One Speck of Truth

by Caela Carter

  What will I look for after I find him?

  What will I think about once the mystery is solved?

  What if I find him and I don’t feel anything?

  I think about going home and calling Julia and telling her I didn’t go in. “You’re crazy!” she’d say. “You can’t choose to have missing moms and dads if you don’t have to.”

  Instead, I step slowly inside the gate. Immediately I’m a different person. My heart is calm. My breath is even. Each mouthful of the darkening air tastes like the freshest water from the freshest stream.

  It’s a little chilly so I pull on my uniform red sweater. It feels like Mom’s hug surrounding me.

  All my life I’ve had one parent. And now, I’m about to have two—I’m sure of it.

  I walk down the main street of the graveyard. I’m still in awe of all of this—these Houses for the Dead on either side of me, close together and sometimes touching. I reach out and stroke one house, half expecting it’s going to be Dad’s just because it’s the first one I touched.

  But when I read the letters carved above the door it says Gloria Lopes. A woman’s name.

  I wander the main big street. The graveyard is almost empty. Just a few people walking near me, taking pictures or talking in hushed voices.

  There’s no Jorge Costa on the main road. At the end of it is the grave version of a mansion. It looks to be three stories high and it has a porch with four front steps. The front and sides are meticulously landscaped with flowering plants and beautiful trees. I see a man working on planting something behind it. I stare at the house for a while. It looks like I could walk up the steps and knock on the front door. It looks like I could be invited in for tea and a chat. It looks like it’s keeping the dead person inside while inviting the rest of the world in too. Isn’t that how it should be?

  My heart pulls me to the right. It’s a yank and I have to follow it.

  But as I turn, I see tiny alleyways that spiderweb in every direction. The graveyard goes on for so long it would take me hours to read every name on every doorway. I look at a few. No Jorge Costas.

  The sun is sinking further and shadows are all around me. If I don’t get home before it’s dark, Mom will be freaking out. She’d ground me if she knew where I was. My heart feels heavy. Like it might fall out of my body and rest here in this graveyard until I can come back and get it.

  But I have to go.

  I start walking backward, looking at the graves as I go.

  “I’ll find you soon, Dad, I promise.” I say it out loud, as quietly as I can.

  Then, SMACK. I back right into something. Someone.

  “Ahh!” I scream.

  “Cousin! Cousin! I apologize! I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  I turn. “Leonor! What are you doing here?” I spit.

  In two seconds I’m so far from the calm I just felt. I can’t feel my dad anywhere anymore.

  “I am truly sorry,” Leonor says. I walk past her and start my way toward the trolley, pretending not to listen as she keeps talking, trailing behind me. “Avó told me you were required to stay late at school for some additional language lessons and . . . and I only thought you may need some assistance finding your way home. . . . I was waiting in the front vestibule but then you left the school so quickly . . . I chased after you, but I’m afraid you are much faster than I. I followed you here to see if you needed assistance and then—”

  “My mom sent you,” I say over my shoulder. “Didn’t she?”

  “No,” Leonor says. “Avó didn’t send me either. I assure you it was all my idea that you may need some help navigating back home.”

  I turn so that we’re face-to-face. I feel like I’m towering over her even though she’s several inches taller than me.

  “Then listen,” I say. “You can’t tell them where I was. You can’t tell anyone.”

  “OK,” she says. She almost looks like she’s trembling. “I will not tell your secret, Alma.”

  I nod once, satisfied she’s not going to say anything. I soften a little. She was trying to help me. It’s not her fault I’m weird and needed a minute alone in a graveyard.

  “Come on,” I say. “Let’s go home.”

  Gray clouds are rolling across the blue sky, darkening the graveyard. I take a few steps, then say, “And thank you. I mean, thank you for staying late to be sure I get home. I didn’t mean to yell . . . I just needed . . .”

  Except when I turn Leonor isn’t right behind me. She’s still standing a few feet back, where she was before I started walking.

  “Alma?” she says in a voice so tentative, I forget all about how annoyed I was and walk back over to her.

  She bites her lip but doesn’t say anything until I say, “Yeah?”

  “Were you . . . did you say . . . were you . . . Did you think your dad would be here?” she asks. “My tio Jorge?”

  A light bulb goes off. My eyes get wide. She could know. She could know.

  “What do you know about him?” Leonor is saying.

  “Is he not here?” I say, fast. “Do you know where he is?”

  Leonor shakes her head, her eyes on her shoes. “I’m afraid no one does at the moment.”

  My heart stops. My face is on fire with anger. No one knows where he is? Does no one care about him except me?

  “What?” I say, almost screaming. “What do you mean no one knows where he is?”

  “The family hasn’t seen him in a long time,” Leonor says.

