Page 83 of The Ghostwriter

Her words yank me out of my own narrow perspective, and everything shifts. I’ve been dropped somewhere new, forced to acknowledgethe flaws in my own thinking. That you can make up whatever you want to be the truth and you can live your life as if you’ve sealed it off forever. But, like a heartbeat behind a wall, the truth is always there, holding you hostage. I’m no different from my parents—refusing to acknowledge or speak about difficult things. And yet, I’m this way because I was raised to be this way. Their weaknesses are my own.

I think of the mother I could have had if she’d been a different kind of person. A stronger person. One who had figured out how to get the help she needed without abandoning her daughter. Who’d be able to teach her daughter how to handle hard conversations instead of avoiding them. “Well, that tracks,” I say.

Her expression softens, just a fraction, and then she says, “I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused you.”

I let her statement hang there, unable to accept or even acknowledge her apology, a handful of words that mean nothing. That won’t amount to anything once I say goodbye and walk out the door.

I return to the task at hand. “So Danny killed Poppy to keep her from revealing that he had raped you and gotten you pregnant. And then Dad walked in on it and killed Danny?”

“I’m sure that’s the story your father wants to tell. But he walked into something he had no business being in the middle of.” She presses her lips together, her hands beginning to shake. “Whatever is on that film is why Danny killed Poppy and why Danny almost killed your father.”

Chapter 34

After I leave my mother, I sit in my car trying to absorb what I’ve just learned. All these years, my mother has held on to evidence that might have given everyone answers. The revelation that Danny had killed Poppy because of something she’d filmed would have shifted everything for my father—from sociopathic murderer to self-defense. It would have shifted everything for me as well. I try to think about what kind of life we could have had, if my mother had only been brave enough to speak up. I’m numb, barely able to feel anything, the revelations still bouncing around inside of me. But I know that won’t always be the case. Soon, understanding will seep in, and I’ll have to deal with the aching loss for what could have been. The rage over what has been stolen from me and from my father.

But I also can’t ignore the fact that I’ve done the same thing. I think of the Olivia I once was, a curious young girl eager to know the truth. And at some point, I abandoned her, just as surely as my own parents had abandoned me.

And then I think of the life my mother is living inside the tiny box of that apartment, knowing with certainty that’s how I’ll end up if I don’t do something different.

I need to call Tom. To voice these thoughts out loud, to make them a part of the permanent record before I lose them again to my pride.

I open up my phone to the text Tom sent me two weeks ago.Once again, I don’t know what to believe.

I think of my parents, of the connection that still binds them across the years and decades. Each of them alone, yet not. I type,Vincent Taylor is my father. I stare at the words, running them through the lens of my contract, making sure I’m not revealing something I shouldn’t. That I am Vincent Taylor’s daughter is information anyone could discover if they cared to look. A fact many people already know. I continue.That’s all I can tell you right now, but know that nothing I’ve said about this trip is untrue.

Before I can change my mind, I hit Send. My chest opens up as if filled with a thousand birds escaping, flying into a bright-blue sky.

Then I turn to the shoebox sitting on the front seat of my car and google local companies that might be able to transfer the film still trapped inside the camera into a format I can watch. I find one that can turn it around in a couple hours and follow the GPS directions to the store.

Inside is cluttered, with a counter that runs along the back, a fiftysomething man wearing rumpled clothes and readers. “You the one with the Super 8 camera?”

“I am,” I say, sliding my mother’s shoebox across the counter.

He lifts the lid and pulls out the camera, turning it over in his hands, examining the film compartment. “Not sure what we’ll find when I get in there,” he says. “Is it okay with you if I break off the cover?”

“Just do whatever you need to do.”

“Some of the film might be exposed and damaged.”

“I’ll have to take that risk,” I say. “How long until you can have it done?”

The man looks at his watch and says, “Give me a couple hours. You want a link or an external thumb drive?”

“A link will be fine, but I’d like to have the camera back.”

He nods. “Not a problem. I can recommend a company that does camera repairs if you want. I don’t think it’d cost too much.”

“Maybe. Thank you.”

I drive to an Olive Garden and sit at a table near the kitchen, picking at my salad and tearing off pieces of breadsticks, unable to eat. Sick with what I’ve already learned, anxious about what’s left.

A voice in my mind whispers that my mother isn’t the villain here. It’s Danny. The boy who raped her and got her pregnant. The boy who killed his sister. I can have some sympathy for my mother, sixteen years old and terrified.

My heart breaks for my father. A boy who’d stumbled into a horrific scene and done the only thing he could to save himself.

“You want anything else?” the server asks me, eyeing my barely touched food.

“Just the check, please.”

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