Lily
If Meg had seen a ghost, I’m not sure her face would have registered more surprise and confusion than it did when she opened the door at 6:30 a.m. and saw me standing there, dumb apologetic smile on my face, flanked on both sides by the strong, swarthy, young men.
“Meg. I’m sorry. Let me explain—” I moved past her, followed by Arturo and Juan, introducing them as we entered. It was early enough that Aaron hadn’t gone out to work. He sat at the table eating an unidentifiable breakfast.
I explained how the questions the night before, followed by the reaction to the name Trinia Nelson, had spooked me into taking off. I told how my friend Arturo had followed me and about our meeting in the night. They listened quietly.
“But you came back?” Aaron asked, after his customary initial silence.
I nodded. “Arturo convinced me that Abner and Evelyn were trustworthy and that if I could trust them, then I could trust you.”
The couple smiled at Arturo and Juan. “Thank you,” Meg said to them.
“I’m sorry. I guess I’m not thinking clearly.”
“It’s understandable,” Aaron said, but I could tell he didn’t mean it, that he had no patience for panicked indiscretion.
“However, you need to start thinking clearly at all times. I’m not sure how you play into everything, but there can be no mistakes.” I knew it.
Meg mouthed, It’s okay.
Aaron looked at the three of us teenagers. “So,” he asked, “are you ready to talk?”
I looked at Arturo and Juan. Juan shrugged his shoulders. Arturo spoke, “Sir, I am not part of the Network. But I can help. You can trust me.” He put out his hand. Aaron took it and they shook, eye to eye.
“Thank you,” Aaron said.
All eyes turned to me. It’s what I had wanted. The dreams of grandeur, the secret plots I’d imagined and journaled about, the words I had pronounced to Clare and Dante in the apartment that day—Lily Gardener, you will help change the world—ringing in my ears. Here the moment was, and I felt like a chicken.
I started by telling Aaron that Trinia Nelson had visited Rose within the past two weeks. I explained everything I knew about the questions asked of Rose, the accusations and threats thrown at Ana.
“What’s so special about your town, your friends, that Trinia herself was there? Do you know for a fact it was her?”
I hesitated. I knew what was special about my town, but so far, I had told no one about my father.
Arturo, bless his heart, tried to answer for me. Maybe he saw me tiring, stressing out a little. What he told them held the key.
“A great leader of Seed Savers once begin there. Then, Trinia trick everyone,” he said.
No one said anything.
“Understand?” he checked, a bit embarrassed at the silence, wondering, maybe, if his English was to blame.
“It’s good,” I assured him.
I saw when it happened. Aaron put it together first, but Meg wasn’t far behind. The click when James Gardener, Lily Gardener fit together—the check on my age, my Amerasian features.
And then I felt guilty. Because Arturo didn’t know.
I glanced at him quickly. “I’m sorry.” And then to them, “Arturo doesn’t know.”
“What? What Arturo doesn’t know?” Arturo asked. He turned to Juan, speaking in Spanish, trying to figure out what he had missed.
“No sé, bro. I think this is what we call a secret.”
Without meeting his gaze, I answered. “Arturo, the leader of the Movement—the one who was tricked and went to jail—his name is James Gardener. He’s my father.”
He didn’t try to make me feel bad. In fact, quite the opposite. He laughed a little.
“Oh brother,” he said. “So big deal.”
But he couldn’t hide it. In the second before his facade of nonchalance, I saw the pain of my deception blow across his face like a gentle breeze. The way the corners of his mouth lowered slightly, the sadness in his eyes.
We all saw it.
Aaron saved me; he repeated his question as if my disclosure meant nothing.
“So you are absolutely sure it was Trinia?”
I admitted I didn’t know for certain but that from Ana’s past description and Rose’s recent encounter, I believed it was. Then he grilled me on when I left, who I told what, and my route and mode of transportation. He didn’t need to ask where I was headed; he had figured that out already.
“What does your mom know?”
“About what?”
“About all of this—your activities, the arrest and interrogations, the visits to Ana?”
“Nothing.” I said it slowly. By the end of the last syllable I realized how naive I’d been. “So you think GRIM keeps an eye on Ma?”
“I’m not sure if it’s their official policy anymore; it is true they’ve cut their staff in recent years … but many people in the Network believe Trinia’s “attachment” to James never completely ended … she has a special animosity toward your mother.
“Lily, look, kid,” Aaron continued, “your father was in Cuba. But he’s been out for seven months.” His eyes were focused on his hands, sprawled out on the table in front of us. He looked up, meeting my gaze. “He escaped.”
I was floored. My whole life, my dad had been dead. Then he was alive, yet imprisoned. Now I discovered he was out and had been for half a year. And he didn’t come home. Try to find me. I felt the air drain out of my lungs, and I had to remind myself to breathe. How much more of this could I take?
“Trinia has probably kept an eye out to see if your dad contacted your mom in any way.”
I got up and left the room, tears streaming down my face. Abandoned again. It didn’t matter why.