CHAPTER TWO

“My wife, Ava, never knew I had another daughter,” he began, “but don’t worry. I have prepared for this day.”

He said that like an insurance agent would. That was what he used to be. Mazy told me often that what you do becomes a part of who you are.

We were sitting in a small restaurant in the village of Sandburg Creek. It was just off its Main Street, which in many ways, although longer and wider and with many more stores, restaurants, and supermarkets, resembled Hurley with its similar early-twentieth-century architecture and more modern structures here and there. The traffic grew quickly; people seemed to have popped up out of the sidewalks. There was an air filled with far more activity here. People were walking faster and talking louder. I thought maybe it was a couple of thousand people away from being considered a city.

Before Daddy began talking, dozens of questions about his life here, his life without me, flooded my mind, but I pushed them all aside to listen. One of my biggest questions was, what did he remember about me? It seemed to me that every parent should recall the slightest details about his or her children, but especially what made them sad and what made them happy, as well as what frightened them. The smallest things became so important, even as they grew older. How much of me remained stored in his mind, written indelibly in his thoughts and memories? He ordered our breakfast, telling the waitress to scramble my eggs well and bring cream cheese with the toast. “And a large orange juice with an ice cube,” he added.

I said nothing, a part of me cringing in anticipation of what he was going to say about my unexpected arrival. Had he already arranged for me to be taken somewhere far away from his new life? Was that what the word prepared meant? Was that his insurance policy? And what about Mama? Did he think about her at all? Did he wonder if I still did or if Mazy and I often talked about her, even before I knew she was Mazy’s daughter? What did he think or know about my life away from him all these years?

My questions were coming to my mind quickly, but I kept my lips pressed closed so tightly that I could feel the muscles straining in my jaw.

He hesitated, finally really looking at me, I thought. Up until now, he’d glanced and looked away quickly, almost as if he was afraid to convince himself I was really here. How many times had he dreamed of this moment? More than I had? Or was dreamed the wrong word? Should I think feared?

“Do you drink coffee now?”

“Sometimes,” I said.

He ordered coffee for both of us. As soon as the waitress left us, he smiled. He moved to take my hand, but I put my hands in my lap. Everything he did drew my suspicion. I wasn’t subtle about it. I could see how uncomfortable I was making him, and that made me angrier, probably because I was so fearful of what was coming. He forced a smile and sat back.

“Mazy was right. You do look grown-up, years beyond your age. You’re about as tall as I imagined you to be, and filling out well.”

That answered my question about whether he had ever come to Hurley to sneak a view of me. I could feel the chill surround my heart, my vulnerable, innocent, and still childish heart. That air of comfort I remembered when I was with him years ago could have gone up with the smoke spilling out of every window, under every door, and through the crumbling walls and ceilings of what was once the only world I really knew. I certainly didn’t feel it now. My body sank with the disappointment. He hadn’t been intrigued about me as a father should be. He hadn’t gone to Hurley to sneak views of his daughter. Hope seemed to fold inside of itself like a balloon quickly leaking all its air. Daddy was still more like a stranger, and for now, every minute together was not changing that. It was reinforcing it.

“My new birth certificate says I’m fourteen—fifteen almost,” I said. He nodded. Did he even remember how old I really was?

“Oh, I can believe that easily. So,” he said, “you read some of my letters to Mazy?”

“Not some. Every one of them. She never threw out any. She kept them in a box in a closet in her room but never revealed anything that was in them or even that she had any.”

He nodded. The waitress brought my juice and our coffee.

“I never expected her to show them to you.”

“She didn’t,” I said. “She died first. I remembered the box in her closet and always wondered why she had to keep it under lock and key. Nothing else was hidden from me. It was the first thing I thought of when I realized she was gone.”

“What happened to her?”

“I don’t know exactly. She died. She went up to her room, lay down, and probably had a heart attack. If she was seriously ill, she never told me. I never ever heard her say she had gone to a doctor. She said doctors were mostly pill pushers. She had her own cures for anything that happened to either of us.”

“Oh, I believe that. She was quite a tough lady. You needed only to meet her once to sense that.”

