If You Find Me(72)

I’ve detailed every mole, freckle, and mark on the dark underbelly of the Hundred Acre Wood. Looking through the doorway, my father’s eyes are bright, but I don’t feel it, none of it. I am ice over the creek. I am as emotionless as a hundred-dollar bill as I close the camper door forever.

Standing in the snow, I reach into my pocket, the key cold against my palm. Using all my might, I fling it far into the trees.

[page]The man didn’t know that I knew his name—Josiah Perry—or who he was, his evil, gap-toothed grin a photo negative of the angelic smile that sleeps each night in the bedroom across from mine, Shorty curled up around her like an aura.

A trick baby. A f*ck for a fix. The words are as ugly as what Mama did to bring Nessa into the world.

“You’re making a big mistake!”

I reckon I’ll take the secret of his identity to my grave, but not for my sake. For Nessa’s.

When we leave camp, the only thing I take with me besides my g’s and Gran’s watch is my dad. Until he offers his hand. This time, I take that, too.

The ride home is silent but different. We’re both different. Somehow, I’m older. Somehow, he’s realer.

If the newness had a sound, it would be the sound of the last puzzle pieces snapping into place, the kind that fit even when you don’t want them to.

“May I ask you something, sir?”

He takes his eyes off the road just long enough to glance at me, his face thoughtful but worried. Really, really worried.

“Shoot.”

“It seems you like Jenessa and all. I mean, it seems like you really care about her. I know she isn’t your blood. But please”—I choke back the tears, the sticky, tangled tears—“you’ll keep her, won’t you? She doesn’t deserve to suffer because of me.”

“Keep her? No one’s going anywhere.”

“But if I go to prison . . . she isn’t even yours.”

“She’s yours, Carey. That makes her ours. If you’ll let her.”

I cry silently, my shoulders heaving, and he lets me. It’s like he knows that sometimes we’re in it alone. I zone out to the trees rushing by, thinning out as we travel farther into civilization. I’m straddling two worlds again. It’s so exhausting.

“You have questions, Carey? Ask them.”

I’ve been waiting my entire life. I would’ve thought the words would be hard, once faced with the actual, real-life chance. But the words fly out sharp as bee stings, my voice warped and ugly.

“Why didn’t you come lookin’ for me? Why did you let her take me?” I can’t control it once I start. “If you didn’t want me then, why are you even bothering now?”

My shoulder smacks into the door panel as he swerves down an off-ramp and into a spacious parking lot. A red neon sign blinks H WAY DINER TRUCK STOP. Under that,: FO D AND FUEL.

“What are you talking about?”

“I know what you did! You beat Mama and me. She had to save us! You threw us out! Mama told me!”

He punches the dashboard, then flings open the door and climbs out, slamming it behind him. I curl into a ball in my seat, sneaking peeks through the rearview mirror as he paces the asphalt behind the truck. I jump when he comes around and knocks on my window.

But the anger has smoldered into something stronger. Tougher. Sadder. I roll down the glass.

“It’s time you heard the truth,” he says.

He opens my door and turns me toward him, so I’m sitting with my boots dangling out the opening.

“You really have no idea, do you?”

I think of the cold, the rain . . . the steel I couldn’t always be. I refuse to make this easy for him.

“About what, exactly?”

We wait while an eighteen-wheeler pulls out of a parking space and ambles toward the on-ramp.

“I never hurt you or your mother.”

I shake my head, disbelieving. “Mama said!”

“Well, your mama lied to you! That’s your mama. C’mon, a smart girl like you? Think! You know what she did to you. My whole world fell apart when she took you!”

I want to believe him. I ache to. But I can’t hurt like that again. I just can’t.

“She took us to save us from you!” I spit the words, sounding more like Mama. Less like him.

“She took you because I filed for sole custody. Your mama was sick. I tried to get her help, but she refused. One night, she left you in the car and couldn’t remember where she’d left it. It took a day and a half to find you. You were three years old and hysterical. You don’t remember?”

I shake my head against the words, screaming inside, not knowing what to believe.

Saint Joseph!

“I moved out of the house, hired a lawyer, and the court awarded me sole custody. Your mom must’ve found out. She stole you that afternoon.”

My father’s voice cracks.

“When I went to your baby-sitter’s house, you were already gone.”

“Clarey,” I whisper.

“You remember her? Clare Shipley. A friend of your mama’s. She had no idea Joelle was going to run. It was the worst day of my life.”

I look at my father, really look, and see the broken part of him, broken by Mama, like she’d broken all of us. I remember what Mrs. Haskell said. She had no reason to lie.