9. Fran
— ? —
Fran
The bus smells like diesel and old upholstery and the particular sadness of people traveling alone.
I’ve been on it for hours now, watching the landscape change outside my window, suburbs giving way to farmland, farmland giving way to the rolling green hills I remember from Bree’s wedding.
My throat still aches from the smoke. My hands are still bandaged where the glass cut them.
My whole body feels like it belongs to someone else, someone who didn’t almost die the other night, someone who isn’t carrying a secret she only learned existed in a hospital bed.
Six weeks pregnant. That’s what Dr. Okafor said. Approximately six weeks, based on the hormone levels in my blood.
I press my palm to my stomach and try to feel something other than numb.
The driver announces Marigold as our next stop, and I gather my things with hands that won’t stop trembling.
The clothes came out of the hospital’s donation bin, since nothing of mine survived the fire, and they don’t quite fit right.
The jeans are too loose, the sweater too big, everything slightly wrong in ways that make me feel like I’m wearing someone else’s life.
Maybe I am. Maybe that’s what this is now, a borrowed life, temporary and uncertain, held together with bandages and bus tickets and Bree’s promise on the phone this morning that she’d be waiting.
The bus pulls into Marigold’s excuse for a station, and I step off into the cool evening air. For a moment I just stand there, breathing, letting the reality of what I’ve done wash over me.
I left my husband. I left my marriage. I left my ring on my pillow and walked out of the hospital without saying goodbye, and now I’m standing in a town I know from market days and family gatherings, pregnant and alone and terrified, and I have no idea what happens next.
“Fran?”
Bree’s voice cuts through the darkness, and then she’s there, my cousin, my best friend, the one person I knew would pick up the phone without asking questions. She’s wearing pajamas under her coat and her hair is a mess and she’s the best thing I’ve seen in days.
“Oh, honey.” She pulls me into a hug, careful of my bandaged hands, and I let myself collapse into it. “Oh, Fran. I’m here. I’ve got you.”
I don’t cry. I thought I would, thought the moment I saw her, something would break open and pour out. But there’s nothing left. I used up all my tears in that hospital bed, listening to Sloane’s voice in my ear, and now I’m just empty.
“Thank you,” I manage. “For coming. For not asking-”
“You can tell me when you’re ready.” Bree’s voice is gentle but firm. “Or you can never tell me. Either way, you’re staying with us as long as you need.”
She guides me to her car, and I sink into the passenger seat like it’s the first safe place I’ve found in months. Maybe years. The leather is warm from the heater, and Bree has one of those air fresheners that smells like vanilla, and for a moment I just close my eyes and breathe.
“Rafael’s got the guest room ready,” Bree says as she pulls out of the parking lot. “Rosie’s been asking about you - she’s almost two now, you won’t believe how big she’s gotten. And James is three months old and determined to never let anyone sleep, but he’s perfect.”
“James.” I try to remember. Bree mentioned a second baby, didn’t she? In one of our phone calls, before everything fell apart. “I’m sorry I missed-”
“Stop.” She reaches over and squeezes my knee. “You’re here now. That’s what matters.”
The drive is short, twenty minutes through quiet streets lined with old trees and older houses. Marigold looks like something out of a postcard, all brick storefronts and flower boxes and the kind of small-town charm that usually makes me suspicious. But tonight it just looks peaceful. Safe.
The house appears around a bend in the road, a big farmhouse with a wraparound porch and lights glowing in the windows despite the late hour.
Rafael is waiting on the steps, and he doesn’t say anything when we pull up, just helps carry my bag inside and points me toward a room at the end of the hall.
“Guest room,” he says. “Bathroom’s across the hall. Kitchen’s always open.” He pauses, studying me with those dark eyes that see too much. “You’re safe here, Fran. Whatever happened - you’re safe.”
I nod, because my throat is too tight for words, and I escape into the guest room before I can fall apart completely.
The bed is soft. The sheets smell like lavender. I lie in the dark with both hands folded low on my belly and think about the secret in there, the one Logan doesn’t have and I’ve had for less than two days.
We’ll figure it out, I tell the baby. Whatever happens, we’ll figure it out.
I fall asleep before I can decide if I believe it.
***
I sleep for fourteen hours.
When I wake up, the sun is streaming through unfamiliar curtains and there’s a small face pressed against the crack in the door, watching me with solemn brown eyes.
“Hi,” I say, my voice rough with sleep.
