“Don’t say that. There could be important things you don’t want to lose.”
Dad blinked, but his bland expression didn’t change. “You’re right.” He reached into a drawer and handed me a pair of scissors. “You begin and I’ll call Florina for a large sausage and olive.”
I sliced open a box and was pulling out the last flat object wrapped in cream moving paper when Dad joined me. I unwrapped a picture of our family taken when I was about two and placed it on Dad’s desk next to the six I had already unpacked. I’d been right—and not surprised—to find the box filled with a collection of family pictures he hadn’t missed.
Dad glanced at the seven pictures propped on his desk before sliding the scissors off a copy of the Harvard Law Review and slicing into another box. “So . . . ?”
It was easier to work than look at him. I hauled another box from the corner. “I saw Mat Hammond today. He said he spoke with you.”
Dad worked his way into the box for a few beats before answering. “He did. He said you were friends in college. That, of course, didn’t change the conversation. If he prints his story, I said I’d pursue legal action. I should have guessed he’d contact you. What did you say?”
“What was there to say? He claimed Aunt Caroline was a Nazi and I told him she died when she was seven. But he had a letter from 1941. I brought it with me.” I stepped over the mess of packing paper to grab my bag from the kitchen.
Dad followed me.
I handed him the sheet.
“I don’t understand.” He glanced between the sheet and me.
I pointed to the page. “Me neither, but those are your grandparents’ names and there—”
“No, I don’t understand why you told him that. The childhood polio story isn’t going to put him off, Caroline.” I pulled back as Dad shoved the paper into my hands. It crumpled between us. “He’s right and you, of all people, know that. I hoped a bluff would stop him, because if he goes to print, there’s nothing I can do.” Dad’s hands dropped to his sides. “You can’t sue over the truth, but lying only makes it worse.”
“I didn’t know I was lying.”
Dad stared at me and I’d never felt less like his daughter. His stare was blank—I was a conundrum or a mystery he’d never encountered.
“Are you serious?” he finally asked. “How can you not remember that day? We only found out because of you.”
“Me?” I perched on the stool again. Something dark and shapeless crept into the corners of my mind. A rainy day. A stiff conversation. Shock and hurt.
Dad lowered himself onto the stool next to me. His eyes never left mine and I struggled not to look away or even blink.
“We were at the London House. You were eight. I remember because it was our first trip after . . .” He ran out of words. We always did when confronted with my sister. “Jason couldn’t come, and you went digging about in that infernal attic. You found a trunk full of diaries and letters, papers and books. It spilled out from there.”
“What spilled out from there?” I felt like I was leading a witness in a law school evidence class.
Dad straightened his neck. Every time he made that gesture, a sharp retreat of his chin, he reminded me of a turtle. There was so much we avoided. So much we never said. I was more familiar with that gesture than I was with anything else about my father.
He pushed off the stool and stepped back into his study. I followed.
He unwrapped the object he’d left lying on top of the box. A stapler. “I’ve been missing this.”
“What spilled out from there?” I repeated the question, slowly with perfect diction. That got his attention.
“I don’t want to talk about it. It’s in the past and it will remain there, at least for us.” He busied himself digging through packing paper. He straightened, another cream paper–wrapped mystery in his hands. “We don’t need to comment on his article or even read it. I won’t tread that ground again. I can’t. I—”
Dad stopped, and it felt as if he’d started to fall into memories before he recalled I was standing there to witness it. He looked straight at me. “I’ve tried and tried to believe that what one does in this life matters, that what came before doesn’t have to taint it, but I was wrong. This betrayal has followed me my whole life, and now its publication will bookend my entire existence.” He blew out a long, measured breath. “Please, Caroline. Don’t make it worse. Don’t speak to that man again.”
“I have to.” I felt my face warm. “In exchange for time to talk to you and to read his article in advance, I agreed to comment.” I rushed on. “It’s important to know what he’s going to say before it comes out.”
“No, it’s not. Beyond the event itself, there’s a narrative that plays here. What did Shakespeare say? ‘The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.’ I’m sure there was some good to my aunt. Even my mother couldn’t disguise how much she loved her, but . . . What she did? I somehow doubt eighty years has made us more forgiving or less interested in the misfortunes of others. There is no point in engaging with any of this. Ever.”
Dad swept a hand over his face, pulling at his eyes, his cheeks, and his neck with the downward motion. He looked a lifetime older than his seventy-two years. I wondered if the cancer was changing him faster than he was letting on. But again, that was something he’d never tell me.
He sighed. “How do you think it felt growing up in that . . . in that choking blackness and never understanding why? Until that day, I never understood what was different about us, why there was no light or peace in our home.”
My lips parted. In describing his childhood, he had described mine.
He pulled the paper from the object he held in his hands. He gripped it tight and I noticed his nails whiten with the pressure.
He placed the picture on his desk with all the others. It was one of our family, the last photo in which we were whole, taken in the summer of 2002 right before Jason left for college. Amelia had her arm wrapped around me tight in a protective posture. Only one year older, but she always looked after me. Our matching grins formed the picture’s focal point.
“When is enough enough?” Dad sighed.
I nodded, but not in agreement.
Three
“We only found out because of you.”
I rolled over and watched the first strands of day creep through the crack in my curtains. The light was just enough that I could discern the scattering of purple tulips across the cream fabric. I had been so excited to hang those last year.