Two spooky eyes looked at me as the picture crawled down my screen, the familiar nose and the smile for her father. What started the affair? My father nurturing a vague complaint that something was missing. Sue playing along; willing to be a secret. Karen said Dad cheated because he could get away with it. Did Willis think he could get away with it?

The three of us had made a sharp triangle at the follies; me on the stage, Willis below, and Philippa next to him, as oblivious as my mother. I was the secret of the triangle, willing to take any covert part Willis allowed me to play in his life. Willing to play the part of Sue in the story of my own life.

My toes hung over the edge, a black breeze blew my skirt. Karen says we all have problems. Take it in stride and keep fighting, she says. Not the end of the world. Look at your wonderful life. I looked at myself, perched on the edge of a roof at a failing literary festival, in the middle of the night, in England. Fanny Price beckoned to me from the trap door, no indulgent pity in her voice or manner. "Come along," she said. My Jane Austen wasn't there, wouldn't bother, obviously. No patience for nonsense.

Two faint stars struggled in the sky, and something fiercer, a satellite, blinked; perhaps it could see me. I remembered the feeling, lying with Willis, when the cosmos came together and everything belonged to something. Maybe normal people always felt that way. I don't want to be Sue. I don't want to be my mother. My mother no longer makes sense. I bent down to pick up a broken piece of concrete, once part of the balustrade. You should have dropped the code, Mom. You should have talked to me while we sat there all those months reading and dying. Hiding behind books instead of working past your shame to tell me. You should have tried harder. I threw the concrete as hard as I could and watched it smash into bits on the steps three stories below. I don't want to be like you. "I want to be normal," I cried from the rooftop. "I just want to be normal."

Twenty-One

Two mornings later, I lay in bed while Bets did her five-minute prep for work: the thong, the dress, the kerchief.

"Time to rise and shine, Cellmate," Bets said.

I'd seen no one for three days. Not Omar, not Sixby. My Jane Austen had been absent since she faded out in Sixby's room. I'd suspected she might be prickly, but never imagined she would ditch me for good. A dead person should take a more godlike approach and cut me some slack. Maybe Magda was right; the real Jane Austen would swallow me whole.

Being Wednesday, Mrs. Russell would come looking for me if I didn't show up. "I'm sick," I told Bets, still recovering from the rooftop spectacle. Thank God no one but Fanny Price witnessed my drama. Now Fanny was gone. Perhaps Maria Bertram would haunt me. Maria and I could compare stories about self-destructing over the wrong men scene after scene, but that would cease to amuse her once she claimed the high ground of being ink on a page, lacking in the opportunity so abundant to me, of learning from mistakes.

Gary came to the door with coffee and Bets shushed him. "She's sick," she whispered as they closed the door behind them. One thing I was sure of: they were up to something. Last night during a commercial, Bets said, "Why not now?" She used a few Arabic words I missed, but Gary shook his head, clicked his tongue, and said lah, Arabic for no. I fell asleep breathing fumes from their Indian food.

I opened my eyes and pulled Willis's jacket out from under my pillow. Had he gone to London for good? His abrupt absence felt like death, a giant iron wall preventing further communication. I could never tell him one more thing or ask him one more question. I lay in my bed, staring at the plaster wall, seeking a pattern in the faint swirls.

The messy room had begun to stink; I knew I would find dirty food cartons if I bothered to look. They'd left cellophane wrappers on the floor. Biscuit tins, bottles, cans, newspapers, and bags littered the room. Bets had thrown her clothes on the floor as they left her body. My follies costume lay spread on the table to dry. I got up and opened the window to let air circulate; gray and rainy outside.

Not having bothered with my appearance since the night with Sixby, I looked awful. I sat on my bed in my nightgown, holding my script. With Magda on her way out, I needed to know the lines and I'd been reading the part where Fanny refuses Henry Crawford's proposal of marriage. Even though I'd read it many times, the scene never failed to create anxiety that this time Fanny would cave, fall prey to Henry Crawford's superficial arts, be seduced by the comfortable life he offered. I considered reading Sense and Sensibility instead.