We stared at each other. He smiled, but I didn’t. I drank my juice and waited, even though my questions wanted even more to gallop off my tongue. Mama, I thought. Mama would want me to ask the first one, but it was painful to find the words.

“So when did you have this other daughter? How old is she?” I asked.

“I thought about it all on my way to pick you up and decided I would be completely honest with you,” he said, pressing his palms flatly on the table. “I can see that you’re old enough and smart enough to understand everything now.”

Did I want complete honesty? Wouldn’t I rather he made up one of his fantasies the way he used to and make it easier for me to accept where we were and how we got here?

“Your mother and I had drifted apart even before I began my affair with Ava Saddlebrook. By the way, you’ll see the name Saddlebrook on a number of properties here. Her father, Amos Saddlebrook, owns a great deal of real estate, has an interest in many of the local businesses, like the Dew Drop Inn, and is on every important committee. He’s still quite active at age eighty-one. Fit, too. You’ll think he’s in his sixties. Ava’s mother died a little over fifteen years ago. Ava was an only child like you.”

“I’m no longer an only child,” I said dryly, and finished drinking my juice.

He smiled, but it wasn’t the smile of a proud parent. This smile was tinged with some anxiety. I couldn’t help but enjoy how tense and nervous he was. Why couldn’t it be at least as hard for him as it was for me? That was my anger speaking, but a bigger part of me wanted there to be no anxiety at all. This should be a wonderful reunion.

“I fear that there’s a lot more of Mazy in you than I know.”

He sipped his coffee.

“Why shouldn’t there be?” I shot back. “She was my grandmother and all the family I had for years. She nursed me when I was sick, clothed and fed me. She taught me anything and everything a parent might, probably more.”

“Right, right. Okay,” he said, lifting his hands like someone surrendering.

“When did you have this other daughter?” I repeated.

“It’s a little complicated.”

“When?” I insisted. There was no longer any tolerance in me for any of his sins. He owed me the truth, and I wanted it all here and now.

“A few months after you were born.”

“Months?”

He looked down at his now-clasped hands. How does a father tell his daughter that he had betrayed her mother? I enjoyed seeing him squirm. I was enjoying it for Mama.

“I didn’t think Ava would go through with it. She didn’t tell me until she was nearly seven months along. She didn’t show like most other women do. Sometimes I think she did it solely to torment her father. Or maybe to force me to leave your mother. When she started to show, she basically dropped out of sight until months after she had given birth.”

“But everyone knew about you?”

He was silent.

“I mean here.”

“No one knew that she had a child for some time,” he said.

“Some time? How long?”

“Long.”

“Why?”

“Her father preferred it that way, and she was waiting…”

“For you? Her father preferred it?”

“Yes. I told you it was complicated,” he added quickly.

“So explain it, Daddy.”

“After she realized she was pregnant and decided to have our child, she had a nanny, and our daughter was basically kept hidden away at the Saddlebrook estate until our accident. As I said, her father insisted on it. She was dependent upon him at the time, and as you will learn, he’s a very powerful man in this community.”

“Accident?” I fumbled for a meaning until it came like a slap across my cheek. “You mean the fire?”

He nodded.

This felt like I was reaching into a beehive.

“When I left with you afterward, I had decided to accept my responsibilities and move here.”

“Did her father know about me?”

“No. He disliked me as it was, because Ava became pregnant and I sort of disappeared for a while. I mean, I saw her but didn’t spend any time with Karen until she was nearly three. Her father wouldn’t have anything to do with me until we had eloped. By then, Ava had already chosen the house we’re in. After we made our relationship legal, her father reluctantly bought us the house.”

“Why reluctantly?”

“He wanted us to live at his estate, Saddlebrook.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Ava wanted us to have at least the semblance of independence, especially after her father had treated her like some stain on the family name.”

“Didn’t people ask questions about it all?”

“Behind our backs, for sure. The Saddlebrook family is powerful here. Nevertheless, the early days of our marriage were a little difficult, actually quite difficult, but in the end, money has a louder voice than conscience or religious principles… whatever. Who doesn’t have a skeleton in a closet?”

