The roads had been slippery. The cabdriver drove slowly. At some point, Kaitlyn found her fingers entwined with Tom’s. His hand was rough, chapped from winter. He traced a small circle over and over on the back of hers with his thumb. Even that small point of contact felt dangerous.
A few blocks from her house, the cab swerved on the ice. She was thrown against Tom. Into his arms. She closed her eyes and let it happen. His lips on hers. Hungry, but gentler than she’d expected. Slower. An agonizing kiss that they ended as the cab pulled up to her house.
She’d wanted to cry, but instead she’d leaned against his ear and said, “I can’t anymore,” then bolted before he could say anything. When she got inside, she’d left her purse on the floor, resisting the temptation to turn her phone on and wait for the message that was sure to come.
Kaitlyn passed the high school, turned right, and now she was outside her house. Remembering still how that kiss stayed with her for days. Weeks. The dreams it provoked. What would’ve changed, she wondered, if she’d given in? If they’d done all those things they’d written about? In the end, both their marriages had ended.
What if, if, if?
It was after ten. Only a few lights were on in the house. The living room. The den. She could see the flicker of the television through the windows. The lights were all off upstairs. Of course. What was she thinking? That her daughters would come conveniently to the front windows, perfectly lit for secret viewing? Called there by her presence? Those sorts of things didn’t happen in reality. Even in her alternative reality.
Kaitlyn crossed the street. Her boots were silent on the pavement. She walked up her driveway, then hugged the house the way she’d hugged Cecily’s. She approached the side window to the den. The curtains were pulled back. Joshua never closed the curtains. It was always Kaitlyn who’d closed out the light. Closed out life. She’d had it all in front of her, but she hadn’t wanted it. Or couldn’t reach for it. It amounted to the same thing. She felt like a visitor in her own life, a guest who’d stayed too long.
Joshua was sitting alone on the couch. An episode of Ray Donovan was playing. They’d started watching it together a few months before Kaitlyn left. Kaitlyn found parts of it too violent. Another casualty of parenthood. Things she used to be able to tolerate easily became hard to watch.
Kaitlyn leaned in. She caught a few lines of dialogue. It was from the pilot. He was cycling back to the beginning. Was he thinking of her? Wondering if the e-mails she wrote while she sat next to him were the ones he’d read the other day? Matching up the time stamps with events in their life?
She’d meant to erase all those e-mails. Delete that account. She’d almost made it, too. But she felt like she needed evidence. That it wasn’t all in her head. That what they’d had existed. She wasn’t sure why. So she kept one or two threads. Had kept the account alive. She knew she’d never read them again. And in this last year, to the extent she thought about it at all, she assumed time would do for her what she couldn’t bring herself to do. Erase the traces. Put their messages in the trash where they belonged.
A shadow shifted in the room, and there was Franny. Or Eileen. She never did find out her real name. She sucked in a cold breath. It was strange to see her in her house. Sitting in her old place. The look of tenderness that crossed Joshua’s face made her question her plan. They’d clearly made up. He deserved to be happy. But the girls. Franny would raise the girls. She was a . . . She wasn’t sure of the diagnosis, but it wasn’t right. She wasn’t right. Kaitlyn had left in part to take her own diseased mind away from her daughters. She couldn’t be replaced by someone far worse.
Joshua leaned over and kissed Franny. And there it was. The moment she’d also come looking for.
Her life, through the looking glass.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
TJ: What did Sherrie tell the police?
FM: That I killed my parents, of course. Don’t look so shocked. She told you all this already, right?
TJ: Not exactly.
FM: Hmm. That’s interesting. Anyway, I didn’t do it.
TJ: Why would she say you did?
FM: Because, it’s like I told you. She has it in for me. Always has.
TJ: But why would the police take that claim seriously, then?
FM: Because the brakes on my parents’ car failed. So maybe they could’ve been tampered with or something. And I was the bad seed, right? I’d been to that boot camp thing and arrested a few times.
TJ: How far did the investigation go?
FM: Far enough. The police questioned me for hours. I was under investigation.
TJ: Were your parents’ brakes tampered with?
FM: No! The brake light had been on in my dad’s car for weeks. He was so stingy, he didn’t want to get “taken for a ride” by the mechanic.
TJ: Just a car accident, then.
FM: Yeah, but then I’m forever the “suspect,” you know? And Madison’s not that big a town. Everywhere I went, everywhere, people were looking at me funny.
TJ: So you left?
FM: Yeah, that’s right. I was sick of being that person. Living in that narrative.
TJ: Which narrative?
FM: Me as the bad guy. The antagonist. That’s what I am, right? You know those “learn to write screenplays” ads you always see on Facebook or whatever, with famous writers? I