The rain rallied and I had to consider the possibility that Sense and Sensibility might get wet on the windowsill. I rescued the book, using my nightgown to wipe it dry. To my utter surprise, Willis appeared, walking toward my dormitory. I ducked down and watched over the sill like a spy, the rain spattering my face. Willis walked purposefully, eyes downcast, the hood of his jacket protecting him from the rain. He headed for the parking lot but turned as if he were approaching the entrance of my building, a place he'd never been. My room! I quickly bolted the door, turned off the lights, and regretted the unmade beds, clothes covering the floor, dirty dishes in our little sink. Every horizontal surface lay buried under junk, drawers stood open. Impossible to clean the room in the short time he would spend climbing the stairs. And even if I could straighten the room, what would he think when he saw me? I brushed my teeth in record time and crawled to the far corner of my bed to wait; my heart pounding.

I knew he'd come—as instructed by my follies portrayal of Fanny Price. Willis was back from the dead; here was my chance to ask one last question, to understand the truth about what happened between us and say good-bye to him perhaps forever.

His knock penetrated my bones. I asked all blood rushing to my heart to please resume its normal speed and direction. If he saw me now—he'd remember me forever like this! My nightgown! Just to be safe, I stopped breathing.

He knocked again. I could clean up and find him later.

"Lily."

The sound of my name in his voice melted my resistance. If he knocked again, I would open up. Again, please. We both waited. Every rustle of his rain jacket traveled over the open transom. I froze, not risking a creak of the floor or mattress. What would I give for an opportunity to speak with my mother one more time?

He gave up. Willis walked away, his footsteps growing softer as they receded to the stairwell until I couldn't hear them anymore. Deep regret set in. The mess didn't matter. This was my last chance. He would be long gone by the time I cleaned up. The mattress and floor creaked and moaned as I jumped up and ran to the door. I threw it open and shouted, "Willis!" The dimly lit hall was not vacant, he had not walked away, and I screamed when he stepped out of the opposite wall.

He smiled. "The old diminishing footsteps trick."

"You scared me to death." I touched my heart.

"Well, then we're even, Fanny," he said, pausing near the threshold.

I stepped aside allowing Willis into my room. "We had a hurricane in here," I said, folding my arms in front of me as he noted the devastation. "I'm surprised you didn't hear about it on the news."

"I'm too busy for news." He turned, appraising the extent of the disorder. "So this is where you live." He took in the dirty clothes and unmade bed. "Ah, my jacket," he said.

I handed him the jacket and he tucked it under his arm. We stood looking at each other; me still catching my breath while raindrops tapped nervously.

"That was quite a performance with Sixby." He shifted his weight and the floor creaked. "I didn't much care for the ending."

"It was theatre," I said, frowning. If he only knew. But he would never know.

Willis draped his jacket over a chair and then stepped to the window. "What a mess," he said touching his forehead on the frame. He ran a finger along the wet sill; hard to know if he referred to the weather, the mess in my room, or the two of us. "You're not working today?"

"Later."

We stood silent while the rain fell, dark and dreary outside. My legs felt weak. "Would you like to sit down?" I gestured to a chair holding a big box of Bets's stuff but Willis stood his ground on the opposite side of the table, his rain jacket rustling when he moved.

"I can't stay. I wish I could," he said, hands in his pockets.

Bits of sorrow gathered near my throat. His hands seemed so far away in those pockets, as if they didn't know me. "How are you?" I asked.

He shrugged, and took a step away from the window. "How are you?"

"I have a half sister," I said. "And I find the news overwhelming."

"So do I," he said, connecting my words with the news Fanny delivered from the stage. "How are you dealing with it?" he warmed, his empathetic manner emerging.

"I keep remembering what you said about forgiving my dad," I said, "but I don't know where to start. And it keeps getting bigger." I did not share the reflection I'd caught of myself in the family mirror; mistakes could pile up quickly without a single bad intention.

"You don't have to condone his behavior," Willis said as he lifted the box off the chair and sat at the table he didn't have time for. I moved the spotted muslin and sat across from him.