The Good Liar(42)

Hell, I was one of those women. I would’ve given anything to avoid it all, to throw out every black thing I owned and never wear anything but bright colors again. But I couldn’t forget that if things had been different by a couple of inches, in the grand scheme of things, then I would’ve been on the other side of it and might not be there at all.

The cousins had forgotten to open the windows, so it was stuffy in the house. I settled the younger children in the basement with a video, then went to the kitchen to do just that. As I pried open the window over the sink, I noticed a group of women standing in the backyard, smoking cigarettes. It had been a while since I’d seen that. It felt illicit even watching them, like my first hidden puffs taken in a clearing with my girlfriends up behind our high school, worried a teacher would find us.

Only these women weren’t furtive; they weren’t hiding their sins; they were shaking their heads as if they couldn’t believe the story they were hearing. One of them kept glancing over her shoulder at the house. Something was off. People were acting strangely. Not just sad but upset.

No, that’s not the right word. Disturbed.

I walked around the first floor. The furniture had been pushed back against the walls, and there must’ve been more than a hundred people in the house, pushed up against one another because the house wasn’t that big. I’m not sure what I was looking for, but when I saw her, I approached with a sense of foreboding. She was at least fifteen years younger than the other women, early twenties, overweight, with dark-brown hair that had suffered a bad perm a few months earlier (did people still get perms?). I searched the brain tape, but I’d never seen her, though there was something familiar about her. She was wearing a black dress that didn’t fit her very well, falling to an awkward place below her knee that made it difficult for her to walk.

She was the only person standing alone, and despite the lack of space, there was a clearing around her, as if it was dangerous to stand too close to her.

“Hi, I’m Cecily.”

She held out her hand limply. We shook. Her hand was clammy, like a damp fish. It didn’t feel as if it had the right number of bones in it.

“Nice to meet you, Cecily.”

“Are you a friend of the family?”

“No.”

I felt annoyed. I’d heard about this, strangers coming to the funerals of the Triple-Tenners so they could be in on the action, walk past the fence of media, feel a part of it all. Or maybe she was trolling for free booze and food, another person on the funeral diet those women out front were talking about, only this time, she’s happy to be eating it because she doesn’t have anywhere else to go. I’d heard about that, too.

“If you don’t mind my asking, what are you doing here?”

She looked at me for a moment, sizing me up.

“Were you a friend of Kaitlyn’s?” Her voice was strangely flat, as if she was masking an accent.

“She was one of my best friends.”

“And she never mentioned me? Not even once?”

This woman whose name I didn’t know started tearing up. I had an odd reflex to comfort her, even though I knew she was about to tell me something that would change my life again, like Tom’s errant texts.

“I . . . Who are you?”

“I’m Franny. I’m Kaitlyn’s daughter.”



A small part of why I’m up so early sifting through the contents of Tom’s office is so I can hear it when it happens, that slap of the newspaper as it hits our front door. Call me old-fashioned, but I still love the smell of newsprint in the morning. And since it was a family tradition, dividing up the paper into our individual interests, I still do it with the kids. It’s usually Henry who collects it, my early riser, the way he’s been since he was a baby, but I can’t let that occur today.

When I hear it happen, I’m already waiting behind the front door, and I have it open to grab the paper before Henry can get to it.

I needn’t have worried; there’s nothing there. I must be getting full of myself, thinking I might be in the real paper because I kissed a man. I watch the kid who’s delivered our newspapers for years ride away on his ten-speed, unsure of what to do. The photograph is online, and someone’s sure to point it out to at least one of the kids. How will I explain this to them? Although Cassie knows something about the date, that’s not enough. I didn’t say enough last night to make this okay.

The pavement beneath my bare feet is cold, but I can’t seem to make myself move. Then I hear the click, click, click of a camera, rapid-fire like the paparazzi use. It takes me a moment to spot him, because he’s across the street, leaning up against the Hendersons’ tree. I throw the paper down and run toward him.

“Stop it! Go away!”

He lowers his camera for a moment, then lifts it again. And even though I know this means that now he has even better shots of me coming after him like a madwoman in my pajamas, I don’t care.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

He lowers his camera again. He’s young, midtwenties, wearing an oversize hoodie with the words DON’T CRITICIZE WHAT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND written across it.

“Hey, lady. Calm down.”

“Don’t you tell me to calm down, Bob Dylan. I want you to erase those photos.”

“No way.”