“Your new wife waited all that time? She never had another boyfriend?”

“When you’re older, you might understand. Despite having lived so long under her father’s thumb, Ava… Ava is quite independent. She’s a lot like him in that way. When she wants something, she gets it, no matter how long it may take.

“So you see, I really did have a lot to work out before I could bring you into all this. Before that, your mother found out about my affair with Ava and became very bitter. Sometimes I used to think she wanted to stay married to me just to make me suffer. I did, and I know you were suffering, too, especially when she was keeping you practically a prisoner in the house with the homeschooling. Maybe she thought that was another way to punish me. I’m sorry I let that go on so long.”

“My life with Mazy wasn’t much different,” I said. “I didn’t enter public school until just recently, and that was a disaster, because kids who had seen me already had made up crazy stories about me and Mazy. They were actually afraid of her. Some thought she was a witch and had taught me weird stuff.”

“You’ll have to tell me more about that when we can talk privately. Mazy and I didn’t communicate as much recently, maybe because she was getting sick. I mean, I knew you had entered school, but…”

The waitress brought our food.

He started to eat and gestured at me to start as well. I did, but I didn’t take my eyes off him. My memory felt like it was twirling back through a tunnel as I caught the gleam of his blue eyes, eyes that had once brought calm and a sense of safety to me whenever I was troubled or afraid. The strength in his firm lips was still there, and despite the weight he had put on, making his face look chubby and soft, there was that air of authority, that sense of control I not only saw when I was a little girl but craved often whenever there was tension in our home. Call himself whatever he wanted, he was still my daddy.

I fought back needing him. I was afraid I would cry.

Anyway, what I really wanted to bring him was my anger. I was disappointed in myself, in how quickly I was becoming a little girl again as soon as I was with him. How could I still love him, respect him, and want him after all that he had done, had just revealed? There is no disappointment greater than a disappointment in yourself, and I was feeling it. I ate, but I didn’t taste anything, and although I was battling as hard as I could, the tears were seeping into my eyes. No! I shouted inside myself. Do not cry; do not be a little girl again. That’s what he’s hoping you’ll be.

“So,” he continued, “when I began with Ava, she knew I was still married, but as I said, she didn’t know about you. I wanted to tell her, but Ava back then wasn’t the sort of young woman who would willingly take on the responsibility of bringing up another child, especially someone else’s child. And it might have made for more complications with her father at the time.”

“So you lied to them both?”

“I didn’t lie so much as I left out some of the story.”

“What about your other daughter? Did she know you were her father back then? I mean, when you spent time with her?”

“Yes and no.”

“What does that mean?”

“She was too young to understand what was happening and was kept quite content at the estate. And I thought I could manage it until…”

“Until what?”

“Eventually, I thought maybe I could divorce your mother and give her sole custody of you. I even revealed I had another child. I planned on telling Ava about you after the divorce, because even though your mother would have sole custody, I’d have visitation rights, but…” He paused. “Go on, finish eating before your food gets cold.”

“I ate enough,” I said, pushing the plate away. I could feel the food sticking in my throat.

“Yeah, okay. So what happened was it became clearer that your mother couldn’t handle the responsibility, and whether I liked it or not, that plan wasn’t going to work. I started to tell Ava about you a few times but lost my courage each time. I was really in love with her, and once you meet her, I think you’ll understand why. She is beautiful and intelligent, elegant and—”

“Mama was all that,” I said sharply.

He nodded. “She was. I would be the first to admit it. I remember often telling you about what she was like before… before all this happened. It broke my heart to see the changes in her.”

“The changes due to your affair,” I said dryly. “And knowing you had another child with another woman.”

He looked like I was stabbing him with the sharp end of a scissor. Mazy surely would have said it. After all, he had broken my mother’s heart.

“Well, yes. I bear a lot of guilt, but there was more to it. Your mother always showed some signs of emotional and mental issues. Our parents had her see a therapist. I don’t think she ever got over being adopted once she found out, even though that meant we could fall in love. I guess I was fooling myself when I told myself I could fix all that.

