I don’t want to brag, but I got an A in Evidence. It was one of the few classes I intrinsically understood. From the first day, I got the point of the class, to sift between the nonsense and make rules for how a courtroom should operate. It was one of the few law school classes that revolved around good old commonsense. I turned in my exam with a bounce in my step and wasn’t surprised to find my first ever A the day our grades went up online. That’s why it was even more shocking that when it came to the ultimate question of my life—who I was and where I came from—I hadn’t applied a thing I’d learned. I’d let the hearsay in.
When Caroline told me the pack of lies about my childhood, I should have taken the lessons I learned and applied them in real life. I should have made her swear on a Bible, deposed her, or at least questioned her bullshit, especially given how random and unspecific she was about her past, and, in turn, mine. Had I learned nothing? I felt like I should call Berkeley and have them rescind my diploma, or at least lower my GPA by a few decimals.
“What are you thinking about?” Liv finally asked, after twenty minutes of sitting side by side and silently staring at the crashing waves of Ocean Beach.
“Hearsay.”
“Gotcha.” Liv leaned over and ripped off a piece of bread from the baguette we’d picked up on the way there. After we left Hunter and Leo’s, she ran into a corner market and soon emerged with said baguette, two different kinds of cheese, a bag of double chocolate Milanos, and a large green bottle of San Pellegrino, declaring that we were having a picnic on the beach and we would talk when we got there. I was compliant as we drove to Ocean Beach, a dark but pretty shoreline on the western coast of the city. Despite the late afternoon sun peeking through the clouds, it was mostly deserted.
“Well, we found Hunter,” Liv said. I laughed despite myself.
“We certainly did. Can you believe what a liar Caro is?” I said, slicing the package open with a plastic knife and helping myself to a surprisingly good hunk of cheese, not even bothering with the bread.
“Emma, I really think you should call her.”
“Why? What would be the point? Do you think she’s going to tell me the truth now?”
Liv stayed silent, perhaps agreeing with me. Or else deciding I was a lost cause.
We were sitting cross-legged on the red fleece blanket I always took on flights, as I was notoriously cold on airplanes. It was the relic of an outdoor concert Sam and I attended in East L.A. two years prior. Our friend Lilly, a drummer with streaks of blue hair that flashed when she tossed her head to the side, had invited us to see her band’s outdoor show. Sam and I arrived with a six-pack of domestic beer and hipster sunglasses, ready to rock out, Coachella style, only to find that what she hadn’t mentioned was that it was a marching band—which was so retro and odd, only someone as cool as Lilly could pull it off.
The “show” was hosted by the South Pasadena County Civic Center, and you were far more likely to find battle hymns and giant turkey legs than hippies and Molly. Nevertheless, we had a blast. We shared our beers with a family up from Orange County, who in turn shared their cozy blanket. The very same blanket we accidentally stuck in our bag at the end of the night, upon which Liv and I were now perched.
“Come on, let’s put our feet in,” Liv said, getting up and walking jauntily toward the ocean, managing not to spill her fizzy water like only the well-coordinated can.
The sand was cold and wet, as if high tide had come and gone, and my shoulders, previously warm from the sun, were immediately covered in goose bumps. The last time Liv and I were on a proper beach was our bar trip to Greece, which we took the day after the bar exam. It was three weeks with nothing to do but island hop, lie in the sun, and try to stop our muscle memory from typing out the rule against perpetuities in our sleep. I’ll never forget how I felt during those twenty days of bliss: completely free, yet also centered in a way that was rare for me. Jared and I had broken up, which felt like a giant relief, I had a job at a law firm in L.A. waiting for me, and I was with my best friend in Greece. I truly felt as if I had my whole life ahead of me.
Every day on our trip Liv and I would wake up early and head to the water, the sea rimmed with white or black sand, depending on the island. On the way we’d stop for a cappuccino and down the frothy mixture without communicating, unless it was to ask the other to borrow a euro. Then we would make our way to the edge of the water and plop down with our books, each absorbed in our own little world until midafternoon, when the sun was high in the sky and one of us would suggest a mojito. That first drink was a signal that one of us was ready to talk. To start the day, discuss the hijinks from the night before, and begin the cycle of eating, drinking, and dancing that defined each night. Once we put our books down and agreed it was time for the white rum concoction, we were connected for the rest of the day, but it was in silent agreement that we had those quiet mornings.
That’s how well Liv and I could communicate, how well we could read each other. Which is why right then I didn’t need to tell her that I was feeling lost, embarrassed, and angry, because she already knew.
“You know there are sharks in there,” I warned Liv, as she walked out farther into the surf, recalling a frightening article I’d read about a surfer fighting off a shark attack at Ocean Beach.
“We’re not swimming, Em.” Liv was notoriously unafraid of sea creatures, or the water, for that matter. On our ferries between Greek islands, I’d been genuinely concerned an animal would manage to jump up on the boat and eat me, whereas Liv would spend hours in the water floating on her back, bobbing farther and farther into the blue-green surf without a care in the world, until I’d come out and shout lectures to her about the power of the rip tide.
