Chapter 34
Corner Piece
Kaitlyn
Kaitlyn had received the first e-mail from Franny when she was pregnant with Emily. Only Franny was calling herself Eileen then. Eileen Warner.
Kaitlyn was working at an architectural firm that did midlevel housing projects. She’d been carrying her pregnancy around like a secret. Knowing that when she announced it, everything at work would change. Not overtly but gradually. Her bosses were old-school men, even the women. They’d come up hard, not seeing their families. Parenting was the responsibility of their stay-at-home wives or nannies. Maternity leave was for sissies. They’d pretend to be happy for her, but they’d be plotting her exit. And she loved her job. The late-night camaraderie. The site visits. The sense of knowing she’d contributed to something tangible in the world, someone’s dream come true.
Kaitlyn almost hadn’t opened the e-mail. They’d been getting a lot of spam at the time, and it had an odd subject line: Inquiry. The content wasn’t much less mysterious. She felt certain as she read it that she was going to be asked to wire money to a Nigerian bank account. Rambling lines about a search. A discovery. Kaitlyn read the words but couldn’t grasp the meaning. And then, there it was: I think you’re my mother.
An odd sound escaped her before she could stop it. The woman in the cubby next to her looked up.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine. I just got the strangest e-mail.”
“Delete it.”
Mary was always full of such practical advice. It was like having a mother in the office.
Kaitlyn had looked at the e-mail again. Could she simply delete it? Would that be cruel? It would be better to write her back, and tell her she’d made a mistake. But something about the e-mail made Kaitlyn uneasy. She wasn’t sure what it was. Had she detected a threat in there? She read it again. It seemed less confused this time. Suffused with emotion, as one would expect. She’d had trouble concentrating since the pregnancy began. Pregnancy brain, she’d heard it referred to. All those extra hormones rushing around her body. Turning her brain back into a teenager’s. There wasn’t anything to fear here. Only a girl in pain.
So she wrote back. I’m so sorry to tell you this, but I’m not your mother. I wish you the best of luck with your search.
She should’ve listened to Mary.
Back in Cecily’s basement, Kaitlyn couldn’t sleep. It was one thing being thousands of miles away from her family. But knowing they were only a few streets away, that was a different challenge. Cecily had explained to her that Kaitlyn would have to go in the morning. She wasn’t sure where, but she’d figure something out. The help she’d enlisted couldn’t be entirely trusted, Cecily had said.
“So I took a risk.”
“You could’ve asked me first,” Kaitlyn said.
“I believe the words you meant to say were ‘thank you.’”
Kaitlyn wanted to bite back but didn’t. This was how things had to be now. She had to take it. Whatever there was, she had to swallow it and say thank you. Because she’d chosen this. The leaving and the coming back. She’d been free and clear. Even in her own life, she could’ve made different choices. Every step she’d taken had led her here. There was no point in wishing things were different. There would only be more of the same.
“Thank you.”
Cecily had suggested they go to bed. Figure things out in the morning. Kaitlyn agreed, thanked her again. Went to the basement to pack up her meager belongings. Assumed the familiar position of staring at the ceiling.
But her daughters called to her like a siren’s song. She could almost smell them in the room with her. That mix of baby powder and tearless shampoo that was all their own. She couldn’t do this. Be this close to them and not see them.
Kaitlyn crept from bed and dressed in the darkest clothes she had. She pulled on her coat and tucked her hair up into her hat. Wrapped a scarf around her face. She left by the basement exit after disabling the alarm. Cecily hadn’t changed the passcode in years. She hugged the side of the house, letting the wind whip against her. Winter in Montreal was cold, but not like this. That sharp bite of damp that penetrated whatever you wore. Her bones hurt. But she wasn’t going to turn back now.
There was a car parked in front of Cecily’s house with two figures in it. There was a flash of light, an incoming text. Kaitlyn could see Cassie and a man. No, a boy. Cassie was kissing a boy. Kaitlyn watched for a moment, wondering if Cecily knew. Whether she should interrupt them, though that would be foolish. It was fine. Innocent. Just kissing.
