“What’s a family?” Zed asks with a shrug. “A couple of people who lurch from crisis to crisis together. Maybe you just have to hang, Gracie. I don’t know your dad. I just know Shay and Diego. If they were dealt to me as a new family, I’d be all over it. If I had to work it like work, I would.”
The cars have left the ferry that just came in, and I hear the car engines start in the line. We’re ready to board.
“Well, good-bye,” I say.
“Have a good Thanksgiving,” Zed says. “I’ll see you when you get back.”
I start back toward Nate’s car. Everything seems to shimmer, the mist, the trees, the clouds, the sky. I feel as though I’m walking in a dream. A dream I’ve had forever. I’m walking toward my father, and he waits for me.
TWENTY-ONE
Nate lives in a town called Wallanan. It’s one of those anywhere towns, neighborhoods made up of strip malls and developments, but it’s plopped down in a beautiful area in the shadow of Mt. Rainier. If Rainier ever blows, the town will probably get swept all the way to Seattle.
I’m surprised as the streets we drive down become progressively more posh. The houses get bigger, the streets wider, the landscaping more lush. Finally, Nate pulls into the driveway of a huge pile of wood and glass. Three stories of fine living.
“Wow,” I say. “What do you know. You’re loaded. If I’d known, I would have made up with you sooner.”
“Ha. We’re not really loaded—Rachel just has a nose for real estate.”
We haven’t really talked much on the way down. We’d been content to let the silences ease us into each other’s space. Now he smiles at me.
“I’m glad you came.”
I see movement at the front window, and a moment later the front door opens and a woman comes running as we get out of the car. She grabs me and hugs me, something I wasn’t expecting, and then steps back.
“Let me look at you,” she says, so I feel I have permission to check her out, too.
For some reason I feel surprise, as if I’d been expecting to recognize her, even though Nate has never shown me a photograph of her. She’s not really pretty, but she has thick dark-blond hair and nice hazel eyes. Her face is very long and thin, as though it’s been stretched out an extra couple of inches. She’s one of those women who give the illusion of being pretty until you look harder and start judging the length of a nose or the thinness of an upper lip. Attractive, I guess you’d say. She’s dressed in jeans and a white sweater, and a pair of battered leather boots. When she hugs and kisses Nate, I get a good feeling from her. She really loves him. She wants this to work, all of it.
She wants a family.
“Come on, come in, you must be famished,” Rachel says, which is something people always say to people after car trips.
The house is full of overstuffed furniture. Sofas and armchairs and window seats and love seats. Everywhere you look, there’s a place to sink into. There are pillows and wool throws and footstools, magazines and books and flowers. I want to make fun of it, but I can’t. So much effort went into it, so much time picking rugs and fabrics.
“I love decorating,” Rachel says. “I had this catering business, and I sold it, and, boy, did I have time on my hands. Suddenly, I had time to shop. I used to have, like, a futon and a bookshelf and my cooking knives. That was it.” She crosses her arms and squints at the house, as if she’s seeing it through my eyes. “Sometimes I think I went a little overboard.”
“No way,” I say.
Rachel has made ham sandwiches and cheese sandwiches—“in case you’re a vegetarian”—and an avocado sandwich—“in case you’re a vegan.” She has bottled iced tea and soda and water and milk. The refrigerator is crammed with food, and she has four kinds of cookies for dessert. I begin to sense that overboard might be a way of life for her.
Nate tells her about Beewick, and she listens, but she’s noticing me the whole time, refilling my glass, getting up to fetch another napkin, pushing the plate of sandwiches over when I finish what I have. She gives me little smiles of encouragement, too.
I have never seen somebody so glad to see me in my life.
It doesn’t take a psychic to figure her out. I am the cement to hold her and my father together. That, and the baby she wants so much.
“How about a tour?” Rachel asks when I’m done.
Nate heads off to do some business in the study, and Rachel and I wind through the house, through the pretty dining room with yellow walls, through the master bedroom suite, through the little “sewing room” that she uses for her office. “I gave Nate the office downstairs,” she says. “He’s going to handle the business end of things for our new venture.”
“New venture?”
“We’ll show it to you tomorrow.” She waves her hand at her office. “I’ve mostly used this for my scrapbooking. I do stuff for me, and for friends. This will be the baby’s room soon. We’d want her on the same floor for a while. I think it’s bad luck to decorate ahead of time, but I have so many ideas. I think I’m going to paint clouds on the ceiling.”
“That sounds pretty,” I say.
“Come on, let me show you your room.”
The guest room is about five times the size of my room at Shay’s, with big windows that flood the room with the gray light of the afternoon. It has its own bathroom with a huge tub. Rachel has laid out lots of bath oils and bubble baths. There is a stack of thick blue towels resting on a little stool.
“I’ll let you get settled,” she says. “Then I can give a tour of the town, if you like.”
I take a shower in a stall as big as a room. There’s plenty of hot water, and the pipes don’t knock. I don’t have to worry about anybody else needing to use the bathroom. I get out and use two big towels to dry myself.
I get dressed again and start downstairs. I stop on the stairs when I hear Rachel and Nate talking in the living room.
