Confessions on the 7:45

by Lisa Unger

“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.” —George Orwell, 1984

Everyone was on broadcast these days, thrusting out versions of themselves, cropped and filtered for public consumption. Everyone putting on the “show of me.” It was when people were alone, unobserved, that the mask came off.

It was after 6:15 now. The boys would have had their dinner. If Selena knew their nanny, Geneva, and the efficiency with which she ran the show, Oliver and Stephen would also be showered and in jammies.

She hadn’t hidden the camera, precisely. Geneva had been made aware of cameras in the home—one upstairs, one down. Selena had simply moved the one from the boys’ bedroom, and told neither Graham nor Geneva about it.

That very same week, over cocktails, Selena’s good friend Beth serendipitously offered her a huge job—a licensing director position at Beth’s literary agency.

“Society doesn’t always know what’s right. Our families tell us stories about ourselves that often aren’t true. Sometimes we have to follow our hearts.”

She liked the shadows. That’s where you got to see all the things that other people missed.

But mainly, people were so wrapped up in their own inner hurricane that they never saw anything outside the storm of themselves.

Arrested development. When a person stops maturing at a point of trauma, grief, or at a place in her life when she felt the profound and total loss of love from a primary caregiver.

Before Anne, she was Ellie Martin, young widow wondering if she could ever love again. Before that there was Marlie Croft, an orphan looking for her lost family. Before that. Before that. She was a Russian doll, every shell a different face, a different color. Right now, her hair was black—but she’d been a blonde, a redhead, a mousy brunette. She’d gained weight, lost it. She was good at becoming. The only problem was that the real person was buried deep, so tiny and formless that Anne could barely remember her.

Who you were is gone. Who you will be—she doesn’t exist. The only thing that matters is who are you are right now. Pop. Con artist. Zen master.

Geneva is missing, but there’s no evidence of foul play. At this point, she might just be your run-of-the-mill con artist. Working her way into families, taking what she can get from them and moving on.

People didn’t fall in love with other people. They fell in love with how other people made them feel about themselves. And so, it was easy to get someone to love you—if you knew how they wanted to feel.

“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.” —Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac

“She’s—your father’s daughter by another woman. A child from one of his affairs,” she said. Selena blanched, mouth opening. “She’s your half sister,” Cora went on. “Her name is Pearl.”

It was possible, wasn’t it, that this whole thing had been orchestrated by Pearl—that she’d kidnapped Geneva, that she’d killed Jacqueline Carson? She was a destroyer. She was doing what she did best, taking a wrecking ball to Selena’s life. Why? Because Pearl hated Selena for being a happy, normal person, when life had treated her so unfairly.

“Charles Finch, Pearl, Grace—they’re con artists,” said Crowe. “Working their way into people’s lives and taking what they can get.”

Write it, said Beth. When we narrate our experience, we take control of it. And in controlling the story of our past, we can create a better future.