She held out a glass to Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn rose from the computer and took it. The cold Chablis tasted like her past. So many memories of drinking this same wine, in this same room. Probably from this same glass.
“Which part?”
“Did you ever sleep with Tom here? In our house?”
“What?”
“It’s one of the things that’s been bugging me ever since I found out. Did he actually bring that whore into my house? And now I know it’s you, and obviously you’ve been in my house. So please tell me you did not fuck my husband in my own house. Give me that at least.”
“Of course not. Oh my God, no. We never . . . I never slept with him anywhere.”
“Don’t get technical. You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Come on. I read your e-mails. And that text he sent to me by mistake. You guys were fucking all over the place.”
Kaitlyn felt sick to her stomach. Those e-mails. She’d been addicted to them. Reading them, writing them, had made her wet and given her vivid, lurid dreams. Their words had come to her at the oddest moments. But they’d never been more than words.
“No, never. I . . . God, I don’t know how to explain this, but all we ever did was write to each other. Which was horrible, awful. We were awful. Terrible. But it never went any further than that. I swear.”
“Please. All those late nights at the office. All that time you spent together and you never so much as kissed?”
“Once. We kissed once. At the office Christmas party when we were both drunk. That’s it.”
“So all of that was just, what, fantasy?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
“I’m so sorry, Cecily. So awfully sorry. It happened gradually, and by the time I admitted to myself what was going on, it was too late. It was like a drug. Those e-mails actually made me feel high. But I told Tom early on that it couldn’t ever be more than that. That he couldn’t ever even speak to me about it out loud.”
“But you kissed. At the Christmas party, you kissed?”
“Yes. When that happened, I told him we had to stop.”
“And it was months later when I found out. So this was still going on then?”
“Less frequently, but yes. Yes, sometimes we’d backslide. It had been months, but the night before, we’d worked late together . . .”
“This is such bullshit. Will told me. He told me Tom left the office that night when you guys were working late. And there was a hotel bill at the Langham. He knew Tom was seeing someone, but he wouldn’t tell me who it was. Which makes total sense now, of course. As does his look of pity when we were talking about it.”
“We did leave together that night, but nothing happened, I swear. I mean, not nothing. We . . .” Kaitlyn thought back. She remembered the drinks they’d had in the hotel’s bar. “We went to a bar and we drank and we . . . God, this sounds so stupid and twisted, but we sat there and sent messages to each other.”
“I’m supposed to believe that?”
“Why would I make this up? You already thought the worst of me.”
“This might actually be worse.”
“How?”
“Because you sat next to me and held me while I told you all about what I thought had happened, and you never corrected me. You never let me know that it wasn’t as bad as I thought.”
“I couldn’t have done that. What could I have said?”
“You could’ve asked Tom to tell me.”
“I talked Tom out of telling you.”
“You what?”
“He realized he’d sent that text to you instead of me right away. He wanted to call you and tell you everything. I walked into his office when he was dialing your number. He told me what had happened. I told him not to do it. That if there was a way that he could keep you from knowing what he’d been doing, what we’d been doing—”
“You plotted with my husband against me?”
“That one time. Yes. But other than that, we never talked about you. That was a rule. No talking about our families.”
Cecily drained half her glass. “I think I’ve heard enough.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t get it. I don’t get how you could do that to me after everything I did for you.”
“I’m sure there isn’t anything I could tell you that would make this any better.”
“You could try, though.”
Kaitlyn pushed her glass away. She didn’t feel like she deserved its comfort. “Maybe I should go.”
“What about Franny?”
“I’ll figure something out.”
“You’re going to run away again, aren’t you?”
“I’d like to say I won’t, but I don’t seem to be in control of what I do these days. Not reliably.”
“Another impossible choice.”
“What’s that?”
“You keep presenting me with these terrible decisions. Take you into my home or hurt your family. Help you expose Franny or hurt your family. Let you leave or hurt your family.”
“You’re right. I’m horrible.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t agree with me.”
“I’m going to go.”
“No. You have to finish what you came here to do. And I’m going to help you.”
“You don’t have to.”
Cecily looked grim. “Yeah, I do. Besides, it’s the only way I can guarantee that you go away and never come back again.”
“Is that what’s going to happen?”
“If I help you, then yes. Do we have a deal?”
Kaitlyn struggled for a moment. Was she actually going to agree to never see her children again? But hadn’t that been the plan all along? Wasn’t that why she hadn’t gone right to Joshua? She wasn’t going to see her girls again. She’d known that back in the bus station a year ago. At least she could save them from a worse mother than her.
“Deal.”
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
TJ: Go ahead, Franny. In your own words.
FM: Well, it’s like Sherrie told you. I got into some trouble at home, you know?
TJ: What kind of trouble?
FM: Just stupid things that girls do sometimes. Like wanting to be tougher than the boys to get their attention. I started making up these stories, at first, about how badass I was. I stole drinks from my