  “What?” I yell. “How? He didn’t even get a funeral? His family doesn’t know where he’s buried?” His family doesn’t even love him?

  I’m hysterical.

  It’s contagious. Leonor answers me in the same panicked tone.

  “He’s dead?” she cries. “Tio Jorge is dead? No one told me!”

  They’ve told her less, I think. She knows even less than I do. Maybe avó does know where he’s buried. Maybe she did what my mom would and kept the truth from the children.

  “When did he die?” Leonor asks.

  “A long time ago,” I say. “When I was a baby. In Pennsylvania.”

  Leonor’s eyes go wide.

  Then she sits. She’s suddenly sitting on the grass next to the stoop of a grave-mansion, despite the clouds over her head threatening to drench us.

  “Leonor?” I say.

  “I . . . I . . . dá-meum minuto . . . I mean, give me a minute.”

  I watch her sit there, swallowing big gulps of air. Finally she says, “Your mother and avó have been quite clear: I am not permitted to talk to you at all about tio Jorge. But I’m afraid I must. I must break that request.”

  “They said we can’t talk about him?” I say, looking at her. “Why? What do you know?”

  Leonor looks right in my eyes and says, “Cousin, I’m not sure how or why this happened. But your mother has a misunderstanding. Your father is not dead. He is alive.”

  “What?” My bag drops off my shoulder. My jaw drops to the ground. Then I laugh. Because it’s impossible. It’s the only thing I’ve ever know about him. The only speck of truth I’ve ever had. He’s dead.

  “This must be quite shocking,” Leonor says. “I am befuddled for you, I believe.”

  “He can’t be alive,” I say, shaking my head. “He can’t.” He can’t.

  Every question I buried has to have gotten to him somehow. Every time I thought of him, I had to be thinking of the right person. The dead person.

  “Well, it’s been two years since I’ve seen him. But he was very much alive then. And I don’t believe he was ever in Pennsylvania.”

  I stare at her, her words barely getting through my ears into my brain they are such nonsense.

  “I’m so sorry, cousin,” Leonor says.

  But she’s wrong. She has to be.

  “Then why does my mom think he’s dead?” I demand.

  “I don’t know. Avó tells me precious little. I don’t know what she’s told your mother. Tio Jorge is not easy to find. B
ut I have met him. I have seen him. Long ago, but much more recently than when you were first born.”

  “No,” I say. “You can’t have seen him. You’re making this up. You’re making fun of me.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Leonor says. “I promise. It’s true. Your dad. He is alive.”

  I stare at her. Her eyes are wide. She’s trying to look as honest as possible. But she’s turning my world upside down. She’s changing the way I’m grounded to the planet. She’s erasing gravity. I’m afraid if I listen to her say it one more time, I’ll disappear.

  Before I know what I’m doing, I turn and run. I run fast and then faster, weaving my way between grave-houses and grave-mansions until I reach the front gate. I hear the trolley ringing and I dive onto it just as the rain erupts behind me, leaving my cousin in the cloudy graveyard where my dad must be buried.

  Must be.

  Nineteen

  What?

  I BURST THROUGH THE WEIRD DOUBLE doors of our tiny Lisbon apartment and it seems like all the air rushes out of my lungs, as if I’d been holding my breath the entire ride home.

  “MOOOOOOM!” I scream.

  I’m a mess. My bag is still in the graveyard. My glasses are crooked on my nose. My uniform shirt is half untucked, my red sweater is falling off one shoulder, and half of my hair has come sprouting out of my ponytail in all directions.

  “MOOOOOOM!”

  Her bedroom door slams open and she appears before me.

  “Alma! Alma!” she’s saying. “Are you OK?”

  It’s not until I see her face that I realize I can’t say anything to her. Now that Adam’s gone she’s the only person in the world who loves me in that firework-heart way and yet I can’t trust her with any of my thoughts.

  If I tell her Leonor says he’s alive, she’ll keep me from trying to find out if he really is. And if I tell her where I’ve been, she won’t let me go back. She’ll keep her eyes on me all the time.

  Still, I fall into her hug when she opens her arms for it.

  “You’re soaked,” she says.

  I didn’t even realize it had started raining, but I think about my skin and yeah, she’s right.

  My first rain in Portugal.

  I feel my back rising and falling with breaths so big I could choke on them as my mom’s hand strokes and strokes my wet uniform sweater. I have to pull it together. I have to come up with something else to say.

  “I—I—I—”

  “Alma, honey, what’s wrong?”

  “I left my bag at Portuguese class,” I say finally. It’s almost a wail.

  “Oh, sweets,” Mom says. She holds me tight and rocks a little bit. “It’s OK.”

  I freeze in her arms. Her hug is not doing its usual warming-thing. I can’t believe I just lied like that, so easily. I don’t want to become a liar just because my mother is one.