“Anyway, when I discovered your mother’s real history, the adoption, and how it had happened because Mazy was single and alone, I felt sorry for Mazy. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it, but I contacted Mazy. I never told your mother, of course. I even secretly met Mazy a few times. My parents didn’t know. I sent her pictures and told her about your mother, how she was doing in school, in college, and how wonderful she was. I’m sure you saw all of that in the letters.

“My parents did love her and tried to give her everything she wanted and needed. But every time I saw how beautiful and intelligent your mother was, I thought about Mazy, how she was missing it all and, if it wasn’t for me, how she would never know. Eventually, you were kind of a solution for Mazy’s sadness and regret, you see.”

A solution? Maybe I smirked at how much I didn’t believe he felt so sorry for Mazy; maybe he could still read my feelings and thoughts in my eyes.

“Is that what you meant when you said you were preparing? Even before I was born?”

“What? No. If you think I was doing that back then, writing to Mazy and keeping her up on your mother to get Mazy to take you in eventually… I mean, I wasn’t even sure your mother and I would be together in those days. We were married after your mother became pregnant with you.”

“Sounds like a pattern with you and your marriages.”

He shook his head. And then nodded. “I understand your bitterness.”

“Do you?”

“Of course. Anyway, when the time came and I thought about Mazy…”

“It was convenient,” I said.

He looked stunned for a moment. “I don’t know if I’d use that word. I really believed that everyone would be happy. That I’ll admit. Maybe I was wrong, but I knew that even if I convinced or forced Ava to take you in with us, you wouldn’t have been happy. Who knows how Amos Saddlebrook would have treated you? Ava… another woman’s child… it wouldn’t have been pleasant. However, Mazy was certainly elated.”

He shrugged. “To my way of thinking, it was a nice, wonderful thing to do for someone who lived with so much guilt.”

I stared at him coolly and then finally asked a question I didn’t want to hear answered.

“What about me, my happiness? Didn’t you care at all? I was your daughter, too.”

“It hurt me to leave you, of course, but as I said, I believed that if I truly loved you, I wouldn’t bring you into an unpleasant life after such a tragedy. Ava would feel I was forcing her to accept you. She’d know I had lied to her, and Ava’s not someone easily lied to. She’s quite intolerant of deception, as is her father. We’d probably have broken up, too. It would be like another fire,” he said, and I could feel my eyes threatening to explode.

“Fire? You compare a breakup to that?”

“Anyway,” he quickly continued, ignoring me, “I kept up with your upbringing, development. Mazy wrote detailed letters like the teacher she was. She didn’t need any money, but I sent her some from time to time.”

“And even after all these years, your new wife never knew I existed?”

He nodded, but he didn’t look as regretful as I wanted him to look. Maybe I never really knew my father, and all the feelings I had felt for him and thought he had for me were imagined.

I pushed the plate farther away and stared out the front window of the restaurant, which advertised itself only as a breakfast and lunch place. It was simply decorated, with some pictures of the family who owned it on the dark-blue-painted walls. Two paintings of lake scenes were hung near the entrance. There were three other booths like the one we were in and then about twenty tables of two and four seats with a small counter that had a half dozen stools. Nobody was looking at us in particular. No one had smiled at him or nodded when we had entered.

“You don’t come here much, do you?” I asked.

“No, why?”

“No one’s said hello. No one asked you about me. That’s probably why you chose for us to come here.”

“Oh.” He smiled. “You pick up on things quickly.”

“Mazy used to call me Miss Marple. The famous woman detective,” I added. I wasn’t only clinging desperately to my happier memories with her. I was trying to tell him that he couldn’t fool me. No more lies. I almost told him what Mazy once said about liars. Liars have to have good memories.

He smiled and looked at the other patrons.

“Yes, I don’t know anyone here, really. I mean, I’ve seen some of these people. It’s not that big a town. If I go out for breakfast or lunch, I usually go to the Sandburg Club. It has a pool and four tennis courts. You’ll be able to go there, too. My father-in-law created it.”

“You’re my father, but you can’t admit it, but you can admit to being my uncle? How can you make this work?”

