Page 59 of The Ghostwriter

Chapter 26

“Do you remember the very last treasure hunt I ever made for you?”

My father and I are walking side by side through the orchard, and his question takes me by surprise because the particular hunt my father is referencing is one I remember well. I can’t imagine him wanting to remind me of it now.

“How could I forget,” I say.

“Tell me what you remember about it,” he commands.

I look over at him, to see if he’s confused, but his gaze looks sharp. Aware. “What do you mean?” I ask.

“Just tell the story, Olivia. From the beginning.”

“I remember it started on a Monday over dinner,” I say, pushing my mind back to the summer I was thirteen. “A meal Melinda no doubt ordered over the phone and picked up, leaving the take-out bags on the counter when she left for the day.” I glance over at him, to see if he’s defensive at the mention of Melinda and how he used to delegate my care to her, but he’s watching the ground in front of us as we walk. “You asked if you’d ever told me the story about how you once trapped a raccoon in an outhouse.”

I wait for him to say he’s never used an outhouse in his life, but he just nods for me to continue. “I was surprised you were bothering to eat with me at all. Most of the time I ate alone in front of the TV. Whatever Melinda decided to pick up for me, while you did god-knows-what upstairs in your office. Drank your dinner, no doubt.” We navigate past a tricky knot of roots in silence, and I continue. “But that whole week, you came downstairs to tell me these random stories.”

I remember that first night so clearly: the carbonara on my plate, the living room cast in shadows, the overhead dining room light the only one on downstairs, save for the light over the stove. At thirteen, I’d started counting the years until I could go away to college. Jack and I talked all the time about UCLA or Berkeley. Somewhere still in California, but far away from the place that made us feel like outsiders.

My father sat across from me, his chicken piccata looking congealed around the edges, lowering his voice in the way he did when he was at the beginning of a story.Did I ever tell you about the time I trapped a raccoon in an outhouse? I was twelve, and we were staying in a cabin in the woods. It had no indoor plumbing; only an outdoor shower and an outhouse about twenty yards away from the back door.

“The broad strokes were something about a fancy makeup case your mother used for the trip, while you were relegated to using a paper bag to carry your shampoo and soap in.” I glance at him to see if he’s remembering it the way I do. The way he dropped the clues of what I was to look for into the conversation. The story within a story.

“Keep going,” he says.

“You told me your mother used to keep her toiletry case in the closet under the stairs,” I tell him. “Then you picked up your fork and took another bite of chicken, watching me. It took a few seconds for me to get it. To remember that the house you grew up in didn’t have a closet under the stairs. Or a second story at all.”

Slowly, I pushed my chair away from the table. My father continuedto eat, not even bothering to watch me. I moved out of the circle of light and into the dark living room, making my way toward the stairs and the short hallway next to them that led to Melinda’s office. On my right was the closet and I opened it. On the floor, directly in the center, was a toiletry bag—a soft-sided one with colorful splashes of teal and orange, arranged to look like abstract fish.

“I carried it back to the table and sat again, setting it next to me, certain you’d probably picked it up on your latest trip, a quick dash through the hotel gift shop on your way out, or more likely at the airport. Then I asked about the raccoon.”

“And what did I tell you?”

“You said that was part of the hunt, a story that contained falsehoods I’d recognize.”

I guide him to a bench in the middle of the grove, the lemon trees just starting to produce small, yellow-green fruit not yet ready to pick. “The next night it was a story about Chinese food you ate in England on a backpacking trip you took after college.”

“I never went to college,” he says.

“Exactly. That was my clue to listen closely.”

I remember how annoyed I was that he couldn’t just give me something. That there always had to be an ordeal. I always had to earn whatever it was he wanted me to have.

From the branches above us, a bird startles and flies away, dropping a feather as it leaves. We watch it float to the ground. “What did I hide for you that time?” he asks.

“A backpack. One of those hiking ones with buckles and zippered pockets cluttering the outside.School doesn’t start for another two months,I’d told you. You gulped down the rest of your wine and filled your glass again.You never know,you’d said.”

My father crosses his arms over his chest, and I say, “Are you cold? Do you want to go back?”

“I want to hear the rest of this story.”

“The last one was about a safari your publicist took. In fact, it had so much detail I was pretty sure it was true. On and on you went, describing the airport, her difficulty fitting her large suitcase onto the small plane. The way everyone—even the pilots—gathered to help her.Soft-sided suitcases are so much better,you told me.”

That night it was submarine sandwiches from our favorite place in town, the soft bread dripping with vinegar, mayonnaise, and mustard. All I wanted to do was finish my sandwich and clear out. Jack and I liked to watch Thursday night TV together while we were on the phone. Me in my room with the small set on my dresser and Jack in their basement with the big TV his dad used to watch football. We would watchMad About You.ThenWingsandSeinfeld.

“That time it was a new suitcase that you hid in the trunk of your car. I heaved it out and rolled it up the driveway, up the stairs, and back into the living room. A toiletry bag. A fancy backpack, and then a suitcase. When I rolled that suitcase in, you said,Did you find it?I was confused. The suitcase was sitting right there. But then you said,No, not the suitcase, what’s in the suitcase.”

I’d gotten up from the table again and tipped the suitcase on its side, unzipping it slowly, flipping it open to find a glossy brochure. Images of kids, a little older than I was—a handsome boy with brown hair in a science lab, protective goggles over his eyes and a toothpaste-white smile. A blond girl running down a pristine soccer field. Images of brick buildings, clusters of kids walking and laughing. The brochure was in French, so I didn’t understand what it was at first.

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