My mom looked very shaky. I patted the bed down by my knees. “Come sit down.”
Absentmindedly, she did. “That year,” she went on, “over Christmas vacation, your father went away to visit family. He was gone for a week. Somehow, Derin heard that he was gone, and he started climbing the tree outside my window at night and tapping on the pane. I turned him away two times, but on the third night, he said he was leaving to go home soon, and he had to tell me something before he left.” She closed her eyes. “God forgive me. I let him in.
“For the rest of the week, I let him in every time he knocked. He would stay until just before dawn, and then sneak away. The night before your father returned to town, I forbade Derin to ever come back—and he never did.”
“What did he need to tell you?” I asked.
My mom frowned. “You know what? I don’t remember.”
Kit let out a long sigh.
“When school started up again,” my mom went on, “Derin had gone back to Istanbul. I never saw him again. By spring break, I had figured out that I was pregnant, and by summer your dad had figured it out, too. He assumed the baby was his, and I didn’t correct him. It could have been. He was so happy about it. He proposed, and I accepted, and I pretended that Derin Buruk never existed.”
“Until I had my blood tested,” Kitty said.
My mom shook her head. “Until the moment I first saw you. Right then, I knew.”
“Do you hate him? The guy?” Kit asked then.
“No,” my mom said. “I don’t hate him. Not anymore.”
“Do you hate me?”
“No!” my mother said.
“But when you look at me, do you see him?”
“Sometimes. You got his eyelashes.”
“You always said they were Huron.”
My mom gave a little sorry shrug.
“Does it make you feel guilty?”
“Sometimes. Or afraid.”
Kitty nodded. “That Dad might find out and not love me anymore.”
My mom shook her head. “That he might find out and not love me anymore.”
I nodded at Kit. “You never did anything wrong.”
My mom agreed. “He’s adored you from day one.”
“Mom is a little trickier.”
My mom let out a nervous laugh.
“Well, he’s not going to find out,” Kit said then, looking at me.
Was it morally wrong to collude against him? I didn’t really care right then. “I’ll never tell.”
“Neither will I.”
My mom looked physically deflated now, as if releasing all those secrets had emptied her out. She kept her eyes on Kit.
“You’re kind of his favorite, you know,” I said.
“I know,” Kit said. “Just barely.”
“He always took your side over Mom’s.”
“I know.”
“I’m glad for that,” our mom said. “I’m glad you had each other.”
Then, in the little pause that followed, we heard a voice out in the hallway, just outside the room.
“Can I help you with something, sir?” a voice asked.
At first, there was no reply, but then a man cleared his throat. “No,” he said. “No. I just … forgot my keys.”
My mom’s eyes went wide. Because it was Dad.
The nurse bustled on past him into the room, leaving the door open behind her, and all three of us turned to see my dad, frozen still at the threshold of the door, eyes not quite focused, gazing uncomprehendingly in our direction.
“I’m so sorry,” he said after a minute, a little breathless, his face blank with shock. “I came back to get the car keys. But I found myself eavesdropping instead.”
Twenty-four
MY MOTHER RAN to him, a sob like I’d never heard escaping her throat, but he blocked her and stepped back.
He didn’t meet her eyes.
“Come on, Kitty,” he said, not meeting hers, either. “You’ve got a flight to catch.”
“Cliff—” my mom started.
“No!” my dad barked, and she caught her breath.
Then, in slow motion, he reached down for Kitty’s suitcase, walked over to slide the car keys out of my mom’s purse, and left the room without a word.
My mother’s legs collapsed from under her, but Kitty caught her and steered her over to the bedside chair.
“I’m sorry—I’m so sorry,” Kit said. “I’ll talk to him.”
My mom lifted a trembling hand to her mouth.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said. “We’re going to fix this. He loves you.”
Kit had a flight to catch. She met my eyes. “You’ve got this, right?”
I nodded, though I wasn’t at all sure that I did. “Don’t miss the plane.”