The waitress came to take our plates, and Daddy ordered more coffee.

“I was always anticipating last night,” he said. “I mean, I hoped Mazy would live long enough to see you through public school and maybe even college. The money’s there, but…”

The waitress brought the coffee. He sipped some and looked up, as if he was trying to remember everything.

“I told sort of a half-lie to Ava. Your mother and I for the longest time were really brother and sister, as you know. I just… never told Ava that the woman I married was the woman brought up as my sister. She would have hated that.”

“Why?”

“It sounds incestuous. Anyway, I told her I had a sister who married a man in the navy and was a bit—well, not a bit, but completely estranged from our parents because they disapproved of the marriage… which our parents did, by the way, disapprove of us.”

“Felt it was incestuous?”

“Obviously it wasn’t, but as a result of all that, she and I were estranged from our parents as well. That’s what I told Ava.”

“Half-truths,” I said. “Lies as tools.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You remember that?”

“Why not? There’s so much of it in my life. And apparently, so much in yours.”

He winced now like someone slapped across the cheek.

“Anyway. So I had told Ava about my sister and told her that we were never close. I kept it vague enough, claiming it was painful to discuss. That’s worked.”

“I always believed that people who love each other can easily tell when one is lying,” I said. “I guess I was wrong.”

He closed and opened his eyes. Maybe I really was Mazy’s granddaughter in more ways than I had anticipated.

“It’s not lying so much as being creative to protect everyone. Anyway, I told Ava that my sister had a daughter, and last night, I told her a messenger had come to our house to tell me my sister had died. I didn’t know my brother-in-law had deserted her a year after you were born. Which is perfect, by the way.”

“Why?”

“This way, you don’t have to recall anything about your father.”

“You mean for me it’s like my father didn’t exist?”

“Yes,” he said, missing my point about him entirely.

After a moment, I asked, “What do you mean by a messenger?”

“I implied it came from the police, the chief himself. It’s all carefully laid out. You’ll see.”

“What if she asks the chief or says something and he tells her he doesn’t know what she’s talking about?”

“He won’t contradict what I said. He’ll play along.”

“Why?”

“I’m on the town board. I voted to give him the job, and my vote counts the most now.

“So,” he continued, “I told them that my niece was coming today. I sat with Ava and your… cousin Karen and explained you were coming to live with us and that I knew little about you except that you were an excellent student, in the tenth grade although you were only fourteen, because you were in an honors program, which is true, right?”

“I thought you said Mazy didn’t keep you up on all that.”

“Oh. I didn’t mean that part. I never heard about your having trouble at school or that stuff about witchcraft.”

Where were the lies, the tools? Where was the truth? How would I ever know? Could I live, even just breathe, in a world of so much deceit? I seriously now wondered if I should have done what I had been tempted to do last night and walked on past the Dew Drop Inn and caught a bus to anywhere.

“That trouble happened pretty soon after I began school,” I said. “Then she must have called you about my honors status. How else would you know?”

“Yes. A phone call from her was unusual. We only spoke when I called her.”

I thought for a moment.

“Maybe she thought something was happening to her and she had to call you finally,” I said.

“I don’t know. She didn’t say anything about herself. She was kind of proud of how you had handled your first day and your achieving honors status.”

“She was,” I practically whispered. She was so proud of me, I thought, and I had left her lying on her bed alone and her cat, poor Mr. Pebbles, wandering about looking for me.

“So let me tell you more,” my father said, his smile returning. I could see how proud he was of how well he thought this was going. For me, it was turning my stomach. I was sorry I had eaten anything first.

“Your cousin Karen’s in the ninth grade, and your baby cousin Garson, named after his great-grandfather, is almost a year old. We weren’t going to have any more children, even after we were officially married, but Ava was bored with her work at her father’s company, and with Karen a real teenager now, we just let it happen before Ava was too old to get pregnant. She’s thirty-nine.”

I was silent. I don’t know what he expected me to say. Great, I’ll have a new young mother? I’ll have a cousin instead of a half sister and a cousin instead of a half brother? Does that make it easier to accept? Did he really think this solved it all?