“You just have to be patient, sweetheart,” Nate says. “Something could come through any day now.”
“It’s just so hard, waiting…”
“Let’s focus on the new business. There’s a lot to do.”
I enter the room, and they look up. Rachel looks teary, and I start to back out again, suddenly feeling like an intruder.
“No, it’s okay, honey,” Rachel says. She wipes at her cheeks and gives me a big smile. “We were just talking about the adoption.”
“Adoption?” I knew they wanted to start a family, but I’d assumed that Rachel was trying to get pregnant.
“We’re adopting a baby,” Rachel says. “From Russia. Some days are just hard, that’s all. You get your hopes up, and it turns out you have to keep waiting.”
“Oh,” I say. So I’ll have a half-Spanish cousin and a Russian brother or sister. The thought fills me up, makes me smile. It sounds like a pretty cool family. “I’m sure everything will turn out okay,” I say.
“Thank you, honey.” Rachel springs up. “How about a tour of the town? We can stop for ice cream or Starbucks or something.”
“Sounds great,” I say.
Nate says he’ll stay home, and Rachel and I take off. She’s a good driver, zipping around the streets in her little sports car.
“I had a business in Seattle, and I sold it to my partner,” she says. “A big catering firm. I moved to Seattle from Ohio, and I didn’t know a soul. Then all I did was work. I needed a break. So I took the money and put it into my house, and I have enough to live on for a bit until I figure out my next direction. I feel so lucky. I met Nate at the right time, and he’s been so incredibly supportive of the adoption. What do you think of the name Sonia?”
“I like it.”
“I want something that will connect her to her heritage. We asked for a girl.”
She shows me the high school, the library, the places where the kids hang. Everything looks bigger than it does on Beewick. Bigger and newer. Everything is landscaped and lovely. I’ve landed in Pleasant Town.
“Who kn
ows?” she says. “Maybe you’ll want to stay.” She reaches over and gently pats my hand for a second. “I want you to know that you’re welcome, Gracie. Nate and I talked about it. We’d love to have you live with us. Summers, holidays, or all the time, if that’s what you want. I mean, I wouldn’t want to take you away from your aunt Shay. I’m just saying that we’re here for you. I know your father wasn’t there for you. But now he is.” She takes her eyes off the road so she can look directly at me. “I promise you that.”
But can one person promise another person that? I want to believe Rachel. I want to believe in her comfortable house, her vision of a family, her towels. It’s all there for me to sink into. And I almost believe I can. Because somehow I know that she believes every word she says to me is true.
Yet there’s some notes in my head that won’t go away. Even as I talk to Rachel, even as I drive through a life that could be mine, I hear it:
Dah doh din daa do…
But what it’s really saying is: Be careful.
TWENTY-TWO
The next day, Rachel and Nate take me to the building they’re going to rent for their new business.
“Nate had the idea,” Rachel tells me as she pulls into the parking lot of an upscale strip mall. “A café with a play-care area. There are tons of young kids in Wallanan. Lots of moms and dads. Nate thought, with my experience in food and his in business, we could really have something. We’d start out with only breakfast and lunch and coffee and snacks, and then we could eventually phase it into a kid-friendly dinner place. I was even thinking of calling it Kid Friendly, but Nate wants to call it Rachel’s.”
“I think it sounds more personal,” Nate says. “Plus, the place is going to have Rachel’s heart. It might as well have her name.”
Rachel laces her fingers through his. “We just signed a lease on the space,” she tells me. “See, there’s a great kids clothing store here, and a day spa. Places moms come all the time. We need to do some renovation work on it. We want to open by February.” She squeezes Nate’s hand in her excitement. “Nate will handle most of the business end. And I’ll be testing recipes for the next couple of months and over Christmas. It would be a fun time to be a houseguest, hint hint!”
We get out of the car. Rachel gets the keys out and opens the door. I guess I don’t have much imagination, because all I see is a big empty space.
Rachel taps a heel on the floor. “We’re putting in a new floor; this carpet has to go. And our idea is to have a little raised platform over here—kids love that—with chutes they can climb up and down on. You can sit here and have your coffee, or your salad, and watch your kid play… And here is the kitchen, and we’re going to redo the bathrooms. We’ve got the best contractor in town. You have to give him a hefty deposit, but we’ve nailed him for December…” Rachel spins around. “You could be a waitress, Gracie! And go to school here, and live with us…”
And I can see it. I can see going to that gleaming school, and biking over here and tying an apron over my jeans, and bringing nice moms like Rachel their chicken salads and their balsamic vinaigrettes. I can see living in that third-floor bedroom, getting to know my dad, starting all over in a new place, with the person who should have been at my side from the beginning.
Nate smiles at Rachel and turns to me. “No pressure, Gracie. Of course we want you here, but we know you have a life on Beewick.”
“Of course,” Rachel says. “I just want her to know that she’s welcome.”
Nate slings an arm around my shoulders. “I hope she knows that already.”
I feel his arm on my shoulders, and for once, I don’t flinch. I like feeling the weight of it.
We head for the door, but a balding middleaged man is coming in, a ring of keys dangling from his fist. “Rachel, Nate, how are you?”
