Page 22 of The Ghostwriter

Then they’re gone and it’s just me and Nicole. “Are you okay?” she asks.

I give a shuddering laugh. “I think so. Mostly I’m relieved they responded so positively to the new chapter. It’s a compelling scene,” I say, thinking again of my other chapter, of my father ranting about the missing knife. Believing I was my mother. I wonder what Nicole and the team at Monarch would think of that, but I shake the thought away and continue. “I’d like to figure out if it actually happened or if it’s just a figment of his declining memory. What do you think would happen if I spoke to people on background?” I ask.

She looks sympathetic. “As your agent, I’d have to advise against that. You know the rules as well as I do.”

“If they cancel the book, do I have to pay back the first chunk of the advance?”

Nicole looks uncomfortable. “That depends,” she says. “If you’re in breach of contract, or you are unable to perform to their standards, then yes. But if they pull the book themselves, then no. Try not to worry about that and just go out and do what you do best. We bought you a little more time, so hopefully you can work your magic.” She checks her watch. “I’ve got to jump to another meeting, but call me later if you want to talk more.”

Chapter 10

“What should we talk about today?” my father asks when we sit down later that morning for our session. He looks energized, ready to work. “I’m working on that scene with Danny and the cat,” I tell him. “I spoke with the team at Monarch early this morning and they’re very excited for more chapters like that.”

My father nods. “One time Danny locked Poppy in the garage. Threatened to beat me up if I let her out. It used to make me so angry, how everyone—even your mother—used to think he was so fantastic.”

There’s a thread of bitterness in his voice, the remnants of a younger brother trying—and failing—to measure up. But I’m wary of letting this memoir turn into one of petty grievances and sibling rivalries. I want to get to the core of my family. Figure out who each of them really was—separate from one another, but also because of each other.

“Typically, I ask to speak to your closest friends and then mine them for information about you and about that time. Then you and I dig into the same topics, and I craft a narrative around the memories that everyoneshares. Weaving the consistencies into a book, revisiting the inconsistencies until we can all agree on what likely happened. But obviously, I’m not allowed to do any of that.” If my father catches the resentment in my voice, he ignores it. “Instead, I’ll need to rely on what you remember and hope I can suss out what’s true and what’s part of your disease.”

“I understand your frustration,” he says. “But this is why it’s so important to get this book done now, when I can still remember the more important moments.” He leans forward, animated. “I’m going to give you the same advice I give all young authors I mentor.You can’t protect your characters.”

I look up. “This is your memoir, Dad, and you’re not mentoring me,” I remind him. “I’m also not a fiction writer.”

“Of course you’re a fiction writer. You always have been.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t you remember?” he asks. “The stories you used to write? They were quite good for someone your age.”

“I never wrote any stories. Is this one of your delusions?”

He brushes my words away, annoyed. Then he stands and leaves the room. I wait, wondering if I should follow him.

He returns holding a large box with a fitted lid. The kind you’d put a large toy in and wrap with a giant red bow. He lifts the top and rummages around inside until he finds what he’s looking for, pulling out a sheaf of papers clipped together with a butterfly clip and handing them to me. On them, I can see the scrawl of cursive across the wide-lined pages.

He gestures toward the packet. “My favorite story in there is the one where Lionel Foolhardy goes to summer camp. I can’t believe you don’t remember writing these.”

“You were the one who invented Lionel Foolhardy, not me.”

He shakes his head. “Lionel was one hundred percent your creation.”

I flip through the pages, memories floating back. How I’d sit with my father while he worked, with my own notebook, drafting story afterstory. Lionel goes to summer camp. Lionel volunteers at the local animal shelter. How we’d stop at three for a drink—him his first whiskey of the day, and me a Shirley Temple with a maraschino cherry. We’d talk about plot problems and character arcs. “I’d forgotten,” I say.

But I’m unsettled. As a ghostwriter, I know better than most how easy it is to tell ourselves a story until we believe it’s true, no amount of evidence to the contrary convincing us otherwise. I spent my entire adult life believing my father created Lionel Foolhardy as a way to entertain me. And yet, a parallel universe has existed where I was his creator. I was the one who penned those stories and made Lionel a fixture of my childhood. If I can’t remember something so basic about my own life, what hope do I have to untangle the fractured pieces of my father’s memory?

“What else do you have in there?” I ask.

He hands me the box and I balance it on my knees, peering inside. At first it looks like a jumble of junk, no different from the boxes out back, but I start to recognize pieces of my childhood—the bracelet I wove for him when I was seven and went to summer camp, the brightly colored thread now faded. A small box that might have once contained jewelry rattles when I shake it. When I open it, I find all of my baby teeth inside. I see report cards from elementary school. Several drawings, and a few notes written in a clumsy childhood hand.I love you, Daddy.

“I can’t believe you kept all this stuff.”

He looks offended. “I can’t believe you think I’d throw it away.” His voice is quiet when he speaks again. “I saw you, you know.”

Confused, I look up.

“At that conference in New York,” he clarifies. “I saw you in the lobby. I looked for you later, but I was told you’d checked out early.”

“An emergency at home,” I say.

---