“My cousins,” I muttered.

“You could be a great help with Garson,” he added.

“What if I forget and call you Daddy?” I said. I think I said it more just to be difficult, to throw new problems in his way and maybe make him rethink his lies as tools. He was looking too confident.

However, I really could see myself doing it, calling him Daddy, especially when I was frightened or sad.

“Well, everyone will just think you had made a mistake or had come to accept me as someone in that role. I think Ava and Karen would feel sorrier for you than anything else.”

“Feel sorrier? Why?”

He shrugged. “Your need to have a father.”

“Don’t you think I did? I do?”

“Sure. You’ll claim that your fictional mother had boyfriends after her husband left you both, but none of them stuck.”

“None of them stuck? What if they ask me why not?”

“You can say anything that comes to mind. They drank too much, were on drugs, worthless, trying to live off her, anything you want. Those are good reasons why none of them stuck.”

“And what about describing my mother?”

“Just tell them what you remember about your real mother. I have some pictures you can use of Lindsey when she was in college. You don’t have any pictures of your father because he left so quickly, even before you were born.”

“Well, it’s true. I don’t have pictures of my father,” I said. “You didn’t leave any pictures with me. Just a coloring book.”

“Saffron…”

“I have it in my bag, you know. There are pictures still left to color.”

He pressed his lips together.

I looked out the window again. I could still just get up and run out.

“I really hope this will work,” he said. “For all of us.”

“Isn’t it easier to just tell the truth?”

“I’d have to explain everything,” he said.

“Everything? You mean leaving me at a train station and then pretending I don’t exist for years?”

He sipped his coffee, his eyes suddenly cooling, making him look distant, lost in his thoughts. I waited until he looked like he realized I was really sitting across from him. I imagined I looked ready to explode.

“Why make it so difficult, so complicated, for everyone now? If we do what I’ve planned here, the result will be the same. You’ll have a new home, a family. And as I told you, we’re an influential family in this community, too, Saffron. There are benefits.”

“So you work for Mr. Saddlebrook?”

“Yes. I’m his senior adviser. You’ll like the private school, Karen’s friends, everything.”

“Private school?”

“Yes. Grades kindergarten to twelve, too. It’s quite impressive, small class sizes, on a great property with a beautiful athletic field and running track. My father-in-law paid for the gymnasium. There’s a thousand-seat theater. Community theater projects often use it. Karen’s in the dramatics club. She’s quite the little actress already and very popular in school. She’s doing well in all her subjects, and she’s very helpful around the house and with Garson. In fact, Ava depends on her. We have a part-time nanny and a maid. It’s how Ava likes it. Karen’s very responsible, and she’s pretty because she looks more like Ava.”

The pleasure in his face when he talked about his new daughter was like a bee sting. Would I ever bring that pride and joy back into his face? How could I if he wasn’t even permitting me to be his daughter?

He stopped, probably because of the expression on my face.

“I know, I know. This is all making it tougher on you,” he said. He reached for my hand again; this time, I let him take it. His fingers felt warm. I was thrown back for a moment to his taking my hand when the three of us went somewhere. Sometimes in the later days, Mama would forget to hold my hand.

“But it’s going to be all right, Saffron. It will be. I’ll take care of all the arrangements at your new school. I’ll use a lot of what Mazy did. We have a great deal of influence there, obviously. Once you start, no one will question anything anyway.”

He signaled for the waitress to bring the bill.

“Where am I supposed to have lived?” I asked.

He reached into his pocket to produce a notepad.

“It’s all here,” he said, handing it to me. “The important facts. If you look troubled when answering questions Ava and Karen ask, they’ll slow down and maybe stop asking altogether. Last night I laid the groundwork. I explained how hard things have been for you and how it’s better to help you forget the life you had before this. So they’ll take it slowly, I hope.”

Maybe, as Mazy would say, that would be the silver lining in all this: I could forget the past.

I opened the cover of the notepad while he was paying the bill. When had he done this? Last night? Years ago, anticipating my arrival? When? Then again… why did it matter when?

