by Sara Shepard
Ronnie blinked hard. “So you did know there was a file.”
“Yes, but only for a day.” Lane looked wrecked. “I swear, only for a day.”
“You knew about Topless Maids before I told you.” It explained, then, why Lane had seemed shaken but not nearly as wrecked as she’d predicted—he’d had time to wrap his head around it.
But then she realized what else he might have known. A hand fluttered to her mouth. She took another step immediately. “Oh,” she whispered.
Lane knew right away what she was thinking. “Honey, I was going to talk to you about all of it. Really.” He ran his shaking fingers down the length of his face. “But I wanted to talk to Piper first. Get an explanation for why she had this big dossier on your past. I stewed over it for a while, but then I couldn’t wait another minute. I found her in her hallway that next day.”
“The same day I was there.”
“Yes, but I mean . . . I didn’t know. I tried to talk to Piper, but . . . but she wasn’t listening. She tried to push past me. She didn’t want me there.”
“So you attacked her?”
“I didn’t!” Lane backed away. “I-It was Lauren. She saw Piper blowing me off and got in her face and then Piper took her shoulders and tried to say something and Lauren just pushed her away and Piper . . . she tripped or something, I’m not sure, but suddenly she’d smacked her head against the wall. Then she was on the ground and there was blood and she was unconscious. And then you came around the corner, and I was so freaked out that I sort of banged into you, I didn’t want you to see anything, and then you fell . . .” He put his face in his hands. “Ronnie, you can leave me. You can turn me in. I deserve it. I’m sorry. I just didn’t want her to get away with it anymore. And I didn’t want her to hurt you. I didn’t want you to lose Esme.” He took her hands. “Whatever happened in your past—I trust you. I’m not going to pry. Maybe it’s better I don’t know. But I know you. You’re a good person. You wouldn’t do anything unless you had a good reason. But I was afraid Piper didn’t know that. I was afraid she would hurt you. Hurt us.”
Ronnie sank to the bed. Too much had been thrust on her at once. Too many stories. And now Lane was sobbing so hard that he was crumpled against the doorframe. Esme had come up behind them, her eyes wide with concern. “Come on, come on,” Ronnie said, gesturing for Esme to climb up on the bed. Esme crawled over to her, and Ronnie held her close while Lane continued to cry.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“Is Daddy Lane okay?” Esme whispered.
Ronnie hugged her daughter tighter. Not because she was afraid. Her mind had sharpened. For whatever reason, she thought of a time when she was very young and had fallen on the sidewalk outside her house, getting a scrape on her knee. Back inside, her father had poured hydrogen peroxide on the wound, and once Ronnie got over the sting, she marveled at how it bubbled. “That’s the medicine working,” her father said. “It’s flushing out all the bad stuff with the scrape, and it’s going to help you heal.”
Maybe that was what had happened here. Bad stuff had been flushed out. A school’s sins were exposed. A woman was finally facing that her baby had died. Lauren was given her mind back. Andrea had found the strength to be more open with who she was, no matter the consequences. And Ronnie—well, Ronnie still had Esme, and she wasn’t scared anymore.
Lane swallowed another sob. “Seriously, though. Call the police on me. It’s okay. I deserve it. I’ve lied.”
Esme’s eyes popped wide. “Daddy Lane in trouble?”
“No,” Ronnie said gently, rubbing Esme’s back. “No, he’s not.”
Lane sniffed. A wrinkle formed on his brow. Ronnie walked over to him and put her hand on his shoulder. There was no point in opening up a closed case, was there?
Was this the same as being a good parent? Overlooking certain things, highlighting others, picking and choosing your battles? Maybe it was. Maybe Ronnie would always question what she decided. Whether she went back to dancing or pursued something more legitimate, whether she let her daughter eat real sugar-laden ice cream and sent her to a preschool without expensive murals in the hallways, the choices she made when she was a teenager and beyond—it would never end.
But this choice, this choice she could make.
She dropped the silver key back into the drawer and shut it. “I never saw this,” she decided. “It was never here.”
