Page 25 of The Ghostwriter

My father laughs and I feel him loosening up. “Our mother bought those for her. Poppy hated them and tore them down the first chance she got. At the end her walls were covered with collages of Betty Friedan. Shirley Chisholm. Gloria Steinem. Those were Poppy’s heroes.” He looks at me, his eyes shining with mischief. “She even had aRoe v Wadeposter, but our mother made her get rid of it. Said it was immoral. At first, I thought Poppy put those posters up as a way to bait our mother, but the reality was, she was a budding activist.”

“She started young.”

“She was incredibly bright, skipping the second grade. My mother hated the fact that she was only thirteen when she started high school, but Poppy was unstoppable. In middle school, she put together a petition to allow girls to do wood shop.” He grins at the memory. “She won that one, but then she started another one, arguing that if it was a requirement for girls to take home ec, it should also be a requirement for boys. She believed they should also know how to cook, clean, and do laundry. But Mr. Leahy, the principal, shot that one down. Which led her to write a letter to the Board of Education asking why district leadership was predominantly male.”

He looks back down at the image of a younger Poppy, surrounded by teen pop idols she didn’t worship. When Jack and I had looked through this album, we imagined her lying on her bed daydreaming about DonnyOsmond. Instead, it turns out she was daydreaming about equal rights and fair household labor distribution.

My father looks back up at me and says, “You remind me a lot of her.”

“You don’t really know me.” The comment leaps out, reminding us both of the baggage that sits between us.

My father isn’t fazed. He says, “I know your work. Where the rest of the world hears your subject’s voice on the page, I hear yours. Poppy would have loved your books. She would have admired your ferocious commitment to elevating female and marginalized voices.”

I think about all I’ve lost in that regard. How certain I’d been of my position, believing I could say what I thought, like any of my male counterparts, and be safe, when in reality, I’d spoken the truth and been erased for it. Forced to lower myself to Calder’s level, selling myself to the highest bidder. “I don’t seem to have much of a voice at all these days,” I say.

“You’re a survivor,” he says. “Remember, no regrets, no looking back.”

I roll my eyes at the familiar line. One he would trot out anytime I felt sad about my mother, or about something mean someone had said to me at school.No regrets, no looking back, Olivia.It didn’t work then, and it doesn’t work now. My father will never understand a world that doesn’t bend to his will.

I turn the page to a picture of Danny with his best friend, Mark. Jack’s father. They’re clowning around on skateboards, channeling their best Tony Alva and Jay Adams. “If Poppy was a feminist, what was Danny?”

“When he was younger, he was spirited. Funny.”

“And later?”

“He was fun, until he wasn’t.”

“Give me an example,” I say. “The first one that comes to mind.”

My father thinks for a moment. “One time he got the idea to build a trailer for his bike. We had some wood and Poppy’s old tricycle, and his plan was to tow us with a rope.”

“How old were you?”

My father blows out hard. “Maybe twelve? Thirteen? Anyway, Poppy and I were enthusiastic apprentices, and we spent all weekend building it. There was one wheel on the front of the box, two on the back, and an old pillow inside for cushioning.”

My father pushes the nearest photo album away and spreads his palms flat on the table, remembering. “When it was done, we took it over to the high school parking lot to try it out. Poppy was begging to be first, but Danny said it should be me.” He gives a hollow laugh. “That should have been my first clue. But like a dummy, I hopped in, and Danny started pedaling. The plan was to circle the lot to see how it held up. Then give Poppy a turn.”

“But that’s not what happened?” I ask.

My father shakes his head. “Danny did one slow circle and I thought he’d stop. But he kept going. Standing up on his pedals to go faster. I realized pretty quick that there was no way for me to steer—or to get out. I started to yell at him to slow down, the wheels literally rattling my teeth. I could hear Poppy screaming as well, but he started heading toward this ramp that led down into a lower lot. It didn’t seem very steep when you were on foot, but kids used to like to skateboard down it. I was terrified.” My father pauses, remembering. “Later, he claimed he couldn’t hear me. Then he said he thought I was yelling because it was fun.”

“What happened?”

“About halfway down, the whole thing tipped over. I flew out, splitting my chin open on the cement.” He tips his head back and points to a thin scar. “Eight stitches, and our mother was furious.”

“Did Danny get into trouble?”

“No. Both Poppy and I knew that if we told on him, he’d do something even worse, so we said it was an accident.”

“Did he do that often? Hurt you? Threaten you?”

My father gives a tiny shrug. “All the time. But he had this way of making it sound like he was just playing around, deriding us for not beingable to take a joke. He’d lure us in with smiles and promises of fun, and then”—my father snaps his fingers—“he’d just shift. Without warning.”

I sit with that image for a moment, my mind puzzling through different scenarios with Danny as the perpetrator and not my father, as I’d always believed. I stare at Danny’s grinning face, wondering if what my father says is true. I think again of his story about Danny and the dead cat, the question I’d had to swallow, lest it set my father off. The idea that Danny could have somehow been involved in the murder of Poppy, instead of the tragic hero everyone made him out to be. But my father’s gaze seems far away, latched on to something I can’t see, so I save that idea until I have more to back it up. More substance with which to push. A couple of anecdotes aren’t enough.

Finally, I flip to the last page of the album. After April 1975, there are no more Taylor family photos. I point to the single picture, tucked behind a plastic sleeve that’s losing its adhesive cling. It’s an image of my father and Danny in their room. My father has his back to the camera, balanced on a chair, hanging a Pink FloydWish You Were Hereposter. He’s reaching up to attach the fourth corner and you can see his muscles straining, his skinny arms poking out of his short-sleeved shirt. Danny sits on the bed, staring directly into the camera, a chemistry textbook propped up on his knees. He’s not smiling, as if the person taking the picture is interrupting him and he’s just waiting for them to leave again.

“This photograph has always haunted me,” I tell my father now. “Likely the last photograph taken of Danny. The way he’s looking at the camera, it’s almost like he knows he’s only got weeks left to live.”

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