Zoe
Haddonfield, 2024
It was seven thirty on a Thursday night, thirty minutes into the planning of the PTA’s annual winter gala, and Rohrbach’s butt had fallen asleep.
She rocked from side to side at her kid-sized desk in the first-grade classroom, where her knees were up in the vicinity of her chin, and wondered what kind of emergency she could fake that would let her leave the room, or at least let her stand up long enough to get the circulation going again.
She looked around at the other women who’d pulled their desks into a semicircle and were introducing themselves, for the benefit of the committee’s newest member.
There was Hadley Inslee, who ran the PTA, and Laurel Weaver, Hadley’s second-in-command.
Next to her sat Penny Lifshitz, ’s best friend in Haddonfield.
Next to Penny was the newcomer.
She wore caramel-colored suede boots, dark-rinse jeans, a white angora sweater, and a hefty diamond on her ring finger.
Her hair was cut in shoulder-length waves; her expression was friendly.
“I’m Caitlyn Graves, and I moved here over the summer.
My daughter, Maddie, is in kindergarten, and my son, Jasper, is in second grade.”
“Welcome! We’re happy to have you on board.”
Hadley nodded at .
“And, last but not least . . .”
“I’m Rohrbach.”
saw the moment it happened.
She watched Caitlyn’s eyes get wide, saw the other woman’s hand rise to press against her lips.
She always knew when she’d been recognized, because the signs were always the same.
First came the I-know-you face: wide eyes, the quiet gasp, the dropped jaw.
Then the naming would commence.
“Oh my God,”
Caitlyn breathed.
“You’re . . .”
glanced at her fellow moms.
Hadley was poking at her iPad, running through the snack possibilities.
Laurel was sidebarring with Monica, probably trying to sell her the skincare products she was currently trying to off-load (the previous year, it had been leggings, and the year before that, jewelry).
Penny was watching the byplay, a small smile on her lips.
“You’re . . .”
leaned forward, lifted a finger to her lips and mouthed, Shhh.
Caitlyn, her eyes still big, nodded like a bobblehead doll.
sat back, knowing she’d failed to avoid the interrogation.
All she’d done was postpone it.
As soon as the meeting was over—the silent-auction donation-gathering chores assigned; the egg-, nut-, dairy-, and gluten-free snacks approved; the language for the program agreed upon— stepped out into the cold winter air.
She said goodbye to Penny, pulled her key fob out of her pocket, and had just unlocked her Range Rover, when Caitlyn hurried across the parking lot to intercept her.
“Oh my God,”
she said.
“You’re Griffin.”
gave what she hoped was a pleasant smile, even though she felt no pleasure at all.
Just a kind of numbness and the memory of old regret and shame.
“That’s right,”
she said. “I am.”
I was would have been more honest, but never mind.
“Oh my God.
You’re here.
In New Jersey.
How are you ...
when did ..
oh my God,”
Caitlyn said, and stopped talking in favor of gazing at with her hands clasped at her heart.
Caitlyn’s clothes and purse and jewelry were all expensive.
She had all of the armor and accoutrements of a well-heeled wife and mother in her thirties, but the expression on her face, that soft-eyed, unalloyed awe, made her look younger, like a fourteen-year-old who should have been dressed in head-to-toe Hot Topic, with knockoff Doc Martens on her feet.
“You guys were my favorite,”
she said to .
“My absolute favorite.
Your music saved my life.”
didn’t have to ask who Caitlyn meant by You guys, or which songs had saved Caitlyn’s life.
It wasn’t any of the music she’d made after the Griffin Sisters.
God knows it hadn’t been her solo stuff, which no one remembered.
“Not your fault,”
CJ had told her, after her album flopped and her label dropped her.
“The industry’s changing,”
he’d said.
Radio play didn’t matter; streams and downloads did.
You couldn’t even get discovered by having a TV show use your music, because there were just too many shows.
