Haggerty was right. There are no happy endings for girls like me. Instead, there are agreements, compromises. Eleanor asked me to appear. In return, she kept her promise to stick by me, going so far as to spend the weekend in New Haven. I ached for her to lie in my bed and rub my back while I cried. But I also understood this was a little girl’s fantasy. The Eleanor I want and the Eleanor I have are not the same; to pretend otherwise is how I created Marcus. Still, I want what I want, which, unfortunately, includes Lawrence. All weekend, I waited for him to show up and make things right, but Eleanor was there so he couldn’t.

How do I explain this? My brain knew Lawrence would not come. I saw that gear turn, the thought he was bad for you expressed. But other gears were turning at the same time, different thoughts were also expressed: I love you. I need you. I’ll wait. Despite everything Lawrence said on the stand, I have to believe our relationship was real, that he felt as deeply for me as I felt for him. How else would I stay sane?

Over the weekend, he continued to call me until Eleanor stepped in. “You. Must. Stop.” Her voice was ball-shriveling tight. “Gather your belongings. Leave my home. If you don’t, I’ll freeze your accounts and secure a restraining order.” She hung up. “Whew. What now?”

Ultimately, my time alone with Eleanor was tense, sad, painful, and hopeful. We didn’t talk about Lawrence. We got manicures and pedicures. She bought me a cashmere sweater. We ate lunch at the Neighborhood Café. I introduced her to Eddie and her first breakfast burrito. “These are good,” I told her. “But McDonald’s are sublime.”

“Well, I’ll definitely have to try one, then.”

This made us both laugh; as if.

Which is more or less how we acted: as if. As if she and I were a real mother and a real daughter. As if her younger son wasn’t a rapist. As if I hadn’t betrayed her. As if she hadn’t betrayed me. As if we could be a family once the trial was over. Eleanor lives her life as if; it’s why she’s so cool, so serene. But I don’t want to, not anymore. I need to call everything by its actual name. I need to hang on to known things, to the realness of words, to a world governed by facts, where truth is paramount. I can’t do it yet, but I’m trying. This may account for my panic attacks over the weekend—full-throttled assaults that wracked my body like seizures. As if the me that had agreed to bury our secrets was finally saying no.