The Last Thing He Told Me

I nod, holding her gaze. She wants me to tell her the truth, as if that is a simple thing to do. Maybe it is simpler than I’m making it.

“That was Belle. And she essentially confirmed for me that Avett is guilty, or that, at the very least, he has things to hide. And she seems surprised that Owen has gone off the grid as opposed to helping Avett hide those things. All of which makes me wonder what your father is hiding. And why.” I pause. “So I’d like to find these churches and see if that offers any clue as to why he felt like he had no choice but to leave us. I’d like to figure out if it’s just about The Shop or if what I’m suspecting is true.”

“Which is?”

“What he’s running from goes back further than that,” I say. “And it’s about him. And you.”

She doesn’t say anything. She stands in front of me with her arms crossed over her chest. Then suddenly, she drops them. She drops them and moves in a little closer to me.

“So… when I asked you to tell me the truth, I meant, like, don’t lie about who is on the phone.”

“I went a step too far?”

“In a good way,” she says.

It may be the nicest thing she has ever said to me.

“Well, I was trying to listen.”

“Thank you for that,” she says.

Then she takes the map from my hands and studies it herself.

“Let’s go,” she says.

Three Months Ago

It was 3 A.M., and Owen was sitting at the hotel bar, drinking a tall glass of bourbon, straight.

He felt my eyes on him and looked up.

“What are you doing down here?” he said.

I smiled at him. “I believe that’s my question for you…” I said.

We were staying in San Francisco, in a boutique hotel across from the Ferry Building. There had been a terrible storm. It was the type of rainstorm that didn’t happen in Sausalito too often and it had forced us to evacuate our home, our floating home, due to flooding risks. It forced us to take refuge on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge—the hotel filled up with other floating home expats. Though apparently Owen wasn’t finding much refuge at all.

He shrugged. “Thought I’d come downstairs to have a drink,” he said. “Do some work…”

“On what?” I said.

I looked around. He didn’t have his laptop with him. No papers lying around. There was nothing on the bar at all, except his bourbon. And one other thing.

“Wanna have a seat?” he said.

I sat down on the barstool next to him, wrapping my arms more tightly around myself. I was chilly in the middle-of-the-night coolness. My tank top and sweatpants weren’t much of a match.

“You’re freezing,” he said.

“I’m okay.”

He pulled off his hoodie, putting it over my head. “You will be,” he said.

I looked at him. And waited. I waited for him to tell me what he was really doing down here, what was worrying him enough that he left our room. That he left me in the bed, his daughter on the pullout couch.

“Work is just a little stressful. That’s all. But nothing’s wrong. Nothing I can’t handle.”

He nodded, like he meant it. But he seemed stressed. He seemed more stressed than I’d seen him before. When we were packing our bags to come here, I found him in Bailey’s room, packing up Bailey’s childhood piggy bank, putting it in his duffel bag. He’d looked embarrassed when I saw him and explained that it was one of the first presents he’d gotten her. He didn’t want to risk anything happening to it. That wasn’t the weird part—Owen was packing up all sorts of sentimental things (Bailey’s first hairbrush, family photo albums) and dropping them in his overnight bag. The weird part was that the other thing on the bar, besides his drink, was Bailey’s piggy bank.