When had asked, “What now?”
he’d said, “Send my assistant your new songs when you’ve got them, and she’ll pass them along.”
knew what it meant when you got shunted to an assistant.
It was You’re not making us any money, so you’re not getting any of my time.
It was Don’t call us, we’ll call you.
had decided, years ago, to save herself the postage, to quit while she was ahead and find a new life when she was still relatively young and lovely and her fame wasn’t too distant.
If that made her a has-been, reasoned, it was better than being a never-was.
In the elementary school parking lot, she made herself smile.
“Thank you,”
she said.
“That’s very kind.”
Caitlyn nodded toward the school, and the other mothers.
“Does everyone know that you’re ...you know. You?”
kept her smile in place.
“I’m just a mom now.
I’m not anyone anymore.”
“Oh, but ...I mean . . .”
First came the recognition.
Then came the awe.
They’d now arrived at ’s least favorite part of the experience: the questions.
Why are you here? What happened? Why aren’t you making music anymore? Sometimes her interlocutor was aware that had done things after the Griffin Sisters broke up.
More often, their knowledge of her career began and ended with her first band—which, as far as they were concerned, was her only band.
should have been used to it, but it always stung.
“My husband and I have two boys,”
told Caitlyn.
“Noah and Schuyler.
They’re in second and fourth grade.
So I’ve got my hands full.”
She didn’t mention Cherry.
She never talked about Cherry.
“I’m actually running to the grocery store.
Boys.
They never stop eating!”
gave the other woman a conspiratorial look.
You get it, right?—and hoped that Caitlyn would know what it meant, which was that was so busy, with the carpooling, the shopping, the cooking and the cleaning and the cheering at T-ball games, the unpaid emotional labor of running a household and caring for a family, to even consider writing a song or playing a show.
It was important that the other woman believe the lie, which was that no longer had the time to make music, and did not suspect the truth, which was that what lacked was not free time but talent.
Caitlyn, meanwhile, hardly seemed to be listening to her.
“I can’t believe this,”
she was saying.
“God.
If I could go back in time and tell my sixteen-year-old self that I was at a PTA meeting with Griffin . . .”
She closed her mouth and eyed shyly.
“I was kind of a wreck when I was a teenager, and your music meant so much to me.
And I was devastated when—”
saw her throat work as she gulped.
“I mean, obviously, not as much as you were.
Of course not as much as you were.
But it was just—I mean, I felt like I knew you.
All of you.
Like you wrote those songs just for me.”
nodded, the way she had a hundred times—regally, a little mournfully, like a grieving queen.
I’m never going to get out of here, she thought.
She’d either have to skip the grocery store or be late picking up Schuyler.
The other woman must have seen some of that in ’s expression, because she pulled herself together.
“Thank you,”
she said, and ducked her head, bending her knees and dipping her head in a gesture that was almost a bow.
“Thank you for your songs.”
“Of course.
You’re welcome,”
said, and tried to smile like she meant it.
Your music meant so much to me, thought as she drove to the Whole Foods.
How many times had people said that, in the years since the band’s dissolution? How many spoonfuls of her self-esteem had been scooped away every time she heard it? Because when the fans said your music, they meant the Griffin Sisters.
And they had no idea how much one sister had been responsible for those songs, and how little the other had contributed.
had done her part, of course.
She’d swung her hips and shaken her tambourine, sung the occasional harmony, and even played guitar, if the part was simple enough.
She’d gotten famous, had been showered with love, swimming in money, if only briefly.
She’d had thousands of people cheering for her; she’d been on the covers of magazines, had gotten everything she’d thought she’d ever wanted, and none of it had mattered in the end.
She hadn’t written those famous songs about loneliness and longing.
She’d performed them, but their lyrics had never meant much to her, because she’d never been lonely or felt unloved.
That had all been Cassie.
And now was stuck, trapped in amber, locked in a moment from twenty years ago.
