“Lisa! Thank goodness you didn’t leave for school yet!”
“Calla?”On the other end of the telephone line, her friend sounds bewildered. “What are you doing calling so early? Is everything okay?”
“Not really.”
“Oh, no. What happened?”
Where to begin?
She sinks into a chair at her grandmother’s kitchen table.
Maybe it was a mistake to call Lisa right now. She did it impulsively, as she was getting ready to head out the door to school. Odelia is still asleep upstairs—Calla checked several times as she was taking a shower and getting dressed and using makeup in an attempt to mask the evidence of her rough, sleepless night.
Knowing Evangeline left for school early today, she found herself feeling desperate to talk to someone.
I guess I just have to say it out loud, Calla decides. To make sure it’s really true.
Which really makes no sense.
She knows it’s true.
She was up all night, reading and rereading her mother’s computer files.
“The thing is, Lis’ . . . last night, I found out that I have a sister.”
“What?!”
“Yeah. I know . Crazy, right?”She gives a shaky, humorless laugh.
“What are you talking about? How can you have a sister?”
“It’s a half sister, really. My mother had a baby with her old boyfriend.”
“You have a baby sister and she didn’t tell you? But how—”
“No! No, this was years ago. Before she even met my dad. It’s not a baby sister, it’s a grown- up sister. Half sister.”
“I can’t believe this,”Lisa drawls.
“I can’t, either.”Calla toys with the strap of her duffel bag, packed for the weekend and draped over the back of the chair, ready for her grandmother to deliver to Dad later . . . along with the bombshell discovery.
“Did you meet her?”
“No! I didn’t even know she existed until a few hours ago.”Calla draws a deep breath. “She was actually adopted by Sharon Logan.”
“Who’s that?”
“The woman who—”
“I just remembered! That horrid woman?”
“Yes.”
“This is unbelievable, Calla. I can’t . . . I just don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. I just needed to call you.”
“I wish I was there.”
“I wish you were, too,”she says miserably, trying hard not to start crying again. It’s bad enough for her to be going to school today with circles under her eyes from lack of sleep. Red and swollen eyes from fresh tears will make people ask questions.
“Do you want me to call Kevin and ask him to drive over from Ithaca?”
“What? No!”That’s the last thing she wants.
“He’d want to be there for you, Calla. He’s really worried. And he said you never answered any of his e-mails.”
“I just did, last night.”
And he should have been there for me months ago. Now it’s too late.
“Really? You haven’t answered any of mine.”
“I know, I’m sorry.”Suddenly, she feels so weary she can barely speak.
It was probably a mistake to call Lisa. She can be so . . . needy. And right now, Calla is too needy herself to be there for anyone else . . . let alone deal with an ex-boyfriend.
Yes, Kevin and Lisa—and their parents— were there for her and Dad last weekend, in Florida.
Yes, Calla welcomed their support. Even Kevin’s.
But now that she’s back in Lily Dale . . .
There are just some things they will never understand.
“Lisa, you know what? I’ve got to run or I’ll be late for school.”
“Okay. . . . I’ll call you this afternoon.”
“Okay. Wait! Don’t. I’ll be gone.”
“Where are you going?”
“To look at colleges with my dad.”
There’s a pause on the other end of the line. “You mean, around there?”
“In Pennsylvania, and . . . around New York.”She doesn’t want to mention Cornell. In fact, she doesn’t even want to go to Cornell.
“What about down here?”
“We were just there, and . . . we can’t drive there in a weekend!”She tries to make light of it.
“So you’re not going to apply to schools with me, like we said?”
This is not a conversation Calla wants to be having now, in the midst of everything else that’s gone on.
“Lis’, I don’t know for sure where I’m going to apply. But . . . I mean, Florida has some bad memories for me, and it’s so far away.”
“New York is so far away,”Lisa returns, “from me. We always had plans to go to college together.”
I had a lot of plans that aren’t going to work out, Calla wants to tell her. You can never really count on anything, because your whole world can shatter in an instant.
But Lisa doesn’t get it. She doesn’t yet realize that nothing in life is guaranteed.
“You know I love you, Lisa, and I miss you every single day. And no matter where we end up next year, we’ll always be friends. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, I know that.”But her voice sounds hollow. “I have to get to school now, too. I’ll talk to you after the weekend.”
“Definitely. Bye, Lis’.”
“Wait, Calla? About the other thing? I’m happy for you— that you have a sister. You always wished you weren’t an only child. Remember? We used to pretend we were sisters.”
She smiles sadly. “I remember.”
“I wish—”
“Lis’, you’re still like a sister to me. Like I said, we’ll always be friends.”
Friends living separate lives, a thousand miles apart.
Unless I really do decide to go back down south.
She hangs up the phone, pulls on her jacket, and picks up her backpack. As she steps out into the crisp morning, with a hint of sun filtering through red and gold autumn leaves, she knows in her heart that Florida is behind her for good.
