I force the words out. “Kaitlyn’s alive.”
“Kaitlyn Ring?”
“Yes.”
“Are you certain?”
Linda’s looking at me in a way she hasn’t before. As if I might be crazy. It didn’t occur to me that this might be an issue, that I’d be the one treated with suspicion.
“I’ve spoken to her,” I say. “So yes.”
“How is that possible?”
“If what she says is true, and I’m adding a big ‘if’ here, she was having some kind of panic attack a few moments before the explosion, so she left the building. That’s why she was at the elevators a few minutes before . . . I don’t know if I ever told you that part?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, either, because it’s Initiative business, but anyway, you said it was confidential, so . . .”
“Take a breath, Cecily.”
I inhale deeply.
“Take two.”
I do it again. In and out slowly like Linda showed me early on in our sessions when everything would come spilling out of me in a manic stream.
“Better?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“So she was leaving the building, and then what?”
“She’s not sure. Everything blew up and she came to a block away. She doesn’t know how she ended up there—she thinks she was thrown by the blast; it’s super-unclear—but the next thing she knew she was buying a bus ticket for Montreal. That’s where she’s been all this time. Montreal. Looking after someone else’s children! Can you believe that?”
“This is a bit hard to absorb, I’ll admit.”
“Right?”
“How did you learn all this?”
“She showed up at my house last night.”
“She’s back?”
I nod. “She read that story in Vanity Fair about Franny. I don’t know if you saw it, but Franny’s engaged to Joshua.”
“Yes, I did see that.”
“I’m sure you’d have a field day with that one. Man gets engaged to his wife’s secret daughter. Only she’s not her daughter.”
“What?”
“Apparently, Franny’s a fraud.”
“This is a lot of information to absorb, even for me,” Linda says. “How are you doing?”
“I’m a fucking mess. But I haven’t even gotten to the best part yet.”
“There’s a best part?”
“Yeah, good point. It’s probably the worst part. She’s the woman.”
“The woman?”
“The other woman. The woman who was sleeping with my husband. It’s Kaitlyn. It was Kaitlyn this whole time.”
Saying it out loud rips something apart inside me, and now I’m crying like I haven’t since my early sessions. Hard-core crying that will end in hiccups, like Henry.
When I finally made it back upstairs last night, Henry had fallen asleep cradling his DS, and Cassie was reading the new Veronica Roth book. I’d said a quick good night and told her I’d fill them in in the morning but that the information ban was still in place. Then I’d texted Linda that it was an emergency, and could she please fit me in?
“That’s disappointing news,” Linda says. “I’m sure.”
“Disappointing? That’s all you’ve got to say? I find out my life is actually some Lifetime movie plot and that’s ‘disappointing’?”
“Perhaps that wasn’t the best choice of words, but you seem very angry with me right now.”
“Maybe I am.”
“Why?”
“Because I wasn’t prepared for this. What have I been doing here all this time if something like this can just blindside me and send me back where I was a year ago?”
“Are you back where you were a year ago?”
“Of course I am. Look at me. I’m a mess.”
“I don’t see a mess.”
“You don’t?”
“I see a woman who’s survived some big shocks only to have several more thrown at her. So it’s no surprise that you feel off-kilter today. It would be more surprising if you didn’t.”
My shoulders start to shake. “How could she do this? How could she do this to me?”
“She must’ve been very sad. Very confused.”
“I’m thinking more that she’s some kind of sociopath.”
Linda gives me a half smile. “That damn book.”
“What?”
“The Sociopath Next Door,” Linda says. “Everyone thinks they can diagnose a serious clinical condition now.”
“But am I wrong? Isn’t it totally crazy what she did?”
“I don’t know Kaitlyn, so I can’t say. But you’ve told me before that she suffered from clinical depression, and affairs are a common side effect, shall we say, of depression.”
“They are?”
“It’s a way of feeling something, when everything else feels like nothing.”
“So I’m just a side effect? My family’s a side effect?”
“Of course not. I’m simply providing some context for her behavior.”
“It’s totally fucked up.”
“You could also say that.” Linda smiles at me. “Cecily, I can’t begin to imagine what you must be feeling right now. Hate, regret, anger, confusion I’m sure are all a part of it, but I sense there’s something more. Something more immediate that’s pulling at you.”
“She wants me to help her.”
“Help her how?”
“Help her with her plan to expose Franny.”
Linda looks at her hands. For a woman who presents as so calm, so in control, they’re a wreck. Bitten nails, ragged cuticles.
“Does she need your help? Couldn’t she simply come forward and expose Franny?”
“But then she’d be exposed, too. And the girls and Joshua would know what she did.”
“Which is worse than what they think now?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a tough position she’s put you in.”
“It’s a ridiculous position to be in.”
“But you’ve made your choice, I think. That’s why you’re telling me instead of speaking to the press. Or simply telling Joshua yourself.”
“I couldn’t do that. Am I wrong?”
“What does your heart tell you?”
“It feels like it isn’t working properly.”
“I think your heart is working fine.”
“Sure, right.”
“Look at the love you’re displaying now, Cecily. For Joshua, for his children, even for Kaitlyn. It may come at a cost, but you should be proud of that heart.”
I know her words are a compliment, something that should warm me. But I don’t feel warm.
I feel cold and sick, sick in my heart.
• • •
On my way downtown, after I beg off work, I try Franny again. The call goes right to voice mail. I try again, then leave her a message. I’d appreciate it if you’d call me, I text. It’s important. I wait for the bubble to appear, but the screen
