The Good Liar(59)

I know that most people have never understood my friendship with Franny. There’s the almost twenty-year age gap and our very different backgrounds, to start, and our very different personalities added to it. My mother thinks I’m trying to fill in for Kaitlyn, to be another mother to her, but that’s not it. My feelings toward Franny aren’t maternal.

My friend Sara’s theory is that I’m close to her because she’s wounded.

“You can’t pass a hurt person by. It was the same with Kaitlyn,” she said once when we’d gone for a drink last summer.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Of course not. But you give too much of yourself. You need to leave room for you.”

But leaving room for me wasn’t working, it was giving me too much time to think, to regret, to ruminate. And I did feel bad for Franny. What a terrible position to be in, to have something you’ve wanted so badly ripped away from you. To know you were a secret that couldn’t be revealed even once the secret was out. If I felt lost in my manicured house surrounded by my healthy children and my mom and my friends, how must she be feeling? I wondered and wondered for weeks after Kaitlyn’s funeral, and then I started looking.

It wasn’t hard to find her. She was living in Chicago and had already connected with the survivor community, joining one of the support groups for people who’d lost parents on October tenth. The woman who ran the group told me where I could find her. She was working in a diner on the east side of Chicago. One of those leftover places from the fifties where the menus are caked with grease and the women look older than they should. All the customers were men.

I sat at a table in her section. Her uniform looked newer than the other waitresses’, as if she’d just cracked it out of the clear plastic wrap it surely came in. Her hair was pulled back tightly from her face, stretching it slightly. She looked tired and uncomfortable. I knew the feeling.

“What can I get you?”

“Hi, Franny.”

“Do I know you?”

I searched her face for some sign of Kaitlyn. “We met about a month ago at . . . Kaitlyn’s funeral.”

Her pencil remained poised above her pad of paper. “You’re one of her friends.”

“Yes.”

“What do you want?”

“Just to talk.”

“I’m on shift.”

“Maybe you could ask for a few minutes off? Don’t you get a break?”

She glanced over her shoulder at the counter. I could see the half hulk of a man through the order window.

“Give me a minute?”

“Sure.”

She disappeared. I pulled out my phone to check it, half expecting, still, a text or e-mail from Tom. That gentle flow of daily contact we’d always had, now a constant itch. Cassie had forgotten her homework at school, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that.

Franny returned and sat down.

“You sure you don’t want anything?” she asked.

“I’m fine. I’m trying to cut back on coffee.”

“How come?”

“Can’t sleep.”

Her eyes traveled to my wedding ring. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you. How are you holding up?”

“Me?”

She laid her hands flat on the table. Her nails were painted a bright, festive red.

“I’m doing all right.”

“Are you okay for money?”

Her chin rose. “Why are you asking me that? You here to help me out?”

“No, I . . . This is hard for me, too, Franny.”

“Is it?”

“I was very close with your mother. I miss her.”

“But she didn’t tell you about me, right?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

Franny looked out the greasy window. Some version of “White Christmas” was playing on the sound system. I shuddered at the thought of Christmas morning with the kids without Tom.

“I don’t need your help,” Franny said. “I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it my whole life, you know?”

“I don’t know. But I’d like to.”

“Really?”

“Why is that such a surprise?”

“I haven’t had much luck with people. Friends.”

I covered her hand with mine. It was surprisingly soft. “I’d like to help change that, if you’ll let me.”

“How can you change it?”

“What if we gave ourselves a fresh start? I’m sure we both could use it.”

A corner of her mouth lifted. “That sounds good.”

I reached out my hand. “I’m Cecily, and I’m so happy to meet you.”

Franny shook, firmer this time than she’d been at the funeral. “Nice to meet you, Cecily. I’m Franny Maycombe.”



When I arrive at Joshua’s house, Emily opens the door in tears.

“Daddy’s marrying Franny! I don’t want a new mommy!”

“What? I . . .”

I reach for her, but she turns on her heel and runs into the house. She’s up the stairs before I can even get a word out. Julia barrels into my legs. One of her braids is coming undone.