TWENTY-FOUR
Lily Dale
Friday, October 12
3:20 p.m.
Stepping through the big double doors at the school’s main entrance with Jacy at her side, Calla immediately spots her father, parked in his rental car at the curb.
She can’t see his expression from here.
But he knows.
She can feel it. Her grandmother told him everything while Calla was in school, just as Calla asked her to.
Jacy reaches for her hand and squeezes it. “Are you going to be okay?”
Is she?
“I don’t know . This is hard.”
“Yeah. I know .”
Earlier, between classes, she pulled him aside and told him everything. Evangeline, too.
In a way, it felt good to let out the last of her deep, dark secrets. But then, Jacy and Evangeline aren’t directly impacted by the news that Mom had a baby— and perhaps, a secret lover— and that Calla has a long-lost sister.
Dad is definitely impacted.
“I kind of wish we weren’t going away together for three whole days,”she tells Jacy. “It’s like there’s no escaping any of it.”
“There probably wouldn’t be if you stayed here, either.”
“True.”
“But I wish you weren’t going away for three days, too.”
“Please don’t tell me you’re having another vision of me in danger.”
“No. I’ll just miss you.”
Her heart skips a beat. “I’ll miss you, too.”
Looking up at him, Calla wishes everything and everyone— the noisy school, the people, her father and his car, the weekend ahead—could just fall away, leaving her alone with Jacy. Judging by the look in his eyes, he’s wishing the same thing.
He leans in and kisses her—not the way he wants to, she senses, and not the way she wants him to—but
in a way that’s appropriate for broad daylight, at school, with her father in the vicinity.
“You better get going.”
“Yeah.”She sighs. “Good luck at your track meet later.”
“Thanks.”
He gives a wave and heads off down the hall toward the boys’ locker room.
Reluctantly, Calla walks down the steps through a cold drizzle. As she reaches for the car door handle, she lowers her head to check her father’s face through the window.
It’s not tear- stained, to her relief. He looks normal. Serious, but normal.
She climbs in. “Hi, Dad.”
“Hi, Cal’.”He pulls away from the curb, past the waiting line of yellow school buses. “Put on your seat belt.”
She does, wondering if they’re still going away for the weekend now that he knows. She doesn’t want to come right out and ask. What if she was wrong and he doesn’t know? What if, for some reason, Gammy decided not to tell him?
“Dad? Did you remember to pick up my overnight bag?”
“Got it.”
“Good.”
How is she going to bring up what happened last night?
What if he doesn’t?
What if she has to wonder all weekend whether— “Calla, I had a long talk with your grandmother this morning. And with Detective Lutz and Detective Kearney.”
Oh.
Okay, then.
He knows.
She takes a deep breath, glad he’s driving so they don’t have to look each other in the eye. “Was it about Mom?”
“Yes, and the first thing I want you to know is that I’m okay. You don’t have to worry about me. I can live with this. All right?”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. Was it easy to hear that Mom kept something this big from me for all these years? I won’t lie to you. It wasn’t. But I’ll survive, and so will you. And now, maybe we’ll get some answers.”
“Did you tell the police?”
“Yes.”
“What did they say?”
“They wrote down everything and they said they’ll look into it.”He shrugs. “They had already been trying to locate Sharon Logan’s daughter, Laura, from what I understand.”
“You mean they already knew she was Mom and Darrin’s baby?”
“No! No, they didn’t know . They wanted to talk to her about Sharon.”
Suddenly, it hits Calla.
Wanted to.
Trying to locate.
“You mean . . . they can’t find her?”
“No. Not yet.”Dad hesitates. “She, uh, seems to have gone missing a while back.”
“Missing!”Calla’s heart sinks. “What if something’s happened to her, too? What if—”
She can’t even say it. She rests her head miserably against the passenger window as her father turns left onto Route 60, heading north toward the Thruway.
Is it possible she’s found her sister only to lose her again . . . this time, forever?
“Calla? Do you have a feeling one way or another? About Laura being dead or alive?”
Caught off guard by her father’s question, she turns slowly to look at him.
“What do you mean . . . a feeling?”
Dad is focused on the road through the windshield. “I mean, your grandmother thought I should know everything. Not just about Mom. About you, too.”
“You mean . . . ?”
“I mean I know you have a—what do you like to call it around here? A gift?”
“More like . . . an ability.”Her heart is racing. “It doesn’t always feel like a gift.”
“I can imagine. And I understand why you didn’t tell me.”
“You do?”
He nods. “I’m going to try to be more open-minded from now on. I’m tired of secrets, and I think you are, too. What do you say we make a fresh start? Starting today?”
“Okay. Starting today.”
“No more secrets. Agreed?”
She hesitates only a split second, wondering if she should tell him about her mother and Darrin maybe having an affair behind his back.
But is it really her place to do that?
No. It’s not. At least, not right now.
You’re not a hundred percent sure.
Ninety-nine- point-nine percent, based on the evidence, but . . .
“Agreed,”she tells her father, with a twinge of guilt.
