The Last Thing He Told Me

Magnolia Cafe is an Austin institution, famous for all-night eats, which might explain why it is still busy—music playing, every booth taken—at 12:45 AM.

We get two large coffees and an order of gingerbread pancakes. Bailey seems to love the sweet, spice-filled pancakes dripping in butter and coconut sugar. Bananas on the side. And watching her take them down, if nothing else, makes me feel like I’m doing something good for her.

We sit by the door, a neon red SORRY WE’RE OPEN sign flashing above our heads. I blink against it and try to find the words to tell her what Jake told me.

“It seems that your father hasn’t always gone by the name Owen Michaels,” I say.

She looks up at me. “What are you talking about?” she says.

I speak softly but unapologetically, filling her in. I let her know that her father’s name isn’t the only thing he’s changed. The details of his life—the story of his life—are something he has apparently altered as well. He didn’t grow up in Massachusetts, he isn’t a graduate of Princeton University, and he didn’t move to Seattle at twenty-two. At least he hasn’t done those things in a way that we can prove.

“Who told you that?”

“A friend back in New York. He works with an investigator who focuses on this kind of thing. The investigator believes that your father changed his identity shortly before you moved to Sausalito. He’s sure of it.”

She looks down at her plate, confused, like she’s heard the words wrong—all of it feeling impossible to compute.

“Why would he do that?” she says, not meeting my eyes.

“My guess is he was trying to keep you safe from something, Bailey.”

“Like what? Like something he did? ’Cause my father would be the first to say that if you’re running from something, it’s usually yourself.”

“We don’t know that for sure.”

“Right. All we know for sure is that he lied to me,” she says.

And I see it start to rise up in her. Her anger, her justifiable anger at being excluded from the most basic details of her life. Even if he was doing it for her own good. Even if he was doing it because he didn’t have a choice. One way or another, she is going to have to decide whether that’s forgivable. We both are.

“He also lied to me,” I say.

She looks up.

“I’m just saying, he lied to me too.”

She tilts her head, like she is trying to figure out whether she believes that, whether she can take that at face value. Why would she? Why would she believe anyone at this point? But it feels critical to try and assure her anyway—assure her that she can trust me—that I didn’t deceive her too. It feels like everything hinges on her believing that.

She looks at me with such vulnerability, it’s hard for me to speak. It’s hard for me to even hold her gaze without breaking down.

Which is when I understand, in a flash, what I’ve been doing wrong with her—what I’ve been doing wrong in how I’ve been trying to connect with her. I thought if I were nice enough, sweet enough, she’d understand she could count on me. But that’s not how you learn you can count on someone. You learn it in the moments when everyone’s too tired to be sweet, too tired to try hard. You learn it by what they do for you then.

And what I’m going to do for her now is what my grandfather did for me. I’ll do whatever it takes for her to feel that she is safe.

“So… it wasn’t just him, right?” she says. “If he did this, I’m not who he said I am either then, right? My name and everything… at some point he changed it.”

“Yes,” I say. “If Jake’s correct, then, yes, you used to go by something else as well.”

“And all the details are different too, right?” She pauses. “Like… my birthday?”

That stops me. The heartbreak in her voice when she asks that question.

“Like my birthday’s not really my birthday?” she says.

“No, probably not.”

She looks down. She looks away from me. “That seems like something a person should know about themselves,” she says.

I fight back tears, gripping the table, the small table in this happy Austin restaurant—paintings on the wall, bright colors, all of it completely antithetical to how I feel. I will myself to stop, blinking the tears back. A sixteen-year-old girl, who apparently has no one but me, needs me not to cry. She needs me to be there for her. So I pull myself together, giving her the space to fall apart. Letting her be the one to do that.