“Howard, it’s nice to see you,” Rachel says. “We were just doing some planning of the space.”
“Good, good. Listen, I just thought I’d speak to you, because I didn’t get your check. I’m sure it’s an oversight, but…”
“But we mailed it last week,” Rachel says, frowning.
“Uh, no, we didn’t, honey,” Nate says. “Totally my fault, Howard. I had it in my pocket and I forgot to do it. I found it this morning and dropped it off at your office. I left it with your secretary. It should be there.”
“Okay, I’m sure Monique forgot to tell me. Enjoy your day, folks.”
Rachel and Nate start out, and we wait while she locks the door.
He lied.
I know it. I can feel it. I can feel the lie.
Things tumble in my brain, things I don’t want to face.
You don’t know him. Don’t make him into something that you want him to be.
Something here isn’t right. And I have to find out what it is.
TWENTY-THREE
The next morning, I watch from upstairs as a delivery truck from an office supply store drops off several bags at the front door. Nate signs for them. Rachel is out at the gym. I don’t want to see Nate this morning, so I’m pretending to sleep late.
He glances up at my window, and I jump back.
One lie isn’t much to go on, I tell myself. And I don’t know for sure it’s a lie.
But doubt has a way of spreading, until all you’re doing is watching someone and wondering…What else about you isn’t true?
If Nate lied about dropping off the check, he was just buying time. But for what? Had he spent the money already? The questions pound in my brain, until I can’t think.
So I decide to start with what I know is true.
He grew up in Bristol, Rhode Island.
He was able to buy the house on Beewick because of an inheritance from his aunt.
He got through law school, but hated practicing law. He quit when he left D.C.
He worked as a realtor in New Mexico.
He lived in San Diego for a while and ran a surf shop.
He wrote a newspaper column somewhere in Pennsylvania.
He met Rachel in Seattle, where he worked in commercial real estate.
He loved my mother.
He loved me.
How much is true?
I decide to leave out feelings. I’ll start with the simple stuff.
Nate is just leaving when I come downstairs. He kisses me on the top of my head. “Got to get up earlier if you want to catch the worms. Or something like that.”
“Who wants to eat worms?” I say.
Rachel comes in the door, still dressed in her gym clothes. She stops when she sees the bags of office supplies. “You went to the store for me! Thank you!”
He leans over and kisses her. “Don’t mention it. You do enough.”
It’s a small lie. Taking credit for something he didn’t do. Not such a big deal, I tell myself as I grab a bagel and some juice.
Or is it? Do you tell one lie, and that makes it easier to tell the next one, and the next?
Nate leaves, and Rachel plops down in a kitchen chair and begins to leaf through a catalog of chairs. Every so often, she sticks a little Post-it flag on a page.
“We’ve got to order the chairs soon,” she tells me. “They’ve got to be comfortable, but not too comfortable. You don’t want people to stay forever. You need turnover. What do you think of these?”
She flips the catalog over so I can see. “Nice.”
She puts a little Post-it strip on the page, but she suddenly looks up at me. “I hope you’re not bored. Let me narrow down some choices here, and we can go shopping or something. Your dad won’t be back until dinner.”
“Sounds good,” I say. “He’s been out a lot since I’ve been here.”
“Oh, honey, are you disappointed? It’s just that things are coming together for the business, and there’s a million details.”
“No, it’s fine, it’s just that…I think of these questions I want to ask, because I don’t really know that much about him, and then by the time I see him, I forget what they are.”<
br />
Rachel closes the catalog. “Well, try me. When we first met, all we did was talk and talk. I know everything about him.” She grins. “Well, almost everything. I asked him not to tell me about old girlfriends. I’m the jealous type. As a matter of fact, I’m planning a surprise for him for Christmas—a scrapbook. I’ve got plenty of photos and mementos from our time together, of course, but whew, I never met anyone who could stick all his photographs into one envelope. It’s like the man doesn’t have a past.” Rachel’s hand flies to her mouth. “Oh, honey, I didn’t mean…I mean, of course he does, of course he has a past. Most of the photographs he saved were of you. I just mean, he moved around a lot, and…”
“It’s okay,” I say. “I know you didn’t mean it.” I want to keep her talking about Nate. “I know he grew up in Rhode Island, but I don’t know much about my grandparents. I never met them, and neither did my mother. They died before she met my father.”
“William and Eleanor,” Rachel says, nodding. “William died of cancer quite young.”
Ding. He died of cancer? Nate told me that he killed himself.
“Nate’s mom died of a heart attack when he was in high school. So tragic.” She leans forward and puts her hands on my hands. “So you see, you have so much in common. He doesn’t like to talk about it, and I know you don’t, either. But there are so many things you can share.”
But I’m not interested in sharing grief. “What about his aunt, the one that left him money?”
“Jane,” Rachel says. “She left him a bundle, I guess. He was able to buy that house on Beewick—which I’m so glad will be yours one day—and pay for law school, too.”
Ding. I’d always heard from my mom that she put my dad through law school.
Two lies in about three seconds.
But they aren’t just lies. They’re someplace to start. Someplace to begin to figure out who Nathaniel Millard really is.