Chapter 33
The Friday after the banquet, Mary sulked into the news studio to coanchor the six o’clock news, her stomach dropping as if she were on a roller coaster. If she didn’t do well, she’d destroy the small chance she had of returning to her real life. She paused just beyond the doorway, taking deep breaths to try to slow her pounding heart. Back in her real life, all she’d wanted was to be a newscaster. Now, she’d do anything to be Dean’s wife and Kendra’s mother again. She didn’t even care that Kendra felt smothered or that Dean spent more time on the golf course than with her. She’d cherish whatever time they gave her.
“You okay?” Mitchell asked.
She walked across the room without answering. Behind the anchor desk, she lowered herself into the stool, half expecting it to buckle under the weight of her self-loathing. She’d thrown away her life and ruined the lives of the people she most cared about.
Next to her, the coanchor, William, stared into a handheld mirror and adjusted a strand of his spiky silver hair. Across the room, cameras pointed at them. They’d be bringing her image into homes all across Greater Boston. Would Dean be watching? She pictured the hard set of his jaw when he again refused to be interviewed. He meant it. Everything was riding on the next thirty minutes. Her hands shook as she clipped her microphone to her dress. “Testing. Testing.” Her voice trembled.
After a few beats of silence, someone speaking in her earpiece shot back, “Levels are good.”
William turned sideways to look at her, his lips curled down. “Nothing to be nervous about.”
The voice in her ear spoke again: “We’re on in thirty seconds.”
Mary’s throat went dry. If she didn’t get the promotion, she would be stuck here. She couldn’t let that happen. She reached for her glass, but her motion was so jerky and her hand so shaky that she knocked it over. Water spilled onto the anchor desk and dripped down on her leg.
“Oh shoot!” She jumped up from her seat.
The door to the production room opened. Someone threw her a cloth. She mopped up the spill.
“You’ve got this?” William said the last word higher than the others so the sentence came out as a question rather than as reassurance.
The earpiece crackled again. “We’re on in three, two, one.”
“Good evening, I’m William Casey.”
Mary was supposed to talk now. Words on the teleprompter rolled by: I’m Mary Mulligan, filling in for Alex Mason. Seeing her name added anger to her mix of sadness and anxiety. She didn’t want to be Mary Mulligan anymore. She wanted to be Mary Amato again. She opened her mouth to speak. Nothing came out. She couldn’t make herself say the name. It hadn’t been hers for twenty-six years.
“Say your name,” the voice in her headset whispered.
She felt as if her vocal cords were paralyzed. Her heart pounded so loud she was certain her microphone would pick up the sound. Sweat beaded above her upper lip. She swiped it away with her tongue. Her knee bounced up and down under the anchor desk.
“Take a deep breath and say your name.”
Mary looked up toward the ceiling as if the voice were coming from up there. Her chest tightened, and her hands tingled. Get it together.
“Will, introduce her.”
William smiled at the camera. “Alex is enjoying a night off, and Mary Mulligan is filling in.”
She would never be Mary Amato again. She’d never be Dean’s wife or Kendra’s mom. All because she wanted to be on television reporting the news. News flash, Mary. It wasn’t worth it.
“Mary, say something, anything,” the person on the other end of her headset commanded.
She cleared her throat. “Good evening.” It was barely a whisper.
“Keep the camera on Will.”
William began with the first story. “Today, climate protesters in Boston blockaded the entrance to the Ted Williams Tunnel. Our Kimberly Nash was there.”
The red light in the studio went out, letting Mary and Will know they were no longer on air. The TV screens on the far wall showed the protesters making a human chain across the tunnel’s entrance. Mitchell raced out of the control room to Mary’s side. He placed a hand on her shoulder and looked her directly in the eye. “You can do this.”
Her heartbeat was so fast and erratic that she pictured her fifty-four-year-old self trapped inside her body, pounding on her chest and trying to break free. The room started to spin. Her vision clouded.
Kimberly appeared on the television screens, wrapping up her story. Time was running out. Mary and Will would be back on air in seconds. She took fast, shallow breaths.
“Can you do the show?” Mitchell asked.
Yes, I can, Mary thought, but it was as if the protesters in Kimberly’s story had blockaded her mouth, preventing any words from getting out. The light in the studio turned red. Next to Mary, Mitchell crouched below the anchor desk so he couldn’t be seen on air.
“Cut to commercial,” the voice in Mary’s ear said.
“Thank you, Kimberly.” Will smiled at the camera. “We’ll be right back.”
The show broke for an advertisement.
“I think I’m going to throw up.” Mary jumped off her stool and rushed out of the studio, through the newsroom, and out the door to the parking lot.
Gulping in air, she didn’t notice Carl leaning against the building, smoking, until he spoke. “The anchor chair’s much more comfortable when the cameras aren’t on.” He dropped his cigarette to the ground and crushed it with the bottom of his shoe. “It was hard to watch your meltdown.”
Your meltdown . The words knocked the wind out of her. She’d annihilated any remaining chance of getting the job on the national Morning Show —no matter how minuscule it might have been—and returning to her family. She was stuck in this life without her daughter and without Dean. Her throat and eyes burned. She was on the verge of tears, but she knew if she started to cry, she would never stop. She, Carl, and the entire news crew would drown in a flood of her tears. All she wanted was to go home to her house in Hudson, but she could never go there again. Instead, she’d go to the apartment in Framingham and crawl into bed, wanting to stay there for the rest of her life.
Carl sidled up beside her. He put a hand on her back. His touch was so unexpected that she flinched. The tips of his ears pinkened, and he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “It’s not so bad,” he said. “Maybe anchoring just isn’t your thing, but you’re a great reporter.”
If Carl was being nice to her, it must be really bad. She had to get away from the news station now, but her car keys and phone were inside. “Do you mind getting my bag for me? It’s in my bottom desk drawer.”
“What am I, your personal assistant? Get your own bag.” If she had paid attention to only his words and not heard his gentle tone or seen his sympathetic expression, she would have thought he had reverted to his grumpy self. “You’re going to have to face everyone at some point. Might as well get it over with now.” He tilted his head toward the door. “I’ll come with you.”
She sucked in a deep breath. She could do this. After all, in a world without her husband and daughter, this might be the easiest thing she ever did. With his hand on the small of her back, Carl guided her inside.
As Mary entered the newsroom, the chitter-chatter quieted; the clitter-clatter of fingers tapping keyboards came to an abrupt stop; her coworkers swiveled in their chairs, their eyes burning holes in her back as she cut across the room. Determined not to let them know how humiliated and devastated she felt, she kept her head high and shoulders back.
“What are you all looking at?” Carl barked.
Before lowering herself to her chair, Mary turned to stare back, one hand on her hip. Some of her peers looked away, others flashed sympathetic smiles before returning to their work, and a brazen few stared back with smug looks that conveyed they never would have blown their chance the way she had detonated hers—and they didn’t know the half of it.
As she drove home, Darbi phoned. Mary sent the call to voicemail, still angry at her cousin for getting her into this mess. At home she played the message: “We saw what happened tonight. My heart breaks for you. It seems like the promotion is a long shot now.” Mary winced. She didn’t need Darbi reminding her of her failures or spelling out the consequences. She deleted the message without listening to the rest of it.