Lane blinked at her in surprise. “Really?”
“Don’t look so shocked.”
Too many bad things had happened to her already. If karma was a real thing, then it stood to reason that this could be swept under the rug. Ronnie needed Lane. She wanted Lane, deserved him. And he was a good person—for her, for Esme, for the world. Besides, even if Piper remembered Lane being there, she’d already accused Graham. This, too, felt like a gift. Ronnie said a silent prayer to Piper, which felt ironic but also totally right. And then, turning, she smiled at her family and led them out into the sun-filled, messy living room, where they would continue their day.
Epilogue
The party took place in Andrea’s backyard. Before Andrea issued the invites, there had been some discussion among the three of them about who should come. They thought about all those pointed Facebook posts around the time Piper was attacked; how the mothers danced around confirming their identities, how they condemned them before really knowing the full story. But they decided to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. These were Raisin Beach parents, for better or for worse, and they were all in this together.
Ronnie and Lauren came early to help Andrea get ready. Andrea insisted that they didn’t have to—she’d hired someone to help clean, ironically a young woman Ronnie knew from Topless Maids. And she’d hired caterers, who brought in trays of finger food and kid snacks and fizzy beverages. But Lauren and Ronnie came anyway. They gathered around Andrea’s kitchen island to catch up.
Lauren bobbled Matthew, now a year old, in her arms. “You’re getting heavy,” she said to the kid, who kicked his feet in delight. There were dark circles under Lauren’s eyes, and she seemed a bit ragged—she’d gone back to work remotely for her old gaming company and was managing Matthew on her own sometimes, though she still employed her nanny. But there was something brighter about her, too. She wasn’t nearly as fragile, and she wasn’t nearly as on edge—or, rather, she was still on edge, but now she was owning it.
Lauren had come into her own after everything unraveled with Graham. And now that Matthew was a year old, her hormones had begun to level out. Graham’s absence probably helped. So did stopping breastfeeding—she’d switched to formula, “and let me tell you,” she’d said to her friends, “it is a fucking relief.”
Or maybe she felt more herself because she no longer felt as ashamed. She’d joined a support group of other women who’d experienced postpartum rage, too, and it seemed her experience wasn’t that abnormal. Tons of women were hiding these terrible thoughts from their spouses, their friends, their families. As they all talked about it, they felt seen and heard and normalized. And with them, she didn’t have to hide. It helped she was working again, too. Right now, she was working on a fantasy game involving dragons and gnomes . . . and loving it. So there was that. Another identity, finally, after all this time.
“Have you heard from . . . you know?” Andrea asked, lowering her voice as if Matthew might guess who they were talking about.
Lauren shook her head. “I can’t bring myself to go yet.”
Graham was serving a prison sentence for Piper’s attack, though he was still trying to appeal it. But Piper had identified Graham at the scene, which pretty much doomed his chances. “Maybe when Matthew’s bigger, I don’t know. But not now.” Then Lauren held up a finger. “Though my family visited last week from back east. It was really nice. Funny, I thought they all found me ridiculous, but they kept gawking at Raisin B
each, saying how fantastic my life was. My sister Mel even said she envied me because I didn’t have to deal with a husband.” She rolled her eyes. “Which, I mean, was probably too soon to joke about, but I was weirdly flattered. Oh! And guess who met us for lunch one of the days?” She paused dramatically. “Graham’s old boss. Gracie.”
The women widened their eyes—they’d heard about Gracie. But Lauren and Gracie Lord had struck up a friendship, and these days, Lauren . . . well, she liked her. Gracie was quintessentially California and Hollywood and ridiculous, but she cut through the bullshit, and Lauren now saw that not as a threat but instead as something refreshing. Gracie had also paid for a lot of spa days for Lauren and offered to pay for Clarissa to help with the baby while Lauren went back to work, but Lauren hadn’t been ready.
