The Good Liar(18)

“New Work!” Willie said, looking to Andrea for approval.

Andrea smiled back. She and Rick had taken the twins there for a long weekend a few months ago. Andrea had been upset when Kate told her she wouldn’t be able to travel with them when she’d realized too late that her passport was expired. She’d offered to reimburse her plane ticket, but Andrea swept that suggestion away as if she were shooing a fly. “It’s not about the money . . .” The unfinished part of that sentence being that it was about the fact that she and Rick would be without childcare for a weekend. But she couldn’t admit that out loud.

“Correct!” Andrea said. “And there’s another city called Chicago.”

“Chi-cag-wo?”

“Very good.”

“What happened there?”

Kate felt light-headed. She forced herself to breathe. She picked up a glass, meaning to fill it with water.

“There was a terrible accident. A building blew up.”

Willie looked puzzled, but Steven looked upset.

“People dwied?”

“Yes, honey. Many people. A year ago. And today we’re remembering them.”

“Mommies and daddies?”

“Yes,” Andrea said. “Mommies and daddies. And also . . . some little kids—”

Kate dropped the glass she was holding. It shattered against the floor like a bomb.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I . . . Nobody move.”

She rushed to the cupboard where the wall vacuum was kept. She turned it on and scooted back to where the glass shards were thickest. Sucking up as many as she could along the way as the vacuum’s engine whirred, blocking out the television.

“Don’t move, boys,” Kate said. She caught Andrea’s eye. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s only a glass.”

Kate bent her head again, searching carefully for each tiny shard. She’d have to make sure the boys wore shoes for the next couple of days. From experience, glass would continue to show up for a while despite her efforts.

“Hey!” Willie said. “It’s Aunt Kwait.”

“I’m right here.” Kate smiled at him, waving from the floor.

“Not here . . . there!”

His little finger rose and pointed at the screen.





Interview Transcript

TJ: Getting back to your biological mother. You obtained your birth records when, exactly?

FM: Two years ago. I stepped up the search after my parents died. It took a few years, but as I said, as a result of some help I got, I was able to get a copy of the hospital record of my birth. After all those years of trying and wondering and . . . I had this piece of paper in my hand that was filled out the day I was born. That said who I was. It had my footprints on it, too.

TJ: What was that like for you? To see that?

FM: It was surreal. I mean, I cried. I had a name. She didn’t call me Franny. She called me Marigold. And that’s another thing, because Franny never felt like my name to me, and Marigold did the moment I read it, but it also felt like it would be too weird to change my name back to that, you know? Like I didn’t own either name.

TJ: What happened next?

FM: It took me another six months to find her. It wasn’t easy. She’d gotten married, changed her last name. She had a whole family, you know? I had another whole family.

[Sounds of crying]

TJ: Do you need a minute?

FM: I’m all right. Let’s continue.

TJ: Did you learn anything about your father?

FM: My biological father? She left his name blank on the birth record. She wouldn’t tell me who he was.

TJ: Did she say why?

FM: She didn’t want to talk about it. The whole thing was quite a shock to her, me contacting her.

TJ: I can imagine it must’ve been.

FM: But she was happy I did it. Happy I found her.

TJ: I’m sure she was. She must’ve wondered what had happened to you. Where you were.

FM: She told me she did. That she thought about me often. That she’d thought about finding me but . . . I wish we’d had more time together. It seems cruel, doesn’t it? That she died so soon after we finally found each other again?

TJ: It does. Have you tried to locate your biological father?

FM: No . . . Mr. Ring has been . . . I guess you could call him my stepfather, right?

TJ: Is that what you call him?

FM: Well, no . . . I mean, he’s been amazing and so welcoming, but I don’t look at him as a father figure.

TJ: Has he discouraged you from looking for your father?

FM: Not at all. He doesn’t know anything that can help me, though, and my mother’s parents died a long time ago, and she was an only child, so it’s kind of hard to find something to go on to track him down. I have some ideas, though, from talking to a few of her friends who knew her in high school.

TJ: She had you in high school?

FM: No, after. She took a year off between high school and college, like a gap year, you know, how they do in England? That’s when she got pregnant.

TJ: Did Mr. Ring know she’d had another child?

FM: No, can you believe it? [Pause] That hurt, you know? Like, I wasn’t even worth mentioning to the man she decided to spend her life with. And her girls, my half sisters, they didn’t know, either. I feel kind of bad about that . . . Like she abandoned all of us, in a way.