Reading the fictionalization of my life wasn’t a shock. I had lived with fabrication ever since my father left me at the train station.

“Costa Mesa, California?”

“You mother moved there after your father deserted you. He was stationed in San Diego. You’ll see when you read through the details. Then you can go on the computer and study up on Costa Mesa and the whole area so you’ll feel more comfortable talking about it.”

“What computer?”

“Oh, I’ll buy you one right after we leave here. Didn’t you have one at Mazy’s?”

“She wasn’t fond of the way young people use them, but she had promised to buy me one for my next birthday.”

“Oh. What I think you should do is return to the Dew Drop Inn. I kept your room for the day. I’ll bring you the computer in an hour and make sure you know how to use it. After work, I’ll come get you, and we’ll say you flew into the Albany airport and took a bus to Sandburg Creek. You just arrived, and I picked you up at the bus station. You made your own travel arrangements because you didn’t want to be in the hands of any social service agency. You had no one else to help you. That will make Ava and Karen feel even sorrier for you.”

“I did flee to be sure I wasn’t in the hands of any social service agency.”

“See? We’re building around the truth. It’ll be like the first time you and I met, too. That will help make it work. Don’t be shocked or surprised at the questions I might ask in front of them. Just study those notes. Don’t worry. It’s all going to be just fine. You’ll have everything a daughter of mine would or should have.”

“Except a father,” I said.

He blew frustration through his lips.

“You’ll have a father in every way. I’ll be involved in your education, everything you do. You’ll be part of this family. There’ll be birthdays and Christmas. If you want, if it’s easier, call me Derick after a while. Karen fools around and calls me Derick sometimes. You guys are going to be great together.” He smiled. “I’m getting excited about this.”

Was he serious? Excited about being my uncle and not my father?

“Excited?”

“About making it work. Ava will be taking you for new clothes the moment she realizes you left with practically nothing. You could actually wear some of Karen’s clothes for the time being. I can see you guys wearing each other’s things. You’re about the same size, height. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were the same shoe size. Karen’s a generous girl. She’ll be willing to share.

“We’ll work on the guest room and make it really your room. Ava will enjoy doing that. You can tell her what your favorite color is, and she’ll buy more for your room.”

“Fictional or real color? Is it in the notepad?”

“What? No, real, of course. There’s nothing like that in there, just important basic facts. Ava will get you new bedding and maybe change curtains and get area rugs, bathroom towels, everything. Karen will love being involved, too. She’ll be happy to help you make decisions, share ideas, I’m sure.”

I stared at him. It seemed redundant, useless to ask, but I wanted to ask if she was generous enough to share her father.

“Look,” he said, “I know in the beginning this is going to be hard for both of us, but it will work, and you’ll have a real family again. And eventually, we’ll all be living in Saddlebrook. It’s a magnificent estate. We could live there now, but as I told you, Ava likes being independent from her father. It’s going to be fantastic.” He paused, then added, “Trust me.”

It was as if those two words were the magic words that would unlock a chest of images. Trust me? If I closed my eyes, I could remember and see him taking my hand and leading me to the train. I could hear him talking about our new home, our new beginning, how now I would go to a real school, not a homeschool, and have friends and parties. He was going to buy me so many nice things to replace what went up in smoke. He’d be with me all the time and work hard at making me happy.

Didn’t he fix my collar and give me a kiss on the cheek before he turned and closed his eyes as our train began to leave?

And what about Mama? What about the way we stopped talking about her?

“You want something more to eat? You hardly ate.”

I blinked, returning to today.

“No,” I said.

“Then let’s go. I’ll walk you back to the Dew Drop Inn and then go get the computer. I’ll show you the basics before I leave you for work. Kids your age pick it up quickly. Karen had a computer when she was four. And I’ll get you a cell phone tomorrow, too, one of those great smartphones.”

“Whom am I going to call? Certainly no one back in Hurley.”

“Oh, you’ll have friends, lots of friends, and you’ll have my number when you want to talk or need something, and I’m sure Ava will want you to have her number, and Karen will want you to have hers. Kids your age practically live and breathe those things. Give it all a chance, Saffron. You’ll see. After a short while, it will be like you were always here.”