As soon as I reached the water’s edge I forgot my complaints, rolled up my jeans, and walked into the chilly spray, kicking up water with every step. The ocean wasn’t as green and the sun wasn’t as warm, but allowing the waves to rush under my feet while Liv hiked up her maxi dress and ventured out to where the water touched her thighs reminded me of our magical days in Santorini and Mykonos.
“What am I going to do now? Hunter, Sam, should I just give up on them all?” I said. I didn’t really need a response, but I wanted to put it out there.
Even though I was standing behind her, I could see Liv looking upward, lost in thought, the way she did when she was about to say something really honest, which was often something I might not like. Right then, the waves hit my ankles hard, shooting spurts of water up my legs and dampening my jeans. I rolled my pants up another few inches and felt the whoosh of the water receding past me, back into the surf. I could have moved in a few more feet, past where the waves broke and where the calm water would gently lap at my calves, but I didn’t. The hard, unexpected spray felt good. It matched how I felt inside.
“I don’t think it’s really fair to equate the two, Hunter and Sam that is.” Liv turned around and walked back toward me, slowly trudging through the water, pausing every couple of steps as a wave rushed by and she waited for it to crash. “What Sam did is horrible, and you have to decide whether you can forgive him. But just because he fucked up, and because your mom had a big secret that she kept from you, that doesn’t mean that you can’t trust anyone. It doesn’t make what Sam did any more wrong.”
I considered this. My first instinct was to vehemently disagree. I wanted to say that when you discover that your fiancé cheated on you and kept it a secret for years, and in the same week you find out your mom has been lying about who your father is for almost three decades, you can’t help but equate the two. It does, in fact, make it more wrong, because it hurts more. But instead I took a moment and grasped for logic. Liv was being honest with me, which couldn’t be easy right now. The least I could do was not take my frustrations out on her.
“I understand what you’re saying,” I said slowly. “But it’s easier said than done. You know what I really wis
h? I wish I hadn’t started this search for Hunter now. I wish I had ignored his existence and gone about my business, like I did for the past twenty-nine years. If it didn’t affect me for this long, why did I have to start obsessing about it now?” Liv gave me a dubious look. “Okay, I realize this isn’t a coincidence. I know the decision to look for my father now has a lot to do with marrying Sam. But still, why did I have to choose this moment to start caring about the other half of my genetic material?” What I really wanted to add, but couldn’t say aloud, was, Had I done this now in order to give myself some rationale for questioning my marriage in the first place, like Sam had implied on the phone?
“Emma. Can I say something? Do you promise you won’t get mad?”
“Okay,” I said warily.
“You keep saying how you just started caring about finding Hunter now, and how you had no interest in him before. And please don’t get pissed off, but I don’t think your interest in him is as new as you think. Don’t you feel like part of you has always been looking for him?”
I stopped in my wet, sandy tracks, genuinely surprised.
“No. I really don’t. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never looked for my dad or made any effort to find him. How many times have I even said his name in the last fifteen years?” I made a concerted effort to keep my voice from sounding defensive.
“Emma, I could be completely wrong when I say this, but isn’t that why you moved to California in the first place?” Her voice rose a little. “Isn’t that why you went to law school out here? Isn’t that why you moved to L.A., because you still hadn’t met him and you weren’t ready to leave the state where you knew he lived?”
I was shocked. This was a theory I had honestly never considered. I’d chosen Berkeley to attend law school, same as Liv, but when it came time to pick our jobs and move to the city where we would permanently reside, the majority of my classmates, including her, headed back east. I, however, stayed firmed entrenched in California. I moved to a city where I didn’t know a soul. Was it possible that I’d put the entire state of California on a pedestal not because of the Joni Mitchell song, but because of my mythical father?
All at once I realized my toes were numb. I longed for the cozy sweater I’d left lying on the red blanket. I motioned to Liv that I was going to head back, and wordlessly we clomped our way out of the fizzy surf and onto the dry sand.
“How long have you thought this?” I asked once we’d plopped down on the blanket, passing a towel back and forth in a fruitless effort to de-sand our feet.
“I think the first time I really thought about it was during our trip to Greece,” Liv answered. This kind of coincidence wasn’t unusual for Liv and me, one of us bringing up a topic the other had been silently musing about. Liv had taken the words out of my mouth so often that I’d long since stopped commenting on it.
“Everyone kept asking where we were from and you always said California, instead of Virginia.” Liv laughed kindly at the memory. “It was cute.”
“Yeah, but we’d lived there for three years, and I was staying.”
“I know, I know, don’t get defensive. I could tell that you did feel like you were from California, that you felt like you belonged here. I remember thinking to myself, why does Emma love California so much? I liked Berkeley, but you always felt more at home here than I did. You never even considered coming back east. Then I remembered one of the only times I heard you bring up your dad. It was junior year of high school, when you drank tequila for the first time and told me your dad lived in California and you wanted to find him someday. I’m not saying it was a conscious decision, but those two events, they’re obviously connected.”
