Kallie’s father stood on the porch, his arms folded, his black Oxford shoe tapping a nervous rhythm. A crease deeper than the Grand Canyon divided his forehead.
“Where have you been? I’ve been sick with worry. And what are you wearing?”
Kallie’s heart squeezed up and, for a moment, she could neither move nor stand still. Her head swam with all the things she wanted to say.
“There was something I needed to do…” she began, but he cut her off.
“I see. Well, I can’t believe you’d be so irresponsible. So unpredictable. So…”
“I know the truth,” she said suddenly, her voice so tight the words nearly strangled her. In the distance, she heard a low rumble. Above, the raven-feather clouds were gathering again.
Her father bristled. His eyes narrowed to slits. “What truth?”
She trembled with anger and fear, but she held her ground. “The truth about what happened to my mother.”
No sooner had the words escaped her lips, than her father turned a ghostly shade of pale. He wobbled slightly and then steadied himself against the doorframe. He looked as though he might be ill.
“Who told you?” His voice was flat, emotionless.
Her father had always been strong and sturdy, as unmovable and unbendable as an old oak tree. His sudden weakness was a shock, but Kallie continued. She raised her chin, firing words at him like pointy darts.
“I heard you talking with Grandpa Jess. You said you did it for my sake. You said Grandpa should let sunken truths stay sunk. I met the woman at the Dollar Basket. I saw the insurance policy.”
Her father closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, they were dull. Resigned. As though something had drained from them.
“I knew this day might come,” he said. “But I’d hoped it wouldn’t.”
Kallie felt a fury violent and powerful zip through her body. “You killed her! You pushed my mother into the lake and she drowned! You got rid of her and just hoped I would never find out?”
Her father startled. His jaw slackened, and his eyes grew as wide as saucers. He looked at Kallie as though she were something grotesque and alien, as though she had just sprouted another head.
The color flooded back into his cheeks, turning them a deep scarlet. He ran his hands through his perfectly combed hair, mussing it. A half smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Is that what you think?”
“I put all the facts together,” said Kallie, her words now like nails meant to catch him and hold him in place. “Everything I heard you and Grandpa Jess talking about. You did it for my sake. You killed her for my sake.”
“Come on in,” he said softly, holding the door open. “It’s time I tell you the truth. The real truth.”
Kallie eyed him suspiciously. What sort of trick was this? She’d finally said out loud what she had been thinking for some time, and yet now that the truth was out, it was hard to reconcile the image of her father—the man who had always been there for her, the man who, despite his rigidness, had never so much as hurt a fly—and that of a coldhearted killer.
She clutched the leather satchel close to her chest and followed him inside.
“Sit down,” he said, pulling out one of the kitchen chairs and seating himself in another. Tentatively, she slipped into the seat.
“So,” he began, looking her straight in the eye. “You believe I killed your mother?”
“Yes,” she said firmly. “You had an insurance policy. When I went into your closet to look for the box, I saw it. You were going to divorce, but instead of paying for it, you got rid of her and then got the insurance money.”
“That box.” He sighed and shook his head. “I knew it was trouble the first time I saw it. I just knew it would fuel your imagination.”
“It’s not my imagination. And my mother’s drowning has nothing to do with the box.”
He tried to reach for her. She leaned away.
“Grandpa Jess warned me, but I didn’t listen. He said I would pay for what I’d done. Well, now I suppose that time has finally come. Only it’s not what you think.”
Kallie wore the damp satchel like a bulletproof vest protecting her from what she was about to hear. Though she had expected his confession to hurt, she was not prepared for what was to come.
“I didn’t kill your mother,” he said softly. Kallie began to protest, but before she could say a word, he added, “Your mother’s not dead.”
For one bewildering moment, Kallie struggled to make sense of what her father had said. His words were so calm, so gentle, and yet they were like a punch to her stomach. Kallie felt the wind knocked out of her. Her arms fell limp, and the satchel made a thud on the floor. She could barely breathe, let alone manage to get words out.
