Page 44 of The One Before

“Of course I did. I looked up her website and everything. She’s completely legit.”

He pulls out his phone and types in the business details. As I did, he scrolls through galleries of various events, but there’s no picture of Anne on her website.

“What are you doing?” I ask, craning my neck to get a better look at his phone.

“I don’t want to startle you.” He slides his phone into his pocket and looks at me. “But what if the woman in our house wasn’t Anne Richards?”

“What do you mean? This is our third meeting this month. She delivered our wedding invitations today. Who else could she be?”

“Look.” He pulls out his phone again and types Anne Richards, Knoxville, TN into the main search bar. Various women pop up. He scrolls through several, until he finds an advertisement for a local sponsor. He holds up the phone. “This is the Anne Richards I remember. It may not be a recent picture, but it’s good enough. Is this the woman who was in our house?”

I stare at the woman on the screen. She’s short and squat with auburn curls and a wide smile. She looks nothing like the Anne I know. Nothing like the woman I’ve allowed into our home.

“That’s not Anne,” I whisper.

“ThisisAnne Richards, an event planner in Knoxville.” He stuffs the phone in his pocket and resumes pacing. “The woman you’ve been meeting with is someone else.”

I shake my head, my thoughts bouncing between the picture of Anne on Coop’s phone and the image of Anne in my mind. “I don’t understand. Why would a woman pretend to be someone else?”

“You said she talked to you about her daughter. And she started acting weird once she knew I was here, right?”

I nod. “It’s like she didn’t want you to see her.”

Coop closes his eyes and rubs his forehead. “Madison, I think I know who the woman was.”

“Who?”

“Celia’s mother.”

“What? Why would Celia’s mother want to pose as our wedding planner?”

He sighs. “I think she’s trying to disrupt things. That’s what she does.”

“It doesn’t make sense.” I remember the antics this woman pulled in the wake of her daughter’s death, but according to Coop, she’s not harassed him in years. “After all this time, she can’t still have it out for you.”

“She thinks I killed her daughter. That’s a hatred that never goes away.”

I return to the window, hoping against hope ‘Anne’ will return and make sense of all this. “The way you described Celia’s mother, she’s unstable and erratic. Anne’s never struck me as off. She’s always been level-headed.”

“Pretending to be another person isn’t very stable.”

“But why?” I’m crying now, hot tears rolling down my cheeks. I feel vulnerable and taken advantage of all at once.

“Can you think of any other person who would want to fool us?” He sits beside me, stretching his arm over my shoulders. “It must have been her. She vowed to make sure I’d never be happy. I just didn’t think all these years later she’d keep her promise.”

“I welcomed a complete stranger into our home.” I lean over and cry into Coop’s arms. “What was I thinking?”

“She wasn’t a stranger to you. Mom gave you her information. Who knows what kind of tricks this woman pulled? She’s clearly sick.”

I’ve been deceived by more than just Anne; I’ve fooled myself. Again. I lowered my guard, and it backfired. I feel like I did the day I learned ‘Chrissy’s’ story was nothing but a lie. Like I’ve been manipulated, yet somehow deserving of shame. Coming here was supposed to heal me from that embarrassment. Instead, this situation has further highlighted that my gut is not to be trusted.

“She said she booked a florist and band,” I say, playing back every detail of my conversations with Anne. “Was that all bullshit?”

“We’ll have to look into it.” He sounds nervous, like this is the first in a series of disappointments he expects to face.

I walk into the dining room. The stack of invitations is gone. The only evidence of Anne’s presence is a pen she’s left behind. I walk into the kitchen, staring at the boxes on the counter. There’s a different slice of cake inside each, which only adds to my confusion. The actions Anne must have taken to keep up this ruse!

“You can’t blame yourself,” he says, walking behind me and placing a hand on my shoulder. Those are the same words he used when I told him about the ‘Chrissy’ retraction, when I admitted I’d lost my job.

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