“I think she still feels guilty,” Lauren admitted. “There was a lot she should have warned me about. But how do you know what line to cross with a couple? Graham was telling her his own version of the truth, and she believed that.” She shrugged. “She’s a lot of fun. And you know what? I’m kind of coming around to Ketchup. When I watched it with Graham to prepare for him working there, I thought it was kind of dumb, but now I’m into the characters. And there’s this frazzled mother in the latest season—I think she based it on me.” Her eyes sparkled.
There was a shout from the yard, and everyone’s heads popped up. Arthur and Esme were playing on the swing set Andrea had installed a few months back. Lane stood a few paces away, watching them. Reginald was also there, nursing a beer. The two guys were having an impassioned conversation about something.
“What a bromance,” Andrea murmured, chuckling. After Reginald became more of a fixture in Andrea’s life, they’d had Ronnie, Lane, and Esme over for dinner a lot.
“It’s a lot of Lane this, Lane that,” Andrea went on. “But I’m never going to knock someone for volunteering. I doubt Reginald would ever give up his day job, though. His first loves are trees and shrubs.” She grinned.
“And what about your good works?” Lauren asked Andrea. “That still going okay?”
Andrea nodded. “Better than okay.” Carson hadn’t made good on his promise to expose Andrea or Jerry, but when the Piper story hit, reporters had taken an interest in the women who’d solved the case. Andrea felt ready to live her truth. She hired a media trainer, and they’d come up with a strategy of how they were going to release her news and control the story. She did an interview for People with a tasteful photo shoot. She did a chat on Oprah’s podcast. More interviews followed. Each time, Andrea reminded herself that she was doing this for trans visibility, that maybe this would help someone else struggling. It helped with her stage fright. Sort of.
Not surprisingly, her mother was furious, and she made Andrea’s announcement all about herself. Andrea’s father basically made a public statement disowning her, though he stopped short at trying to take her child away—probably because, deep down, he didn’t want the responsibility. But Max remained steadfastly by her side. They even did a few interviews together. Andrea had never felt so grateful for her brother . . . and certainly never so surprised by a member of her family.
Not long after, Andrea received a phone call from a woman who introduced herself as the guidance director for the St. Sebastian School. It took Andrea a moment to recognize the name—St. Sebastian was the place Piper pretended North attended. The woman, Wendy Reed, said she’d followed Andrea’s story and read her blog and message boards; she wondered if Andrea was interested in speaking with some of St. Sebastian’s students.
At first Andrea said no. But Wendy explained that St. Sebastian was often a place parents sent their kids when they felt they didn’t fit anywhere else. “A lot of our kids are struggling,” she said. “With their identities, with their feelings. I can think of a few of them who’d benefit from your story. I’m thinking of just a luncheon or something like that. A small group of kids who might want to talk. We’d pay you, of course.”
Andrea had been nervous. What did she have to say to a bunch of teenagers? By the time she was in the little room off the cafeteria where her “group” would take place, her stomach was in knots and she felt even more nauseated than she had speaking to Oprah. But then a few kids filed in. Boys slumped over, fidgety, quiet. When one of them looked up at her, his blue eyes round and yearning, her breath caught in her throat. The yearning in them reminded her of someone.
They talked about normal things—movies, video games, sports, their favorite flavors of ice cream. It felt like a win to get remarks out of them. When a few kids laughed, Andrea sensed it was the first time they’d done so in a while, at least on school grounds.
She met with the same group the next week, and then the next. At that point, they were her kids. They told her things she knew they didn’t tell their parents. And then it clicked: she understood why she recognized the yearning. Was Roger somewhere out there? She hoped so.
Which then made her realize—Roger was old enough by then to make his own decisions. Find his own path. Now that she’d gone on the record about who she was, maybe it would serve as a beacon for him. If he wanted to reach out—which she hoped he would—now he knew where she was.
The back door slammed. Lane waved to the women as he passed to the fridge. “Just grabbing another water. Kids are thirsty.” After he retrieved a bottle, he brushed past Ronnie and squeezed her hand. Ronnie blushed and ducked her head, and her gaze fell to the engagement ring she’d recently begun to wear.
