Mother of All Secrets(49)

Kira sighed. “Of course I’ve thought about that, too. But if he’s involved, the police would figure that out on their own. Her disappearance has nothing to do with me.” I was brought back immediately to my conversation with Selena, when she insisted the same.

Against my better judgment, I pressed. “But don’t you think maybe you should tell them, just in case? I just feel like an unfaithful, creepy husband is pertinent information in a case like this one.” I knew there was a reason I didn’t like or trust Connor. And I wanted the police to know, too.

“He’s already cleared, though, so what would be the point? It’s better if I just let the police do their job. Besides, if what happened with me was a habitual thing for him, there would be others that they would probably find . . . though I’m sure he covered his tracks. But regardless, my . . . encounter with him, let’s call it, surely has nothing to do with what’s happening with Isabel, and I don’t want to wreck my own life offering up irrelevant information.” She put her hand on Caleb’s leg protectively. “It was so long ago, anyway. Maybe he’s cleaned up his act.”

I doubt it. But I nodded, considering. “Do you think Isabel knew he had cheated?”

“I have no idea. Hell, for all I know, they could have an open marriage, right? They’re Manhattan millionaires—these people have all kinds of crazy situations behind closed doors. But as far as me and Connor, there’s no way she knew. It was such a onetime thing—we literally didn’t even exchange numbers or spend the night together. I didn’t tell anyone about me and him, either. I don’t really keep in touch with that many people from the Cape, and it wasn’t exactly something I wanted to brag about. There’s just no way she knows. No way at all.”

Caleb started fussing in his stroller. Kira grabbed him swiftly, lifted her shirt, and put him to her breast with ease, without using a cover. I loved how confident she was about breastfeeding at a restaurant. I so wanted to be someone who did my part to “normalize breastfeeding,” but I could barely bring myself to breastfeed in a secluded area of the park, let alone at a wine bar on a crowded street.

She shook her head, as if trying to shake the memory of her night with Connor out of it. She’d gone as far as she was willing to go, it seemed. “Anyway,” she said, “it’s all an unfortunate coincidence. A very unfortunate one. But I wanted to tell you because I want you to know why I’ve been so weird since she disappeared. Because I like you and I know this is a hard enough time, for all of us, and I didn’t want you to think my being distant was about anything else, other than this.” She reached over and squeezed my hand.

That meant a lot to me. It was as if she were saying, in the nicest way possible, “I know you have the tendency to agonize, so I’ll try to save you the trouble.”

“Thank you. I won’t say anything,” I repeated, for good measure. “You can trust me.” And I meant it. I would keep her secret. But I couldn’t help but think, regretfully, of Selena’s stance that none of us even knew Isabel that well, that her disappearance wasn’t really ours to fixate on or explore, that it wasn’t our business, despite sharing time with her in our moms’ group. And now here was Kira, declaring that her encounter with Connor was moot, meaningless, not worth revealing to anyone. What if Kira had just handed me a key but then made me promise not to use it? Connor had cheated on Isabel and traumatized Kira. This went beyond his not knowing she was in a moms’ group. Surely, all of it meant something. He must have been involved in Isabel’s disappearance, in one way or another. What if we were capable of helping Isabel but instead we were all just standing aside?

Maybe Selena was right—maybe we weren’t really friends at all.





Chapter Nineteen



Wednesday, October 7

As I walked home from the bar pushing Clara, brooding over what Kira had disclosed, I couldn’t deny that there was something else upsetting me, too: a part of Kira’s story that stirred something in me I never wanted to confront again. I had worked so hard over the last month to shove that “something else” far beneath the surface of my being, to suffocate it, but Kira’s admission about her night with Connor brought it back to life: a bubbling, festering, infected wound.

When Clara was six weeks old—right before I joined the moms’ group—I went out with a couple of my teacher friends whom I hadn’t seen since having Clara. It was my first night out. Two hours tops, is what I had told Tim. I had almost canceled about ten times, especially while attempting to get dressed and finding nothing that fit. I was nervous about leaving Clara and was so tired, as usual, that I would have preferred to just watch TV for an hour and go to bed. But I forced myself to keep the plans. I didn’t want to be the person who was always canceling on everyone now that I had a child. Tim was all for me going, telling me it would be good for me, would make me feel like my old self again.

And it did, for a little while. I finally found an outfit that made me feel kind of sexy. A tight black dress that, with the help of SPANX, sucked my pooch in and accentuated my firm new milk boobs. I was happy to see my friends and catch up on school gossip, like how Mr. Getelman, a history teacher known for throwing kids’ phones out his third-floor window, had finally retired over the summer, and Mr. Fernandez, the assistant principal, had gotten engaged to Ms. Zanko, the speech therapist, even though they’d only been dating for four months. It was a little hard to hear about how normal my coworkers’ summers had been—lazy mornings, lots of reading, some travel—whereas mine had consisted of scrolling, strolling, getting pooped on, and being milked like a cow. But overall, it felt good to be out with them.