In the public’s mind, she would always be the girl from that famous photograph, fragile and lovely, holding a bouquet of red roses, in a black leather jacket and a black lace veil, on a rain-misty morning in Boston.
The other bands and her solo career could not compete with the legacy of the Griffin Sisters.
They’d been doomed before they’d drawn their first breath.
had learned how to deal with the way people looked at her.
She knew the tone to take when she’d say, I’m glad our music meant so much to you.
She knew better than to complain, because nobody wanted to hear someone who was rich (or so they imagined) and famous (or, at least, had been famous, once) complaining.
had forfeited her right to have problems somewhere between the time the first single had charted and the week her wedding had been on the cover of People magazine.
She thought, sometimes, about the bargain she’d made.
As a girl, she had envied her sister’s talent, her ability to stop conversations and draw every eye in the room the instant she struck the first keys on her piano.
had coveted Cassie’s skills.
She had wanted that attention for herself.
Then, when she’d gotten it, it had ruined her.
Still, she wondered, if some supernatural creature, some witch or wizard or genie from a bottle, had approached her and told her how it was going to go, she would have made a different choice.
If that genie had said, You can have everything you’ve ever wanted, you can sing and dance in front of thousands of people, your songs will be played on the radio, you’ll be on the covers of magazines with your gorgeous boyfriend, but you won’t write any of the songs that will make you famous, you’ll barely be able to play an instrument and most of your singing will be edited out of the recordings, how would have responded? If the genie had gone on to say, You will feel like a fraud whenever someone thanks you for the songs you didn’t write and barely sang, and that man will love someone else, would she have still agreed to the deal? liked to imagine making a wiser choice, saying, Thanks, but you know what, I’ll just be a nurse or a teacher or a regular old housewife instead.
She suspected differently.
There was no version of herself that would not say Yes, I’ll do it, probably before the genie had gotten the last words out of its mouth.
She felt very old as she wheeled her shopping cart past the organic lettuce blends and the twelve-dollar plastic clamshells of cut-up pineapple.
All week long, at barre class and in coffee shops, listened to her friends talk about how they didn’t want to sleep with their husbands; how they had crushes on their oral hygienists or their personal trainers or their kids’ soccer coaches.
“Was it like that for you, after you had the boys?”
a yoga classmate named Nina had asked her, over kale and protein-powder smoothies after class.
“Did you ever feel like if one more person touched you, if one more person wanted something from you, you’d throw something heavy at their head?”
had said, “Sometimes,”
because that was the right answer.
The truth was, she’d never stopped wanting Jordan.
Maybe because her subconscious wouldn’t allow it, and some part deep inside of her knew how dangerous it would be, if she stopped wanting Jordan or if Jordan stopped wanting her.
She seemed to be immune to other longings, and the questions that kept her friends up at night.
remembered how once, after they’d shared a bottle of wine at dinner, Penny had asked, “Do you ever worry you’re not a good person?”
had given her the right answer again.
Sure, she had said.
Sometimes.
That, too, was a lie.
It wasn’t sometimes, it was always.
And she never worried.
She knew, for sure, that she was not.
paid for her groceries at the self-checkout station and carried her bags back to her car.
She was only a few minutes late picking Schuyler up from swim practice.
In the car, she asked the same questions she always asked: What was the best thing that happened? What was the worst thing? What was one thing that made you laugh? She barely listened to his answers, offering the occasional “Mm-hmm”
and “That’s nice,”
and reminding him not to leave his wet towel in the car.
She was seeing Cassie instead of her son; Cassie at eight or nine years old, silent, stocky, slumped, eternally alone.
When Janice took them to the playground, Cassie would go off by herself.
She’d push an empty swing, not even getting on it, just pushing it; staring covetously at the kids playing tag, never courageous enough to join them.
At birthday parties, Cassie would stand in the corner, watching intently, ignoring the games and the entertainment.
Cassie had needed looking out for, and it had been ’s job to do it—to keep Cassie safe, to speak for her.