Kit came my way and squeezed me tight. “Call me if you need me.”
“Not if,” I said, “when.”
“At least you’re not bored,” Kit said then.
“Maybe we’ll all be better for knowing,” I said. But as I glanced at my mother, now catatonic in the face of what had just happened, it was hard to imagine how.
*
MY FATHER DID not come back for us after the airport. In my whole life, he had never ever not been there when I needed him.
But I got it.
He sent a car service instead.
It took my mother twice as long as anyone could have predicted to pack up and dismantle the décor, and the driver waited in the hall in his driving cap.
My mother, it’s fair to say, couldn’t seem to focus.
I tried to issue suggestions and encouragement from the bed, but she wound up walking around the room, picking things up randomly and setting them back down. She’d pack a few things, only to lose focus and leave others behind in the cabinet.
Meanwhile, nurses and patients popped in and out, saying good-bye.
I didn’t expect to see Ian, of course. Myles probably had security set up around the perimeter. But, despite all the pressing drama of the day, I couldn’t stop looking for him. I hadn’t gone a day and a half without seeing him since we’d met.
The day was a parade of all the faces I’d come to know these past six weeks: farewells from the social worker, and the hospital psychologist, and Priya, and Nina. I saw the spinal surgeon and the dermatologist, and the insurance rep, and two of the orderlies. It was almost like I’d been at summer camp, and now it was time to say good-bye until next summer.
It took forever to go. Then we hit warp speed.
Next, I was rolling over the threshold of my parents’ house, over the new ramp my dad had built for me, mentally thanking him and praising his workmanship while trying to staunch the flow of despair in my chest.
But when I rolled my way into the living room—there was my dad.
He froze when he saw us, and dropped his gaze to the floor. We froze, too.
He had an unzipped duffel bag in one hand—his pajama cuffs and part of a toothbrush sticking out, like he’d been trying to get out before we made it home.
“Hi, Cliff,” my mother said, almost in a whisper.
But my dad just turned his head away and waited for her to leave.
She did, moving past us back toward their bedroom.
Once she was gone, he met my eyes.
“How ya holding up, kiddo?” my dad asked, squatting down in front of me.
I looked at my dad’s duffel bag. “You’re heading out?”
He gave a nod. “I hope that’s okay.”
“I get it,” I said. “I do.”
“I just need a few days. Clear my head.”
Of course. That didn’t surprise me.
But pretty much everything else about that day did surprise me. How much I missed Kitty already, how strange it felt to be “on the outside” again, how simultaneously comforting and terrifying it was to hear the front door close behind me.
My childhood bedroom was a surprise, too. After my dad left, my mom wheeled me right to it, as if to move on to brighter topics. She had redecorated. She pushed open the door and voiced a quiet “Surprise!”
She’d replaced truly everything—my trundle bed with the pink dust ruffle, my floral upholstered chair, my curtains, my rug. Everything old was gone—stuffed animals, photo albums, books, clutter, posters.
“Where is everything?” I asked.
“In storage tubs,” she answered. “All the keepsakes, anyway. The furniture I set out on the curb—and it was gone in two days.”
It was good and bad—both at the same time. She’d taken away the comfort of all those old familiar things, but she’d also taken away their ability to remind me of my old life. This new room was like a hotel. Roman shades in linen, a chaise longue by the window, a hundred pillows on the bed. A mirrored chandelier. Spare, and done in tones of her favorite color, “greige,” a cross between gray and beige. It was tranquil and sophisticated and utterly unfamiliar. It looked like a magazine.
“A new room for a new start,” she said.
I had to hand it to her. She had great taste. “Well, this is definitely a best-case scenario.”
“And Dad can bring all your old junk in for you to sort through whenever you like,” my mom said. Then she remembered and took a shaky breath. “If he comes back.”
“He will,” I said. “He just needs some time.” Then, because it made it seem like we were almost doing him a kindness, I said, “We can give him that, right?”
She nodded. “We can give him that.”