While the police search the ledge, I escape to Whale Rock to be alone. Dangling my legs into the murky waters of Otter Creek, my mind spins. Emily dead? My father her killer? I try to picture him tying bows on her Nikes, scattering corn kernels inside, and then placing them with the page of a book—like a eulogy—into the crevice, but I can’t.
But then, I guess, what daughter thinks her father is capable of murder?
I kick my legs and watch the diamond beads scatter on the surface. It’s hot on the rock and I can feel the skin on my shoulders burning, but I don’t care. My mind wanders back to Jalen—why did he kiss me in the first place?
“Paige,” my father’s voice says.
I turn around, disappointed that it’s not Jalen who has come to tell me that he’s changed his mind, that what he feels for me is more than friendship.
My father squats down on the rock next to me. “You okay? I’ve been texting you.” Behind his dark glasses, his eyes are impossible to read. “It’s time to go.”
“Okay.” But I don’t get up, and after a moment he sinks onto the rock beside me. I stare straight ahead, into the creek. It looks still and serene, but I know you can’t see the current or the water snakes beneath the surface.
“Do you remember the time you gave your Barbie a water burial?” He doesn’t wait for me to reply. “It rained and the current got her. You didn’t cry. You tested the flow of the stream with different-sized sticks and saw where they got tangled. It took you three days, but you found your Barbie.”
I remember that, but I’m surprised that he does and that he would bring it up now. When I glance at him, I see he’s taken off his sunglasses. His blue eyes, for once, are soft.
“You’re strong, Paige. You’re going to get through this.” His gaze stays steady on my face. “I’ve hired a lawyer. Her name is Bonita Begay. If something happens, if the police arrest me, I want you to call her. And then call your mother. I’ve arranged for you to stay with the Shums until she can get here.”
He hasn’t said he’s innocent. I ball my hands together so tightly my fingernails bite into my skin. “Why did Stuart Lowe take out a restraining order against you?”
He goes very still, as if the question holds him at gunpoint. A line of sweat rolls down the side of his face, but he makes no move to wipe it away. And then his shoulders seem to sag a little. “Because I threatened him.”
“Why?”
“Because I was angry. I made a mistake.”
“What happened? How am I supposed to believe you didn’t have anything to do with Emily’s disappearance if you won’t talk to me?”
He opens his mouth as if he’s going to speak and then shuts it again. Finally, he says. “You have to trust me, Paige. What happened in New Jersey has nothing to do with whatever happened to Emily.”
He wants me to let it go, but I can’t. “You told the police it was about custody. Were you and Stuart fighting over who got me?” Is it wrong to hope they were? That my father wanted me—wanted me so badly he lost his temper?
He gives me a small half-smile. “No, honey. You had nothing to do with it.”
I look away. It’s never about me and never will be. When am I going to figure that out and stop hoping for more? And still, something tenacious and unrelenting won’t let me drop it. “If it wasn’t me, wasn’t about the custody, why did you tell that to the police?”
“It became a custody issue, but it didn’t start out as one. Let’s drop this, okay? We really need to get going. The lawyer’s office closes at five.”
He starts to rise, but I stay exactly where I am. “Stop treating me like I’m a little kid. Why won’t you tell me the truth?”
“Because you’re my child. I love you.”
“That isn’t love.” I feel the frustration and fury shoot through my veins like acid, eating me up inside. Pulling my knees to my chest, I lower my head. He’d rather be arrested than tell me about Stuart Lowe. What could possibly be so bad?
He taps my leg. “Let’s get going. I’ll even spring for takeout pizza tonight.”
“Did you threaten him verbally or physically?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
He sighs. “Physically, but I didn’t mean it. I just got carried away.”
What could possibly make him so mad? If it wasn’t me and it wasn’t custody, then what? The only person left is my mother. My mother?
I look up. He’s turned so that he’s facing the water and seems so lost in his thoughts he might as well be alone.
“Why did you keep those photos of you and Mom? I found them in your drawer.”
He stiffens. “You were in my room?”
“You hate her, and yet you kept those photos. Why?”
“You shouldn’t have been going through my things.”
“You physically threatened Stuart Lowe, who just happens to be engaged to Mom. It was about her, wasn’t it?” And then suddenly another piece falls into place—the dream about my mother. You were dreaming, Paige. You didn’t see him. What if it hadn’t been a dream but a memory?
“Don’t, Paige,” my father says, but it’s too late.
I remember the night my parents were arguing and how the word affair came out, sharply, like a curse. But it wasn’t the college girls hanging out in my father’s office. He hadn’t been the one having an affair. The truth explodes inside me, shattering me in a thousand new ways and leaving me feeling incredibly stupid for not seeing it.
“Mom was having an affair with Stuart Lowe. You found out and threatened him. That’s the affair I heard you and Mom arguing about that night.”
His face is somehow terrible in its stillness.
“Mom was having an affair.” Repeating it a second time doesn’t make it any less awful.
“There are things you don’t understand.”
“I think I understand this pretty well.” My voice rises. “How could you not tell me? Why did you let me believe you were to blame?”
He looks at me a long time. I see the weariness in his eyes. “The marriage failed. Leave it at that.”
“Mom cheated. How long?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He holds up his hand. “Before you start blaming your mother, being angry at her, I want you to know that I don’t blame her for what she did. Well…maybe a little.” He smiles wryly. “But the truth is that I closed my eyes when I knew she wasn’t happy. I took jobs that kept me away from home for weeks, months sometimes. People get lonely. I haven’t always understood that very well.” He looks at me sadly. “But I do now.”
When was the last time my father and I talked like this? Have we ever? It hurts to look at him, to see the pain in his eyes. And I remember Emily telling me what a broken, lonely man he was when he arrived in Arizona. I never saw that person until now.
“You should have talked to me. You should have said something. You barely even said goodbye. Dad, you acted like you didn’t even care that you were leaving.”
“I’m sorry. I just didn’t know what to say to you.” He shakes his head. “I’m so sorry.”
He’d had plenty to say to my mother. I think of their arguments in the weeks leading up to the divorce. He closed me out. Why was it so hard to talk to me? And then I know the answer—because I wouldn’t have listened. I was too angry. Every time he came near me, I’d wanted to hurt him as much as I could. I took Mom’s side without ever giving him a chance to tell his.
I see the deep lines on his face and the sadness in his eyes. When he puts his arm around me, I lean into the warmth of his body. He was protecting my mother by not admitting that it was her affair that caused the divorce, and he was trying to protect me, too. He knew me well enough to understand that, if I’d discovered what she did, it would make me hate her, as I hated him, and he didn’t want that to happen.
I still have so many questions, but right now, letting him hold me, knowing what he did was done out of love, is enough.