“Good. And in that spirit—no pun intended—I have a suggestion.”
“What?”
He hesitates, and glances over at her.
“What?”she repeats, sensing that everything isn’t behind them.
“What do you say we go visit your grandfather in Pittsburgh?”“When?”
“No time like the present. We’re already headed for Pennsylvania.”“But . . . what if he doesn’t want to see us?”
“That’s a chance we’ll have to take. Are you game?”
Calla nods slowly. “I’m game.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Friday, October 12
7 p.m.
The address Odelia wrote down for Calla and her father is located in a hilly, working- class neighborhood on the south side of Pittsburgh.
The two- story white house itself is pretty basic— two windows upstairs, two down, and a door in the middle. No porch, ornate woodwork, or flower garden like the ones in Lily Dale. In fact, the only thing this one has in common with the cottages there—besides being over a century old— is that it could use a paint job.
As Calla and her father head up the front walk in the dark, she fights the urge to run back to the car. They rehearsed what they’re going to say. Dad is going to do most of the talking— or all of it, if she can’t find her voice.
“Are you sure you want to do this?”he asks her as they climb the steps.
No. But she sees a curtain part at the window beside the door.
Too late to back out now.
“I’m sure.”
He rings the bell, and Calla braces herself to meet her grandfather.
But it’s a woman who turns on the outside light and answers the door.
She’s stocky, with gray hair and a tired, weathered face.
“Are you Mrs. Lauder?”Dad asks.
“Yes.”
“Is Jack at home?”
“Yes.”
“Can we please speak to him?”
“About what?”
“About . . .”
Dad hesitates. He doesn’t want to say anything about Jack having a daughter, Calla realizes. Just in case his wife doesn’t know .
“Tell him it’s about Lily Dale.”
“Lily Dale,”the woman repeats. She looks at Calla. “And that’s you?”
“Um . . . what?”
“You’re Lily Dale?”
Oh! The woman thinks it’s a person’s name, not a place. Which means Jack, just like Mom, wanted to put his life there behind him when he left, not even telling his spouse about it.
Dad answers for Calla. “No, her name is Calla, and I’m Jeff.”
The woman nods and closes the door, saying, “Wait here.”
Calla hears the click of the lock inside and looks at her father.
“You can’t be too careful these days,”he tells her.
Less than a minute later, the door opens again.
This time, a man is standing on the threshold.
Calla’s grandfather.
Knowing Odelia as she does, she never pictured Jack Lauder to be quite so . . . elderly.
He’s of medium height but slightly stooped over. He has very little hair, but what’s there is pure white. His face was once handsome, but is now trenched with deep wrinkles.
“I’m Jack Lauder,”he tells Dad, and shifts his eyes— hazel, and startlingly familiar—to Calla.
She sees his bushy white eyebrows shoot up, sees the unmistakable flash of realization in his eyes. But he says nothing more.
“I’m Jef
f Delaney, and this is my daughter, Calla.”
The old man nods.
“We came here from Lily Dale, New York.”
Another nod.
Then, “How did you find me?”
Dad hesitates. “Is your wife . . . ?”
“She’s in the kitchen.”He steps outside and pulls the door closed behind him.
“We found you through Odelia, your . . .”
“Ex-wife.”He doesn’t ask how Odelia found him. But then, he knows her. Maybe he’s not surprised.
“Yes, your ex-wife. And my mother-in- law.”
The man looks from Dad to Calla, as if calculating the connection.
Then, softly, he says, “You’re Stephanie’s daughter.”
For the first time, she manages to speak. “Yes.”
“You look like her.”He swallows hard. “And Stephanie? Where is she?”
Calla and her father look at each other.
“She passed away,”Dad tells Jack Lauder gently. “I’m sorry.”
A sound comes out of the man— not a moan, not a sigh, not a sob, but some combination of the three, and it sends chills down Calla’s spine.
“I—we—thought you should know .”
Jack Lauder nods sadly and bends his head, gingerly lowering himself onto the step.
Somewhere in the distance, sirens wail and a fire truck honks its guttural horn. A gust of wind kicks dry leaves against the concrete steps.
Yet again, Calla remembers what Ramona said about the bond between parent and child.
Maybe that’s only true when the parents are psychic. Maybe Mom’s father had no idea that she was no longer on this earth.
Seeing him wipe a tear from his eye, Calla finds that her sympathy for him is tainted by a flicker of anger.
“Why did you leave?”she hears a voice ask— and realizes, to her shock, that it’s her own. She didn’t mean to bring that up, especially at this moment, but she can’t seem to help it. She’s been waiting a long time to find out the answer to that question.
Jack looks up. “Why did I leave?”
The words seem to hang heavily in the air.
“I’ve asked myself that very question every day of my life,”Jack Lauder says at last, “and I think I know why I haven’t been able to answer it until now.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t like the answer. I don’t want to face the ugly truth about myself.”
Dad sits on the step beside him. “What is it, Jack?”
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