Kaitlyn turned away and walked in the opposite direction toward Church Street. She still remembered her one and only kiss with Tom with frightening precision. Two years ago, give or take a month. The office Christmas party. A few months into their e-mail exchanges. Things had progressed slowly, but in the past few weeks, they’d become graphic. Detailed. Tom had been worried the IT guy might find them, so they’d switched to Gmail. That must’ve been the account Franny found. How, Kaitlyn had no idea. Had she written her from that account once by accident? Had she somehow stayed signed in on an errant laptop?
It was snowing. She’d had too much to drink and had been avoiding Tom. His e-mails stalked her around the party. She shook her head at him when they made eye contact. Made a show of turning her phone off. Tried to dance to some silly song with some of her coworkers. When it was time to go, he suggested they take a cab together. She knew it was a bad idea. Knew her defenses were down. That if he tried something, she wouldn’t be able to resist. But he read her mind and told her not to worry. And she trusted him. She had to, didn’t she? She’d placed her whole life in his hands.
The roads had been slippery. The cab driver drove slowly. At some point, Kaitlyn found her fingers entwined with Tom’s. His hand was rough, chapped from winter. He traced a small circle over and over on the back of hers with his thumb. Even that small point of contact felt dangerous.
A few blocks from her house, the cab swerved on the ice. She was thrown against Tom. Into his arms. She closed her eyes and let it happen. His lips on hers. Hungry, but gentler than she’d expected. Slower. An agonizing kiss that they ended as the cab pulled up to her house.
She’d wanted to cry, but instead she’d leaned against his ear and said, “I can’t anymore,” then bolted before he could say anything. When she got inside, she’d left her purse on the floor, resisting the temptation to turn her phone on and wait for the message that was sure to come.
Kaitlyn passed the high school, turned right, and now she was outside her house. Remembering still how that kiss stayed with her for days. Weeks. The dreams it provoked. What would’ve changed, she wondered, if she’d given in? If they’d done all those things they’d written about? In the end, both their marriages had ended.
What if, if, if?
It was after ten. Only a few lights were on in the house. The living room. The den. She could see the flicker of the television through the windows. The lights were all off upstairs. Of course. What was she thinking? That her daughters would come conveniently to the front windows, perfectly lit for secret viewing? Called there by her presence? Those sorts of things didn’t happen in reality. Even in her alternative reality.
Kaitlyn crossed the street. Her boots were silent on the pavement. She walked up her driveway, then hugged the house the way she’d hugged Cecily’s. She approached the side window to the den. The curtains were pulled back. Joshua never closed the curtains. It was always Kaitlyn who’d closed out the light. Closed out life. She’d had it all in front of her, but she hadn’t wanted it. Or couldn’t reach for it. It amounted to the same thing. She felt like a visitor in her own life, a guest who’d stayed too long.
Joshua was sitting alone on the couch. An episode of Ray Donovan was playing. They’d started watching it together a few months before Kaitlyn left. Kaitlyn found parts of it too violent. Another casualty of parenthood. Things she used to be able to tolerate easily became hard to watch.
Kaitlyn leaned in. She caught a few lines of dialogue. It was from the pilot. He was cycling back to the beginning. Was he thinking of her? Wondering if the e-mails she wrote while she sat next to him were the ones he’d read the other day? Matching up the time stamps with events in their life?
She’d meant to erase all those e-mails. Delete that account. She’d almost made it, too. But she felt like she needed evidence. That it wasn’t all in her head. That what they’d had existed. She wasn’t sure why. So she kept one or two threads. Had kept the account alive. She knew she’d never read them again. And in this last year, to the extent she thought about it at all, she assumed time would do for her what she couldn’t bring herself to do. Erase the traces. Put their messages in the trash where they belonged.
A shadow shifted in the room, and there was Franny. Or Eileen. She never did find out her real name. She sucked in a cold breath. It was strange to see her in her house. Sitting in her old place. The look of tenderness that crossed Joshua’s face made her question her plan. They’d clearly made up. He deserved to be happy. But the girls. Franny would raise the girls. She was a . . . She wasn’t sure of the diagnosis, but it wasn’t right. She wasn’t right. Kaitlyn had left in part to take her own diseased mind away from her daughters. She couldn’t be replaced by someone far worse.
Joshua leaned over and kissed Franny. And there it was. The moment she’d also come looking for.
Her life, through the looking glass.