Sometimes you think you know more than you really do—people, events, things that are true and things that are not. Sometimes you think you know yourself. But then, surprise, it is someone else who shows you what is really there, like the truth a photograph shows.
It was Alice’s journal that turned a light on the day that Phillip was lost and began to speak. Alice is, after all, what Daddy calls the real spy.
It was soon after all that had happened—on a summer day, no wind—when Alice showed it to us.
ALICE’S JOURNAL
Our life is back to the same. Maybe a little bit the same.
Of all of us Zoe is the hero. She’s quiet and doesn’t say as much as I do, but she’s the hero. She went out in the rain and hail and wind all by herself that day to find Phillip and Jack. I should try to be more like Zoe.
Phyllis and I had a long time to talk. Mama was right. Underneath everything I thought she was, Phyllis is nice.
When I asked her if Mr. Croft was a spy, she laughed for a long time. She laughed a nice laugh, not a Lena laugh. I’m not disappointed to find out that Mr. Croft is a librarian! Think of a life surrounded by books and quiet.
I told Phyllis that was more exciting than a spy. I asked her if he talked, and she told me he was more comfortable with books than with people.
“Does he know books and people are the same thing?” I asked.
Phyllis smiled at me.
“Not always,” she said.
Phillip adopted Jack as his own rescue dog. They are happy. He has gone home to his parents, who solved their problem. Phillip hasn’t stopped talking. He writes us very talky letters.
We have adopted Callie. She and Kodi are soul mates, Daddy says.
Phyllis and the silent Mr. Croft decided to stay in the rental house next door for a year. Phyllis is very fond of Callie and Kodi. They visit her often, brushing up against her drapes and lying on her furniture. Phyllis is getting quite good at cleaning white fur flying off her furniture and clothes and Mr. Croft.
Sometimes when Mr. Croft goes out to his car in his dark suit, Phyllis comes running after him, rolling a sticky tape up and down his trousers.
Daddy has not found a home for Lena. It may be a secret to everyone, even to Daddy, but I think he loves Lena. I have started reading poetry to her, and Lena spouts it back.
“I wandered lonely as a cloud!”
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
And Lena’s favorite, a Mary Oliver poem:
I have a little dog who likes to nap with me.
He climbs on my body and puts his face in my neck
He is sweeter than soap.
Lena’s version, while short, is still poetry. She says, “I have a little dog . . . sweeter than soap.”
Then we put the cover over her cage.
Mama has new dogs coming. It is no secret to anyone that Mama loves to rescue dogs.
Things change.
Things don’t change.
Lena’s right.
You can’t know.
—Alice Cassidy