At the park, she’d have to get the other kids to include her sister.
At birthday parties, she would have to explain that Cassie couldn’t play games like musical chairs (“She gets dizzy,”
she’d say).
More often than not, would end up sitting beside Cassie, instead of playing herself.
At the town pool, Cassie was afraid to go in the water.
remembered a miserably hot day, sweat gluing her swimsuit to the small of her back, sitting next to her sister with their legs dangling in the blue water.
“I’m just going to jump in for a second,”
she’d said, and Cassie had made a panicky grab at her forearm.
“Don’t go,”
Cassie said, gripping hard enough to bruise.
“Don’t go, don’t go, don’t leave me.
You said you’d stay.
You promised,”
Cassie would say.
“You promised.”
had promised ...
so she’d ended up sitting on the edge of the pool, sweating in the sun, dreaming of the day she’d be a famous pop star, with a touring bus and a handsome boyfriend and a private jet to swoop her away, out of bondage and into the sky, and the big, free life that she knew was waiting.
Cassie, she knew, would be okay.
Her sister would eventually finish high school and go on to the Curtis Institute in Center City, which had the twin benefits of being one of the foremost conservatories in the world and also being close enough to home that Cassie could continue to live with their parents while she studied.
Curtis students paid no tuition.
Their education was supported by the school’s endowment, funded by many thousands of dollars given by music lovers over many years.
Students enrolled at eighteen—or earlier, if they were especially gifted.
They stayed until their teachers decided they were ready to graduate.
Once they’d gotten their degrees, they went to play in the world’s top orchestras or opera companies, or to start solo careers.
That would be Cassie’s future.
Living with a prodigy, had often thought, was like having an especially beautiful lamp, with an unusually powerful bulb, plopped down in your living room.
The light it cast was dazzling, undeniable.
You couldn’t look away.
And not only did it outshine everything around it; it made everything else look shabby and unremarkable by comparison.
’s parents loved her.
They applauded her normal-kid achievements.
They enjoyed her company.
But they would never look at her with the same kind of awe she saw on their faces around Cassie.
She would never matter as much.
Not to them.
Not to the world.
drove slowly, half listening to Schuyler chattering about some video game, or a movie, or a video game that was being turned into a movie.
She reminded herself that she was no longer an envious teenager or a famous twenty-one-year-old, and that no one cared if she’d chosen the life of a wife and a mother, or if she’d fallen into it because it was the only option left.
She was here now.
She would do her best.
She collected Noah at the hockey rink and asked him the same questions, trying to shake off the strange mood that had overtaken her, to ground herself in her real life again.
At home, put away the groceries in the kitchen she’d just had redone, with sage-green paint on the cabinets, pale yellow tiles along the backsplash, and a built-in dining nook.
She pulled a pan out of a cupboard and the olive oil from the pantry shelf, cut the sweet potatoes into wedges, seasoned the burgers, washed lettuce for a salad.
As she called to her sons to set the table, she remembered a night from her childhood.
had been watching Inspector Gadget on TV, and Cassie had been practicing, as usual, when had looked outside the window and had seen that it was snowing, the twilight sky a lovely indigo, the snowflakes silvery in the streetlights, swirling on the gusts of wind, piling up on the ground below.
“Let’s go outside,”
had told Cass.
“We can make snow angels!”
She must have been—five? Six? Too young to realize that there wasn’t anywhere near enough snow for snow angels or that the frozen ground would be bumpy and painful against their bodies, that it was going to hurt.
She could remember zipping her sister’s coat, the sound of Cassie laughing, for once; the snowflakes melting on her cheeks, like tiny, cool kisses, and her sister’s hand in hers, holding on tight.
How long had they been outside before their mom had come running after them, coatless and wild-eyed? Janice had hauled them inside, talking in a low, angry voice about how they’d scared her half to death, how she’d turned around and found the door open and both girls gone, how there were kidnappers and bad people, and they were never, ever to scare her like that again.