The face disappears. I hear footsteps running down the hall, and then Bree’s voice: “Rosie, I told you to let Aunt Fran sleep!”
“She’s AWAKE!” Rosie’s voice carries the particular volume of a toddler who has not yet learned about indoor voices. “MAMA, SHE’S AWAKE!”
I drag myself out of bed and find my way to the kitchen, where Bree is nursing baby James in a rocking chair and Rosie is standing on a step stool, ostensibly helping Rafael make waffles but mostly eating chocolate chips straight from the bag.
“There she is.” Bree smiles at me over James’s fuzzy head. “Tea’s on the counter. Sit down before you fall down.”
I sit. I drink tea. I watch this family move around each other with the easy rhythm of people who belong together, and the ache in my chest is part grief and part longing and part something I don’t have a name for.
This is what a marriage is supposed to look like. This is what I thought I might have, someday, before I learned that someday was a lie.
After breakfast, Rafael takes Rosie to the park and Bree settles James in his swing and we sit together on the back porch, looking out at the garden she’s built behind the house.
“You don’t have to talk about it,” Bree says. “But I’m here when you’re ready.”
I’m not ready. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready. But she’s looking at me with so much patience, so much love, and I’ve been carrying this alone for too long.
So I talk.
Not everything. Not yet. But enough: the fire, the smoke, the bedroom door locked from the outside. Sloane’s voice taunting me through the wood while I choked on smoke. The hospital, waking up to find her sitting beside my bed, whispering cruelties to a woman she thought couldn’t hear.
“She admitted it?” Bree’s voice is sharp. “She actually said she did it?”
“She thought I was unconscious.” I wrap my hands around my teacup, grateful for the warmth.
“She said I was supposed to die. That was the whole point, quick and clean, a tragic accident. She called me a cockroach that wouldn’t stay stepped on.
” I take a breath. “She said I was never part of the story. Just a delay, a temporary obstacle. She told me to leave and stay gone. And she said next time she wouldn’t underestimate me. ”
“Jesus Christ.” Bree runs a hand through her hair. “Fran, we need to - you need to report this. You need to tell someone.”
“I know.” I’ve been thinking about it since I woke up, the practicalities of what comes next, the steps I need to take to protect myself.
“But I can’t just walk into a police station and make accusations.
If I do that, there’ll be investigations, and Logan will find out where I am, and I’m not-” My voice breaks.
“I’m not ready to see him. I’m not ready for any of it. ”
“Then we figure out another way.” Bree’s tone is firm, practical, the same tone she used when we were teenagers and I needed help sneaking out of my father’s house.
“Rafael knows people. There’s a detective he trusts, someone who helped with a case a while back.
Maybe she can take your statement without making you go public. ”
“Maybe.” I take a breath. “There’s something else, Bree. Something I haven’t told you.”
She waits, her eyes on my face.
“I’m pregnant.” The words come out smaller than I expected. “Six weeks. Or I was, at the hospital. I don’t know exactly - they figured it out from my blood, not a test I took. I didn’t even know until the doctor told me.”
Bree stares at me for a long moment. Then: “Does Logan know?”
“No. No one knows except the doctor and now you.” I swallow hard.
“Before the fire, I wanted to talk to him - about Sloane, about what she said to me, about whether our marriage could be saved. But then the fire happened, and the hospital, and finding out about the baby-” My voice breaks.
“I couldn’t stay there, knowing she tried to kill me, knowing he might never believe me over her.
I couldn’t risk it. Not with a baby coming. ”
“He would believe you.” Bree’s voice is gentle but uncertain. “Fran, whatever else Logan is, he’s not - he wouldn’t side with someone who tried to murder you.”
“He might not believe it was murder.” I look at my hands, still bandaged, still healing from the glass that saved my life. “He’s known her since they were children. He trusts her. And I’d be the hysterical wife making accusations with no proof.”
“The fire investigators-”
“Might find something. Might not.” I shake my head. “I can’t take that chance. Not with a baby coming. Not when I have no idea what she might do next.”
Bree is quiet for a long moment. Then she sets down her tea and wraps both arms around me, fierce and protective.
“We’ll figure it out,” she says. “Whatever you decide - keep the baby, tell Logan, don’t tell him - we’ll figure it out together.
You’re not alone, Fran. You have me. You have Rafael and Rosie and this whole ridiculous town full of people who will absolutely adopt you whether you want them to or not. ”