“Why did you agree to participate, then?”
“You’re very persuasive.”
“I’m not that persuasive. Come on, I’m not recording this; just tell me.”
I look at my hands. I’m still wearing my wedding ring. I put it back on my finger on the way home from New York and never took it off again. “I felt guilty, I think. Guilty I survived, guilty I got that check. Guilty I wasn’t the grieving widow everyone thought I was. And I had this silly idea that maybe it would bring closure to the whole thing. That once everything was down on tape, I could move on, and everyone else could, too. I could go back to being who I was before.”
“That makes sense.”
“Does it?”
“Of course it does. But you don’t have to feel guilty, Cecily. I’m sure you’re not the only one whose marriage was in trouble and whose spouse died that day.”
He doesn’t know how right he is.
“That’s probably true.”
We stare at each other for a moment until the heat rises in my cheeks.
“You know what I see?” Teo says. “What I’m going to show in my film?”
“What?”
“Someone who never understood how strong she was. Think of all the amazing things you’ve done this year. You’re a symbol to so many people of what survival can look like. How you can turn tragedy into something positive not just for yourself but for others, too.” He leans in as he talks, closing the space between us. “And that’s why I wanted you in my film. You’re the hero, Cecily, whether it feels like it or not.”
“I wish I could see myself that way.”
“What’s holding you back?”
“The truth.”
“What’s the truth?”
I sit up, and now our faces are so close I can smell the coffee Teo’s been drinking.
“I had a crush on you,” I say.
“Had? What happened to it?”
“You know what happened.”
He frowns. “I killed it.”
“You did.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Is it?”
“Yes, because my crush is still alive and well.”
He comes closer, and I can feel the kiss before it starts. A real kiss this time, not some hurried thing on a street corner. Soft lips, his tongue in my mouth, his hands on my hips pulling me toward him.
I want this, I want this, I want him. But then I stop.
“We can’t.”
He rests his forehead on mine. “Are you sure?”
“You’re the one who put the brakes on. Nothing’s changed, has it?”
“No.” He kisses my forehead and stands. “I should probably go.”
“I have to meet Joshua soon.”
“Right. Let me know how that goes?”
I stand, and we walk to the front door. “I will.”
He puts on his coat, then strokes the side of my face. “I wish things were different.”
“We all do.”
I open the front door and watch him walk to his car. He gives me a wave as he drives past the house, and I can’t help but wish I’d made a different decision. But then again, do I need another man in my life who has doubts about whether we should be together? I deserve to be someone’s first choice.
I deserve to be someone’s sun.
38
I SPY WITH MY LITTLE EYE
KAITLYN
There was something about hiding above a garage that belonged to someone who’d never liked her that made Kaitlyn feel more like a fugitive than she had all year. She didn’t trust Sara not to blow the lid off this whole thing. The look of disgust she’d given her when she let them in hadn’t helped. Kaitlyn didn’t need those kinds of looks from others. She was disgusted enough with herself. And all it meant was that staying there felt dangerous. She might be discovered at any moment. A SWAT team on the stairs. A door kicked in. Then cuffs. Being booked and photographed. A cell with a bad mattress and a scary roommate.
Child abandonment. That’s what she’d done. She’d looked it up once. It was a Class 4 felony in Illinois. She didn’t know what that meant, but she knew felonies were generally something to be avoided. They probably wouldn’t put her in jail, but given how she’d gone about it, they might want to make an example of her.
She’d also Googled “is faking your own death illegal?” The search auto-filled; someone before her, many people, in fact, had asked the same question. Even though she’d done it in another anonymous Internet café, she’d gotten nervous. Was there some alarm that went off in Skynet if you Googled child abandonment and faking your own death? If there wasn’t, there should be.
Pseudocide. That’s what faking your own death was called. It wasn’t illegal, but according to an article she’d read, it generally required so many other frauds to pull it off that you were bound to make it illegal. Kaitlyn didn’t think she’d done any of those things. She hadn’t created a false identity. She’d gone back to who she was before she was married. She hadn’t involved anyone else, so it wasn’t a conspiracy. Or filed for insurance or run out on loan payments. Though maybe she had. Joshua had to pay the mortgage by himself now. And she owed support to her kids.
She had to face it. She was a criminal. If she was caught, bad things would happen. She had to stay uncaught. In a day or two, when all this was taken care of, she could leave again. Go back to Canada. Maybe Andrea would even take her back. If not, there were enough families in need of her services. It was a way to make up for abandoning her own children. Being a surrogate mother.
Eileen had felt abandoned. That’s what she wrote to her in the first in a long series of rambling e-mails. Her whole life, she felt as if she didn’t fit in. That missing biology was a main character in her life. One she couldn’t get past. That’s why she
