A Simple Favor

Stephanie’s mother taught her not to trust anyone because you can never truly know them, just as you can never know yourself. When Stephanie was young, she kept secrets, so she understood there was truth to her mother’s words. When she is older, she knows that her mother’s advice was based on personal experience. She wonders if she was programming Stephanie to be secretive because she knew that Stephanie, when she grew up, would have secrets to keep, sometimes even from herself.

Stephanie writes on her blog about a friend, Emily Nelson, who has disappeared. Emily’s son Nicky and Stephanie’s son, Miles, both five years old, became friends in school. Stephanie has trouble making friends with the other moms at Miles’s school, but she and Emily both became mothers in their mid-thirties, which makes them older than most of the others. They found common ground there, and Stephanie feels lucky that they are friends.

Miles and Nicky often act out plays they’ve written while Stephanie films them—one of their favorites is called “The Adventures of Dick Unique,” an idea from Emily, who loves to read mysteries and thrillers while she commutes to Manhattan for work. Emily’s favorite writer is Patricia Highsmith, and Stephanie tried to read Strangers on a Train, but couldn’t finish it, and when they watched the Hitchcock movie based on the book, it frightened her.