“Maybe you’re right.” The sun, which had been providing spotty warmth, was now firmly planted behind a huge cumulus cloud. I scanned the horizon, noticing how gray the ocean looked.
“We missed our flight and we’re stuck on a cold beach, with no idea what to do next,” I mused. “And I’ve been looking for my birth father my whole life and didn’t even know it. And it turned out that he wasn’t even my dad. Things are really looking up.”
“You know what’s funny, Emma?” Liv said thoughtfully.
“What?”
“You’re not going to believe this, but I envied your home life growing up.”
I barked out a short laugh. “You’re right, I don’t believe that for a second. Did you want an excuse for a defiant tattoo or something?”
“I knew you and your mom didn’t get along, but I always really liked her. She seemed to treat you like a real person, not like a kid. I remember I used to go over to your house and she would be heading out for the night to some fund-raiser or whatever, and she would ask what your plans were, like you were equals. It was cool.”
“I guess the freedom was nice,” I said, not really wanting to go into it.
“It was. And remember all those nights we would pile up sheets and blankets on the porch and talk all night?”
“Of course.” Liv and I would grab dozens of snacks, magazines, and the comfiest blankets we could find, creating a crumbly nest to sleep in outside. We used to wake up feeling queasy, both from the excessive quantity of lime-flavored chips we’d consumed and from the specificity of the Cosmo tips on how to give a holiday-themed blow job we’d read. Still, those were some of my favorite nights of high school. If my mom cared about the noise or the damage to her bed linens, she never mentioned it.
“That was fun,” I agreed. “I’d say the porch sleepovers make up for lying about the identity of my father, wouldn’t you?”
Liv laughed a little and stood up, wiping the sand off her clothes.
Without discussion, we packed up our picnic. While she folded the blanket, I made a run for the trash can down the beach. We walked back to the car, the wind whipping our backs. The sun was officially gone.
“Plus, you had that attic room. I loved that room.”
“I liked that room, too. I liked that entire house,” I said. “Although living with Caro in it was pretty challenging. To be honest, I never really understood why we moved there in the first place.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, at the time she had just started at the lobby; she was at the bottom of the totem pole. We were still pinching pennies, still eating spaghetti most nights. I know we were Italian, but still. I never really understood how we could afford that house, or why she chose to spend the little money we did have on the mortgage. After all, she hated the suburbs. We were much happier in D.C. Of course,” I added diplomatically, “I wouldn’t have met you if we hadn’t moved, so I wouldn’t change a thing.”
Liv didn’t seem to hear my compliment. I looked at her over the top of the rental car. She was frozen at the driver’s side, keys in hand, caught in an expression of puzzlement.
“That’s it,” she said faintly, then with more conviction, “Emma, that’s it!”
“What is?” I asked nervously.
“That’s how we’re going to find your dad!” She let everything in her hands go and ran over to my side of the car, dropping the blanket clean on the ground.
“What do you mean?” I said, almost scared by her level of enthusiasm. Her hands were gripping my arms so hard she was practically cutting off my circulation, and she was standing so far on her tiptoes that we were almost the same height.
“That’s how Caro got the house! It has to be.”
“How?” I was struggling both to keep up with her train of thought and to loosen her viselike grip on my arms.
She took a deep breath and settled back on her feet. “What if it was your dad?”
“What was?”
Liv spoke slowly. “What if it was your dad who bought the house?” She paused to allow the notion to sink in. “It makes perfect sense. You’re totally right: Caro could never have afforded that house when she first got out of
school and started a new job. Plus, she moved out right after you went to college. She hated it there, you’re right. I’ll bet you anything it was your dad, not Hunter, but your real dad, who bought it for you guys, so you could have someplace nice to live.” She paused again, letting the idea fully sink in.
“And do you know what that means?”
I shook my head, starting to feel heady with excitement, realizing how much sense she was making.
“That means all we have to do is figure out whose name was on the deed at the time you lived there and that’s him. That’s your dad.”
The answer had been in front of me the whole time, but I couldn’t see it. Like I’d been searching frantically for my glasses for the last twenty minutes, and then saw them resting plainly on top of the book I’d been reading. How did Caro buy that house, and why? It was a question I’d wondered so many times. I saw it now, plain as day. My father must have bought it for us. There was no other plausible explanation. Without a doubt, I knew that Liv was right. I also knew one other thing with absolute and utter certainty. That was how I was going to find him.
CHAPTER 22
The day we moved to the house on Redwood Lane, it was Labor Day weekend, the time of year when Virginia inevitably tips from summer to fall. No matter how hot the summer, every year during the first week of September, the heavy Virginia humidity is swept away by a chilly, slightly ominous wind that settles comfortably in the sky. As the months pass, the chill digs in deeper and it gets colder and darker until winter. That day in September, however, it was perfect—cool, crisp, and gorgeous.
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