tell your husband or your children about something like that?”
Not all of Kaitlyn Ring’s neighbors and friends are so forgiving. One woman, who agreed to talk to me only on the condition of anonymity, spoke with some venom at the shock wave Franny produced at the funeral.
“Can you imagine? There we all are, another funeral, a young mother, Joshua left alone with those two girls, and then this woman none of us has ever heard of tells us she’s Kaitlyn’s daughter? It’s just so selfish. It was making the day all about her. Why did she need to be at the funeral? She must’ve known people would ask who she was.”
Then this forty-five-year-old mother of three asks, “You know who Chris Pender is, right? The lead singer of The Penderasts? Charming name for a band. Anyway, his sister’s married to one of our neighbors. And when her father-in-law died, he came to the funeral dressed in his rock-star costume. He didn’t put on a suit. So the moment he walked in, everyone knew who he was and started taking pictures. It was so disrespectful. And that’s what Franny reminded me of.”
Perhaps Chris Pender didn’t mean to be disrespectful? Perhaps it was nice of him to come to the funeral in the first place?
“Sure, but if he was just trying to make a nice gesture, take off the costume. Dress like a normal person. I know this is controversial. I know what I sound like when I say this, but Franny was enjoying the attention that day. I’m sure of it.”
Couldn’t Franny have sought out all kinds of media attention? And yet she hadn’t.
“But you’re writing about her, aren’t you? I rest my case.”
23
HOPES DASHED
CECILY
When I get home from the restaurant I find the kids sitting together on the couch, each engrossed in an iPad. Henry’s playing a game, and Cassie’s texting with someone, her fingers flying around the screen, a flash of emojis I couldn’t understand if I wanted to peppering her abbreviations. I used to be better at keeping up with this kind of stuff, the music they listened to, the cultural references they made. A year ago, I probably could’ve deciphered Cassie’s texts, or certainly guessed at their meaning. Now they’re like the grad note I wrote in my high school yearbook. Indecipherable.
“Hey, guys.”
Cassie flaps a hand at me, but Henry doesn’t move a muscle.
“Screens down, please.”
“Not another family meeting,” Cassie says.
I sit down on the coffee