“No.” She shook her head. “You’re lying … She can’t be … She’s dead…”
“She’s not,” her father repeated. “She’s very much alive and living in Montreal.”
“No,” said Kallie again, grappling to understand his words, but it was like trying to recall a faint melody heard only once. “She can’t be … She’s not … She’s alive?”
Outside, there was another rumble, and rain came down so hard and so suddenly, it was as if the sky had broken open.
Kallie’s father reached for her arm, but she yanked it away. Her thoughts spun like the needle of a compass pointing in one direction. No body had ever been found. Could it possibly be? All these years, had her mother been alive? Kallie looked at her father, and it all suddenly made sense, and it was her turn to feel sick.
She sprang to her feet and raced for the door, bolting out into the pouring rain. She wanted to run. Run and run and never stop.
Her father came after her. He grabbed hold of her arm, pulled her toward him, and held tight. She thrashed and struggled to free herself from his embrace, and when she had not an ounce of energy left to fight, she gave up, exhausted, and he let her go. They stood staring at each other.
“You lied to me,” she gasped. “All this time, you’ve been lying to me.” The pouring rain did nothing to quell the fire raging within her.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Not at first.”
He took a step toward her, but she backed away.
“At first,” he said, “I believed what she had wanted me to believe—that she had drowned. It was the worst day of my life, Kallie. And it didn’t end—it went on and on as they searched for her body and never found her. I thought she was gone forever. I really truly believed it when I told you.”
The rain soaked through his suit. His hair flopped down in his face. For the first time, he didn’t look perfect. Or in control.
“Maybe it would have been best if it just stayed that way, but it was that insurance policy. They rarely pay out if there is no firm evidence a person is, in fact, gone. They sent investigators, and after a year of searching, they found her. Living in Montreal. With a musician named Claude.”
“But … how?”
“She must have planned it,” he said. “I don’t know. One moment she was on the ferry. The next, she was gone…”
Kallie couldn’t move as the new truth soaked into her bones along with the rain. She couldn’t decide what was worse. Her mother dead. Her father a killer. Or that she had been abandoned. Unloved.
Her father reached for her and pulled her toward him. He held her in such a tight embrace she thought he’d squeeze the life out of her.
“She left us, Kallie. Just like that. And you had already done so much grieving. You were so little and so resilient, and you had found a way to live and move on. I couldn’t hurt you all over again. I decided to just let you believe she was dead.”
“But it’s your fault. You made her work at that store. You made her unhappy when all she wanted to do was write.”
“Yes. She was unhappy working at the store. And yes, I asked her to do it. But you don’t know why.”
She looked at him. His eyes filled with a sorrow so deep it seemed bottomless.
“Your mother was different. I loved her with all my heart, but it was like trying to love the sunshine or the wind or the steam devils that dance on the lake. She was never all here. Never all present. Her mind was always somewhere far, far away. One day, I came home from work and found you staggering at the top of the steps in a diaper that hadn’t been changed all day. She said she’d simply lost track of time. And it wasn’t just once. She did that a lot. Yes, I wanted her to get that job, but so that Grandpa could take care of you … so you could be safe and well-cared-for and…”
“All my life,” said Kallie, blood beating in her ears, “you told me not to believe stories. You told me stories were terrible things. They were lies. And yet you told me the biggest lie of all.”
He hung his head, and then she realized it wasn’t the rain. For the first time in her life, her father was crying.
Nothing Kallie knew or believed was right anymore. All her memories clattered in her mind, knocking against one another. How could she have believed her father was a killer? How could he have lied to her all these years? Nothing made sense. It was as if her whole world had been made of glass and someone had thrown a giant rock, shattering it.
She had to leave. Had to get away. She turned and prepared to run, but before she could take a step, her father’s cell phone rang.
“It’s the hospital,” he said.