Was I always in your heart? Did you ever dream about me? Did you ever cry about me? I wanted to ask so many questions, but he rose. I put the notepad in my pocket and followed him out. We walked quickly back to the hotel. I felt like I was being smuggled into it. He kept his head down, avoiding greeting anyone. Before he left to buy my computer, he handed me an envelope.

“There are fourteen pictures of your mother when she was in college and three of you around age two with her. Put them in your bag,” he said, “with your new birth certificate. Okay?”

“So you’ll tell people my real father’s name was Dazy?”

“Nothing to worry about,” he said.

I took the envelope so gently someone would think it was hot.

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

After he had left, I sat on the chair by the small desk, with the envelope in my hand, and just stared at the door. Despite all his assurances, I was more frightened than I had been when I stepped off the train and walked to the taxi. From the moment I had laid eyes on it, there was something about this world that had seemed unreal, a too-picture-perfect place. I was afraid that anyone who saw me would know immediately that I didn’t belong here. It was as if I had walked onto a stage and everyone around me was an actor. They would take one look at me and know I wasn’t one. How did I get on their stage? Why?

I took out the small notepad. My part was in here. Later, when my father picked me up to take me to his new home where his new family lived, I would be the character in this pad, in this play. It had been so long since I had thought of myself as Saffron Faith Anders anyway. Mazy was the first to write a new part for me to play, when she had my name changed and got me my new birth certificate. Last night, the train had only brought me to a new stage, not to the reunion I had imagined.

What of my real self would remain after all this began?

Before I went back to reading the information in the notepad, I opened the envelope and spread the pictures out on the top of the small desk. All those tears that had been threatening to rush out at the restaurant emerged. I felt them zigzagging down my cheeks and dripping off. The sight of my mother released so much more. Childhood memories flowed as if the dam that had held them back for years had crumbled. I could hear her voice and her laughter. I heard her singing me to sleep and going through my spelling and math lessons.

My body was trembling so hard. My screams flooded my throat. The rasping sobs kept them from emerging. My ribs ached. I embraced myself and rocked in the chair the way I had rocked on the train-station bench years ago when I realized Daddy had left me and felt the cold night, trying to claim myself forever in the darkness.

Finally, I caught my breath, sucked back my tears, and went to the bathroom to wash my face and clean away the streaks the tears had drawn across my cheeks. Then, after a few deep gasps, I returned to the desk and put the pictures back in the envelope and into my bag with my new birth certificate and my coloring book with its yellowed pages.

I returned to the pad and began reading details about myself. As he had said, he had noted that I wasn’t happy with any of the men my mother had dated, and there was even a reference to one being too familiar with me. That was the reason my mother dropped that particular one. Everything was done in a general way. I could elaborate on the details of anything I wanted. It would be like he and I were coauthors of the same fictional biography, my own soap opera.

Was I going to be born again, emerging from the cocoon that had been my world with Mazy? I hated to admit it, but I could probably accept this fiction and convince anyone else that it was true. This was the ultimate lie as a tool, I thought. It didn’t surprise me that my father was so good at it. He had been for so long.

And now maybe I would be.

He knocked on the door and rushed in with my new laptop computer.

“It was all set up in minutes,” he said. “Take a seat.”

I did, and he showed me how to connect to Wi-Fi and begin the research, pulling up my fictional hometown immediately.

“Enjoy it. You can see the world on a computer these days.”

He checked his watch.

“I’ll return at four thirty, and we’ll take you to your new home.”

I sat there looking up at him.

“Oh, just call reception. They’ll order you whatever you want for lunch. Okay?”

How had such a simple word as okay become so hard to say? It was almost profanity. Okay to what? To no more Daddy, to no more truth?

My new life had become very expensive.

I just nodded.

He put his hand on my shoulder. Did he want me to look up at him, invite him to kiss my cheek? I stared at the computer screen.

“See you later,” he said.

Yes, I thought, see you later, Daddy, just the way I expected I would when I sat on a train-station bench and opened my new coloring book years ago.