The Marsh King's Daughter(9)

“Right. So you haven’t spoken to your father in fifteen years.”

“You can check the visitors’ logs if you don’t believe me,” I say, though I have no doubt they already have. “Phone records. Whatever. I’m telling the truth.”

This is not to say I haven’t thought about visiting my father in prison many times. The first time the police caught my father, I desperately wanted to see him. Newberry is a small town, and the jail where he was held until his arraignment was only a few blocks from my school; I could have walked over after classes or ridden my bike anytime I wanted. No one would have denied me a few minutes with my father. But I was afraid. I was fourteen. It had been two years. I’d changed, and maybe he had, too. I worried my father would refuse to see me. That he’d be angry with me since it was my fault he’d been caught.

After he was convicted, no one was going to drive a hundred miles from Newberry to Marquette and a hundred back so I could visit my father in prison, even if I’d had the courage to ask. Later, after I changed my last name and got my own transportation, I still couldn’t visit because I would have had to show my ID and leave my name on the visitors’ list, and I couldn’t let my new life intersect with the old. Anyway, it wasn’t like I felt a constant longing to see him. The idea of going to see him surfaced only once in a while, usually when Stephen was playing with the girls and something about their interaction reminded me of those long-ago days when we were together.

The last time I seriously considered reaching out was two years ago, when my mother died. It was a tough time. I couldn’t acknowledge my mother’s death without taking the chance that someone would connect the dots and figure out who I was. I was in a witness protection program of my own design; if I was going to make my new life stick, I had to cut all ties with the old. Still, I was my mother’s only child, and staying away from her funeral felt like a betrayal. The idea that I could never see or talk to her again also stung me. I didn’t want the same thing to happen with my father. Maybe I could have passed myself off as a prison groupie or a journalist if anybody wondered why I suddenly showed up to see him. But my father would have had to go along with my plan in order to make it work, and there was no way to know in advance if he’d be willing to do that or if he’d refuse.

“Do you have any idea where he might be heading?” the officer asks. “What he’s planning?”

“None.” Other than the obvious desire to put as much distance between himself and the people who are looking for him as possible, I’m tempted to say, but I know better than to antagonize men with guns. Briefly I consider asking for an update on the search, but the fact that they’re asking for my help tells me all I need to know.

“Do you think he’ll try to contact Helena?” Stephen asks. “Is my family in danger?”

“If there’s somewhere you can go for a few days, that’s probably a good idea.”

Stephen’s face blanches.

“I don’t think he’ll come here,” I say quickly. “My father hated his parents. He has no reason to come back to the place where he grew up. He just wants to get away.”

“Wait. You’re saying your father lived here? In our house?”

“No, no. Not this house. This was his parents’ property, but after I inherited it I had the original house torn down.”

“His parents’ property . . .” Stephen shakes his head. The officers look at him pityingly, like they see this kind of thing all the time. Women, their expressions seem to say. Can’t trust ’em. I feel sorry for Stephen as well. It’s a lot to take in. I wish I could have broken the news in private, in my own time and way, instead of being forced into making a spectacle out of his ignorance and confusion.

Stephen watches me intently as the questions continue, no doubt waiting for the other shoe to drop: Where was I when my father escaped? Was anyone with me? Did I ever send my father a package when he was in prison? Not even a jar of jelly or a card on his birthday?

Stephen’s eyes bore into mine as the interrogation goes on and on. Accusing me. Judging me. My hands sweat. My mouth forms the appropriate answers to the officers’ questions, but all I can think about is how this is hitting Stephen, how my silence put him and my daughters at risk. How all of the sacrifices I made to keep my secret are worth nothing now that my secret is out.

At last, footsteps down the hall. Iris pokes her head around the corner. Her eyes get big when she sees the policemen in her living room. “Daddy?” she says uncertainly. “Are you coming to kiss me good night?”

“Of course, Pumpkin,” Stephen says without a hint of the tension we’re both feeling. “Go back to bed. I’ll be right there.” He turns to the officers. “Are we done?”

“For now.” The lead officer gives me a look like he thinks I know more than I’m telling, then makes a show of handing me his card. “If you think of anything that will help us find your father, anything at all, give me a call.”

—

“I WANTED TO TELL YOU,” I say as soon as the door closes behind them.

Stephen looks at me for a long time, then slowly shakes his head. “Then why didn’t you?”

There could not be a fairer question. I wish I knew how to answer. Certainly I didn’t set out to lie to him. When we met seven years ago at the Paradise blueberry festival and Stephen asked me out for a burger after he bought all my remaining stock, I couldn’t very well say, “I’d love to go out with you. I’m Helena Eriksson, and by the way, remember that guy who kidnapped a Newberry girl back in the late eighties and kept her prisoner in the swamp for a dozen years? The one they called The Marsh King? Yeah, he’s my dad.” I was twenty-one. By then I’d enjoyed three blissful years of anonymity. No whispers behind my back, no gossip or pointed fingers, just me and my dog, minding our own business, hunting and fishing and foraging. I wasn’t about to break my silence for a dark-haired, dark-eyed stranger with a suspicious fondness for cattail-blueberry jelly.