The Good Liar(24)

TJ: I hadn’t thought about it like that. Anyway, we’re here to talk about you, not me. Let’s get back to it, shall we?

FM: Sure.

TJ: You mentioned before that she hadn’t told her husband and children about you. Did she do so once you’d made contact?

FM: She said she was going to find a way to tell them. The first time we met for real, that’s what she said. “I’m going to have to tell them now.” I told her it was okay, that she didn’t have to do that, not if she wasn’t ready, but she said she would. She shouldn’t have kept it from them in the first place. She was ashamed she had.

TJ: She said she’d told them?

FM: When I saw her the next time—we’d meet about once a month for lunch, each of us would drive halfway, and we’d meet in this diner that was kind of like the place I worked, actually—she said she’d told them, though she didn’t want to discuss it. She said I couldn’t meet them, not yet, because they were still processing. I got the impression that her husband was upset. Which makes sense. That’s a big secret to keep between a husband and wife, don’t you think?

TJ: It could be. When was this? When did you reconnect with her?

FM: I sent the e-mail about two years ago. We corresponded for about six months before we met in person. Triple Ten happened six months later.

TJ: So you saw her six or seven times before she died?

FM: That’s right.

TJ: How do you feel about how little time you had with her?

FM: Part of me is sad about that, but the other part . . . At least I got to know her, right? And she got to see me before she died. I feel good about that. If I’d found out who she was after everything happened, that would’ve been worse, I think.

TJ: Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?

FM: What’s that?

TJ: It’s part of a poem by Tennyson.

FM: I’ve never heard that. But, yeah. It is like that. Because I did love her, you know? And she loved me, too. That’s the one thing I know for sure.





Chapter 11


Better to Have Loved?

Cecily

The first time I spoke to Teo again after he saved my life, I almost slapped him.

That’s dramatic to say, but I was that mad. Furious.

It was two months after the explosion. I hadn’t slept properly since. Between my own guilt and sadness and taking care of the kids, I felt like I did in those hazy days after their births. Day and night had ceased to matter; personal hygiene was no longer a priority. Everywhere I turned it felt as if I were discovering things I should’ve known but didn’t. The fact that Tom had taken a new line of credit a year before because of business losses he never told me about, for instance. Had I signed those papers? The bank said I did, but I had no memory of it. And then there was the credit card I didn’t know about with a hotel room charge at the Langham. I didn’t want to know these things. And I was constantly worried about money, how I was going to pay the bills or eat when the free meals stopped showing up. There was money coming, I kept getting told, but it hadn’t arrived yet. In the meantime, what was I supposed to do? Put the house on the market? Sell my children’s childhood out from under them? How could I do that after all they’d suffered, what they were still suffering daily?

Then there was my face on all those magazines. I hated it but felt like a chump for complaining. What was my discomfort next to my children’s pain and the pain of all the other families who’d lost someone that day? So what if it felt weird to be pushing a cart through the checkout line in the grocery store past a raft of publications with my shocked face on them? Big deal if some of the other shoppers looked at me funny. What did any of it matter compared to everything else? But then the calls started, the requests. Could I come to this event? Could I do this interview? Could I give more and more and more of myself, be more and more and more visible, when all I wanted to do was hide?

I said yes to all of it, tucking my anxieties away as best I could, but I didn’t feel as if I had a choice. And that made me resent it. Resent him. Teo.

It was the inauguration event for the Compensation Initiative. I’d borrowed $5,000 from my mother that week so I could pay our mortgage and the electric bill, pay off the credit cards, buy groceries and a dress that would hide the desperateness I felt. Cassie helped me do my hair and makeup, and when I looked at myself in the mirror, I looked like her, the woman on the cover. The Poster Child, the part I was playing. I felt as if the woman I used to be was stolen from me, taken by his camera, and I could never get her back.

Sara drove me to the event, making sure I got there on time, or at all. We got caught in traffic, and she went to park the car, letting me off in front of the building with promises to return soon, reminding me to breathe. It was a blasted winter day, that lake-effect wind that cuts through everything and grips your bones. My feet pushed me inside, but I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to ride the elevator or know I was going to be that high up. It was the first time I felt that vertigo, even before I left the ground, but it wouldn’t be the last.

I stopped short in the lobby, right past the revolving door. Someone bumped into me from behind. I spun around, and there was Teo.

“Sorry, I—”

“You!”

He stepped back. His head was covered with a black watch cap, but I knew immediately who he was.