Both of them had gotten twigs and dead leaves in their hair, and the sleeve of Cassie’s new winter coat had ripped.
Janice had had plenty to say about that too.
Do you think we’re made of money? Do you think new coats grow on trees? It hadn’t mattered ...
or it hadn’t been enough to erase the joy of being outside in the dark, in the snow.
Remember the time we made snow angels? would ask her sister, for years afterward, and Cass would always smile.
In her kitchen, arranged the turkey burgers on a platter, washed her hands, uncorked a bottle of wine.
She set a place for Cherry, even though, more times than not, her daughter wouldn’t join them.
Cherry would text to say she was out with friends, or at rehearsal, that she’d grab a hoagie or a slice of pizza on her way home ...
and that was if she remembered to let them know.
Her daughter didn’t want to be at home, and, the truth was, it was harder for everyone when Cherry was around.
Cherry was angry at , so permanently outraged that it felt like her resentment had taken an actual physical form, that it was a thing that sat in its own place at the dining-room table, or hung in the air like a fog.
If said anything about music, or college, or Cherry’s future, Cherry’s mood would go from indifferent to furious in a handful of seconds, and she’d go storming out of the kitchen, down into the basement, where she’d sing something atonal and angry, or send sour, warped sounds from her bass up through the floor.
told herself that was normal teenage-girl behavior, that Cherry was doing what a book she’d read called the work of separation.
Teenage girls always pull away from their parents, especially their mothers.
It’s their job, the book had said.
took comfort from that.
She also thought, guiltily, that she was doing a better job with her sons than she’d done with her daughter.
Which made sense.
Of course a woman who was settled, with a partner and a house and money in the bank, would be a better mother than a scared, hurt, angry girl barely out of her teens, who was all alone, who’d lost her band and, thus, her job and her identity, and whose heart was still mostly broken.
“Daddy!”
The boys rushed into the hallway at the sound of the garage door opening, and hurled themselves at Jordan as soon as he came through the door.
waited until her husband hugged them both before she gave him a glass of wine and a kiss, and tried not to feel hurt that he seemed to appreciate the former more than the latter.
“How was your day?”
he asked her.
wondered what would happen if she told Jordan the truth: I met a new woman at the PTA meeting, and I told her the same old lies, and now I can’t stop thinking about the band and my sister and I feel sad and ashamed and sick with guilt, and I don’t think I’m happy and I don’t think I ever will be.
She smiled a little, imagining Jordan’s absent That’s nice, honey.
Her husband loved her.
That didn’t mean he wanted to be burdened with her troubles.
At least, not when he’d just come home from work and still had a head full of his own.
“My day was fine,”
she said.
“Come on in.
Let’s sit.
Dinner’s on the table.”
The next morning, tried to push through her sluggishness.
She forced herself into her exercise clothes and suffered through an hourlong barre class.
When she finished, there was a voicemail from Cherry’s high school on her phone, informing her that Cherry wasn’t there.
A prickling foreboding crept over ’s body as she shouldered her gym bag and sat behind the wheel of her Range Rover, in her black leggings with the sheer cutout panels and her snug racerback tank top.
Cherry’s phone went straight to voicemail, and the Find My iPhone feature revealed that Cherry’s phone was still in her bedroom, where Cherry, unquestionably, was not.
She’d call Jordan first, decided.
Then Cherry’s friends.
The boy with the blue hair; Lillian, who played bass in Cherry’s band; the kid with all the piercings whose pronouns could never get right.
Instead of dialing, just sat there, her hands on the wheel, frozen and immobile.
Again, the thoughts from the previous night surfaced: This isn’t the life I want.
I miss my sister.
It made no sense ...
unless it was the idea of responsibility that connected her current situation to her previous life.
Cassie had been her responsibility, and had failed her.
And now she’d failed her daughter, too.