A country away, Kate Lynch lay in a bed in Montreal that still felt alien to her, staring at the patterns on the ceiling cast by the light from the street lamp. The clock next to her glowed brightly. A minute ago, the time had changed to twelve o’clock. And so there it was. October tenth. The day she’d been dreading for months was finally here.
She knew it would be a day full of memories. Some unbidden, some forced upon her. Five hundred people don’t die in America without incessant news coverage. All the anniversaries would be marked. But this anniversary, the first anniversary, would be the subject of special attention. As would anyone connected to it.
Kate had done her best to block out information about Triple Ten over the last year. That was part of the reason she’d chosen Montreal. She’d guessed that French Canada would be less obsessed with the gory details than everywhere else. She’d been right. It wasn’t that they didn’t cover the event; the world had done so. But the reporting was more like what she’d experienced when she’d been in Europe during Hurricane Katrina. There was a detached cadence to the news announcers. This wasn’t happening to them but to someone else. And that was exactly the amount of remove Kate needed. A buffer that would wall her off from the worst of it.
It had worked for the most part. There’d be stretches where it felt as if she’d forgotten who she was. Why she was there. What she’d left behind. As the daily thrum of life slipped by, she concentrated on the small moments in front of her rather than the larger world. Not that she had much time to watch the news or read the paper that still, almost quaintly, struck the front door each morning. That was part of the point of this new life, too. But as the countdown clock to the anniversary unwound, Kate knew that even here, what felt like a thousand miles away, there’d be no escaping it. The images. The tributes. Maybe even some direct reference to her former life.
This next week, maybe two, would be a nightmare. Because even something as simple as that word—“nightmare”—was enough to trigger what she wanted to avoid.
A memory.
This time a year ago, almost to the minute, Kate’s daughter had a bad dream. This wasn’t an infrequent occurrence. Her daughter was sensitive, fragile. Her brain seemed to sift together every negative thing that happened to her during the school day and assault her with it at night. It had taken years for them to get her to sleep in her own bed. More years still before the night-light in the hall and the half-cracked-open closet were enough to keep her there on all but the worst nights.
A year ago, a familiar scream tore Kate from sleep. She pried herself from the cocoon of blankets they’d put on the bed that week in anticipation of cooler weather and scurried down the hall before the shrieks woke more than her.
When she got there, her daughter’s hands were grabbing the blanket, her eyes wide open, her mouth moving without any sound emerging. Kate had placed her hand on her daughter’s damp forehead and crouched down, her knees popping like corn.
“It’s okay, baby. Hush now. I’m here.”
“Mommy?”
“I’m here. I’m right here.”
“Is the bad man still here?”
“There wasn’t any bad man, sweetheart.”
She turned her head toward Kate. Her limbs were thin and stretched out—no baby fat left on her five-year-old frame. Her eyes looked black. “There was.”
Even after years of being a mother, Kate hadn’t figured out the right approach to this kind of situation. Should she humor her daughter? If she told her she was wrong, was she calling her a liar? There were so many questions to which she could never find any satisfactory answers. And when she tried to ask the others, as she thought of them, the competent mothers, the ones who lined her block and the park and Gymboree—everywhere—they’d give her this funny look, as if she’d asked how to tie her shoes. Or worse, breathe.
“What did he look like?”
“It was too dark to see him. But I could hear him. He was breathing.”
Her daughter’s chest rattled, a heavy yogic exhale that made Kate go cold. Perhaps there had been someone in her room? Home invasions happened. He could be hiding in the closet. Or in the linen cupboard down the hall. So many scary possibilities.
She’d searched the gloomy room with her eyes and listened carefully. The window was closed. The light in the closet was on. The house was silent. She would’ve felt it if she’d passed someone in the hall. They were alone.
She’d gathered her daughter in her arms. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry you’re so scared.”
“It’s not your fault the bad man came.”
She was right, but it felt to Kate as if it were. It felt to Kate—always—as if she should’ve figured out a way to keep the bad men at bay. Even from her daughter’s imagination, even from her dreams.
“I love you, baby. I love you so much.”
Kate let her down against her pillows gently and stroked her damp hair. It was silky and thin. No one had told her, before she had children, that being a mother would be like reliving her own childhood, only worse. That she’d have to re-feel all the slights and worries a hundredfold.
When her daughter’s breathing finally went soft, and Kate had dragged herself back to bed, she thought about that failing and felt defeated.
Now, a year later, as she lay in a new bed, in a foreign city, with everything changed so irreversibly, she had a different idea of what “defeat” meant and a whole other set of regrets. And as she waited with increasing resignation for sleep to come, she wondered.
Would she survive tomorrow, or would it finally be her undoing?
Interview Transcript
Subject: Franny Maycombe (FM). Conducted by: Teo Jackson (TJ).
TJ: I wanted to begin by thanking you for agreeing to participate in the documentary.
FM: Of course! I think it’s so important, what you’re doing. This film is going to contribute to our efforts—I can tell.
TJ: So, we’ll be doing a series of interviews over the next couple weeks, covering a broad range of topics, with the tragedy and its impact being the central focus.
FM: I understand.
TJ: Good. Let’s begin with some background questions. What’s your full name?
FM: My name is Franny Susan Maycombe.
TJ: And how old are you?
FM: I’m twenty-four years old.
TJ: Where were you born?
FM: Right here in Chicago.
TJ: Did you grow up here?
FM: No, in Madison. I was adopted when I was a baby, and that’s where my adoptive parents brought me.
TJ: Madison, Wisconsin?
FM: That’s right.
TJ: What was growing up there like?
FM: It was all right. Nothing special. Just life in a smallish city. I’m sure you can imagine.
TJ: Did you go to college?
FM: Only high school for me. I wanted to go, you know, and I had the grades, but we couldn’t afford it. Maybe I’ll go someday.
TJ: Did you work after you finished high school?
FM: Yeah, I did a lot of things. I was a receptionist in a dentist’s office. And I worked in a hardware store. Then as a waitress. You know, the whole nine yards.
TJ: But now you work for the Triple Ten victim’s fund?
FM: I do.
TJ: In fact, you’re the chair?
FM: Cochair . . . Mrs. Grayson is the chair, too. She was the chair first. But yes, I do.
TJ: How did that come about?
FM: I got involved because of my connection to Triple Ten.
TJ: So, let’s talk about that. Where were you on October tenth?
[Pause]
TJ: Everything all right? I know talking about it can be hard.
FM: I’m fine. It wasn’t that; it was just, wow, I had this flash. Like déjà vu or something, but not, you know? And it feels like a million years ago, right? Another lifetime.
TJ: What was that lifetime like?
FM: I was in the diner I was waitressing in, getting crappy tips. Wearing that uniform, you know, the apron, this yellow shirt and skirt that was too short. Anyway, it was just after the breakfast rush finished, right when we can usually take a bit of a break, but then this tour bus stopped in, and so we were superbusy, running around, trying to get everyone’s order right. Then the news came on, took over the TV station, you know, the way it does when there’s breaking news, and we all stopped what we were doing and watched. I stood there for an hour without moving. We all did.
TJ: This was in Madison?