“You guys are so cute,” Andrea exclaimed. “Did you set a date yet?”
“Oh, I think we’re just going to do something simple,” Ronnie said absent-mindedly. “We don’t really have the money to throw a big wedding. Lane’s parents have offered . . . but I don’t know. And anyway, it’s not like I have any family.”
She trailed off with a sad sigh. About a month after Vanessa left town, Ronnie received an envelope in the mail. Inside was paperwork entitled Termination of Parental Rights, intended to be filed in Cobalt County, Pennsylvania. Ronnie stared at Vanessa’s name at the top of the page for a long time. This was Ronnie’s chance to officially adopt Esme. But it still felt like a trick, like too great a gift. She’d tried to call Vanessa to say thank you, to say that she could be part of their lives, but Vanessa didn’t answer.
Ronnie found a lawyer in Pennsylvania and got things moving with Vanessa’s relinquishment hearing. Vanessa was being responsive, at least to the lawyers—the hearing was scheduled in a few weeks. Ronnie still felt on tenterhooks; she still waited for the other shoe to drop. But then again, she’d also allowed herself to dream. Esme might get to stay with me. Always. She’ll never have to leave. I’ll get to worry about normal parenting things, like teenage drama. Texting while driving. Heartbreak.
Esme was thriving, though. Lane had taught her to read over the holidays—simple sight words, mostly, but it was a start. And Ronnie and Lane were doing great, too. Ronnie said she’d told Lane about Esme and her past, and it had really opened a floodgate between them. They were so vulnerable with each other now, truly soul mates. It had been Lane who’d encouraged Ronnie to go back to work. After a lot of discussion, she’d decided to return to Topless Maids—not as a dancer, but in the office. She’d gone in with a proposal for Bill about how the group could be more of a community.
These days, the girls went out in pairs, same as before, but now they were always the same pair. They got to know each other. They didn’t always become friends, necessarily, but they knew each other’s routines, and they knew to look out for each other if anything got sticky. There was more thorough vetting of the clients now, and an increase in their fees, and the scheduling was all done online. Ronnie also organized regular happy hours for the dancers so they could bond with one another, as the girls at Kittens had done. Ronnie loved watching all of them at the bar as they compared their stories. A lot of them were in school, getting degrees. Some of them had
kids, like Ronnie. Some of them were married. They knew one another now.
Ronnie knew better than to keep secrets anymore. Secrets ruined you. Though ironically, it was the secrets she and Lane were keeping that bound them together. Countless times she’d wanted to tell the other women what Lane had told her about that day in the hallway, with Piper—especially Lauren’s role. But she didn’t. It would open up a box that needed to stay closed. In the past. Did she ever glance at Lane across the room and think, I can’t believe it? Sure. But anyone was capable of rash actions. Anyone was capable of lying. Especially if the lies protected someone else.
The doorbell rang, and they turned. Arthur was already bolting through the house and flinging it open. “King!” he exclaimed. “Mom! It’s King!”
In ran King, a floppy-haired four-year-old. He’d also moved to the new preschool that Arthur and Esme attended, even though it was far less flashy than Silver Swans. Following him was his mother, Jane. She wore a whisper-soft cashmere sweater and jeans that accentuated her toothpick-thin legs, and she had cascading tendrils of honey-blond hair. Jane was the sort of woman who made you pause—sort of the way Piper used to. There was a perfection about her, something you were pretty sure you’d never live up to.
“Hello!” Jane called out to Andrea and the others, trilling her fingers. And then, “King! Take off your shoes!”
As though Jane had given some silent go-ahead, the rest of the mothers descended almost at once. It was practically all of them from Esme and Arthur’s old Silver Swans class, and a lot of other Silver Swans parents, and some new classmates. They crowded in the doorway en masse; Andrea flitted around them, taking their coats. Ronnie recognized a few from Trader Joe’s. Lauren was pretty sure she’d fire-breathed next to the mom in the corner at her awful prenatal yoga class. Andrea had even invited a few parents who sent their kids to St. Sebastian’s. There were so many of them, filling the space.
