The other cop has his knee in Teo’s back.
“Shut that door!”
I reflexively kick it closed with my foot, nicking the side of it on the frame. My skin splits, and I can feel the blood start to flow.
“What’s going on?”
It’s Henry, eyes round and hair wild, standing in the stairwell.
“Get upstairs, Henry. Right now. Go to your sister’s room, and close the door until I tell you it’s okay. Now! Go now.”
He turns and scampers up the stairs.
“Let him up. Why are you sitting on him like that? Teo, are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” Teo says, his voice muffled.
“Get off him. Right this minute.”
I’m using the same tone I used with Henry, my voice of authority, when I’ve had enough and they know I mean business. This twentysomething kid who hasn’t been on the job that long responds to it like I’m his mother. He looks up with a guilty expression on his face and lets the pressure off Teo’s back.
“Ma’am . . .”
“I mean it. I don’t know why this is happening, but this needs to stop right now. Get up. Get up!”
The officer gets up. I race to Teo, my tears falling onto the back of his sweater. I help him turn over. There’s a bruise forming under his right eye.
“Are you okay?”
“It’s fine, Cecily. Just leave it, all right?”
He pushes my hand away.
“Let me at least get some ice.”
Teo stands up slowly. The police officers back away, looking a bit confused, even though they’re the cause of this scene.
“How did this happen?” Teo asks one of the officers. “What are you doing here?”
“We got a call from one of Mrs. Grayson’s neighbors about a break-in.”
“And you saw him in my house and assumed—”
“Please let me handle this.”
I take a step back. I’ve done enough.
“I’m going to go check on my kids,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”
I turn to the stairs. My feet feel like weights, exhaustion overcoming me. I learned a while ago that when you woke up in the morning, there was no accounting for how long the day would take, because not all days are created equal. The day I got Tom’s texts, that day started out normally but then slowed down until it took up the space of a week. October tenth took no time to pass in comparison. Both changed my life irrevocably, and it feels like today will, too.
26
LIFE IN REVERSE
KATE
Growing up, Kate’s father had an irrational hatred for the Kennedys. That’s what her mother always called it, “Your father’s irrational hatred.” Kate never understood what it was that drove his ire, but it had the opposite effect than intended. Kate was secretly obsessed with Jackie Kennedy, Jackie O. She kept a scrapbook of images of her between her mattress and the box spring. Read the books she edited. Took the French option at school. When she was seventeen, she entered a contest run by Vogue to spend a year in their Paris office as an intern. Feeling petulant, Kate wrote her essay about her father. How his anger had taught her to look again. To look more closely. To see the flaws and the good parts, too. What it must’ve been like to be Jackie, starting out in the world. Full of ambition. Full of limits.
Kate sent off her manila envelope with no hope of winning anything. But she did win. She convinced her parents to let her postpone her entrance to college. She waved goodbye to them at the airport and landed a bad night’s sleep later in the early morning of Paris.
How free she felt. How naive she’d been.
• • •
“What’s that doggie, Aunt Kwait?” Willie asked as he climbed onto Kate’s lap on the morning of October twenty-ninth. A few small flakes were floating down outside. The forecast was calling for a couple inches.
“It’s a greyhound.”
“Is that a real doggie?” Willie pointed to the image of a dog that scampered across his fleecy pajamas. “Like this one?”
“Well, not that one. That’s a drawing. But yes, there are real greyhounds. Here, look.” Kate opened a new browser window and Googled “images of greyhounds.” “See?”
“That’s a big doggie.”
“It is. Sometimes they race them.”
“Like horses?”
“No, not exactly. No one rides the dogs.”
“I like riding doggies.”
“Whose dog have you ridden?”
“Stu.”
“Who’s Stu?”
“He lives across the street! You know.”
The door from the garage opened and closed.
“Mommy, Mommy, guess what?”
“What’s up, Willie?”
“Aunt Kwait is going to ride a greyhound!”
“She is! That sounds fun.”
Kate quickly closed the browsers and shut the iPad. There was no need for Andrea to see that she was looking up bus rides to Chicago.
“I think he misunderstood, didn’t you, muffin?” Kate ruffled Willie’s hair and put him down on the floor. “Aunt Kate is much too big to ride a greyhound.”
“Clearly,” Andrea said. She was sucking on a straw that was stuck into a plastic cup full of green goo. She turned on the TV. More all news, all the time.
“Did you see this?” she asked, nodding to the screen, which was reporting on a story that Vogue had broken. “What a crazy story.”
Kate looked away. It was all anyone was talking about online that morning. The news wasn’t going to tell her anything she didn’t already know. It was the reason she was looking at Greyhound trips. Figuring out the logistics. Counting up her money and preparing herself to say goodbye to the only two people she cared about in this new life.
What she hadn’t figured out yet was what she was going to do once she got there.
Was there a way for Kate to convince anyone that what she’d done was forgivable? Was there a cover story that could make her acceptable in her old life?
What would convince you?
If she told you Joshua was abusive? That it had started six months into their relationship. Just words, in the beginning. He didn’t like her going out. He didn’t like it when he didn’t know where she was or who she was with. That it felt romantic at first. Then something she