  “I don’t think I like this,” she says. “I don’t know about a twelve-year-old taking the trolley all by herself.”

  “Am I late?” I ask. I look toward the kitchen window but it’s hard to tell because it’s dark and raining outside.

  “No,” she says. “But look at you. It’s too much.”

  I step out of the hug.

  “I’ve been taking the school bus by myself since kindergarten.” The words are the truth but the way I say them—calm, pulled together, almost whiny—is a lie.

  “There’s a big difference between the school bus in a tiny suburb and the public trolley in a big, foreign city. I’m not sure what I was thinking. I’ll come and pick you up tomorrow. I’ll rearrange my schedule to take some calls after dinner. That way I can ride the trolley home with you.”

  “NO!” I say, too loudly, too jumpy.

  I don’t tell her that I don’t have Portuguese lessons tomorrow. I need her to think that I do.

  Mom cocks her head. “Are you sure you’re OK?” she asks.

  “Yes, just . . . All the kids take the trolley, Mom,” I say, finding the words out of thin air. “I’ll look like a total baby.”

  I don’t feel this way. It was only a few weeks ago that I was standing on the bus stop at home aching for my mother to be there with me. I actually love that she would be willing to change her whole schedule just to ride a trolley with me.

  But my bag is not in the Portuguese classroom.

  And I don’t even have Portuguese tutoring tomorrow.

  I can’t tell her any of that. I have to hide things just like she does.

  “Well, I don’t want you coming home all by yourself anymore,” she says.

  “I . . . I’ll ask Leonor!” I say. Even though I just yelled at Leonor. Even though she’ll probably never want to go back to that graveyard with me after I left her like that.

  I need to find a way to get Leonor on my side.

  I need some help to find the truth and I can’t trust my mom to give it to me.

  Mom thinks for a minute. Then nods.

  “Alma, are you sure you’re OK?” she asks again She puts her hands on my cheeks.

  I can’t tell her I’m not OK. I can’t tell her Leonor says he’s alive. And Leonor has no reason to lie. As much as I don’t want to believe her, I’m starting to.

  I can’t mention in even the smallest, teeniest way that my dad is maybe possibly kind of alive because I know, know, know deep in my soul that if she finds out he is still alive, she will try to keep him from me.

  Mom shuts my brain down. “Alma?”

  “Yes!’” I say. “I’m fine! I’m just upset about my bag. I’m going to get so behind in my homework.”

  “Well,” Mom says. “I guess maybe this will teach you to be more responsible for yourself.”

  Be responsible for myself. That’s exactly what I have to do.

  I have to be responsible for my own answers.

  Twenty

  What Happened?

  I LEAVE THE APARTMENT AS SOON as I’m dry. I tell Mom I’m going to ask Leonor about taking the trolley home with me tomorrow.

  Really, I know I have to apologize to Leonor. I have to beg her to forgive me. Then, I have to figure out how to do the cousin-thing. How to be her friend. I have to find out everything she knows about my dad.

  And I want to see avó. I want to search her face for the truth. If my dad is alive, she must know. I want to play music next to her and hope the notes seep information into my skull through some sort of family-magical bond.

  Leonor opens the door. Avó isn’t there.

  Leonor stands in the doorway in fresh, dry clothes. Her dark blond hair is still wet and unwound from its braid, hanging in curly clumps around her face. I’ve never seen it down. It makes her look older. More intimidating.

  “I guess it’s my turn to say sorry.” It takes me too long to say it.

  She nods.

  “I shouldn’t have left you there. I just . . . I can’t even . . .”

  I pause.

  I study my cousin. She stands on the other side of the doorway, her arm stretched to hold the half door open for me.

  “I don’t know what to say except I’m sorry,” I finish.

  She nods again. “It must have been shocking. But I’m still your cousin,” she says. “You shouldn’t have left me there.”

  I chew my cheek, thinking. She seems to know the secret cousin code or something. Maybe she doesn’t know she’s my first cousin ever.

  What can I do to make it up to her? To make her like me again?

  I step inside. “Do you think you could braid my hair?” I ask.

  Leonor clutches her hands to her chest just like avó does.

  “Certainly!” she says. “We’ll forget about this, this one time. As long as you promise it won’t happen again.”

  “It won’t,” I say. “I promise.” And I mean it. Leonor has to be on my team if I’m ever going to find my dad, dead or alive.

  “Good,” she says. “Because we’re the cousins, you know? We’re the . . . children . . . kids. We should be on the same team.�
��

  She turns to look at me and I nod and squint at her. She just said out loud what I’d been thinking. Maybe I do have a little bit of the secret cousin code.

  It’s easy to ask questions as she stands behind me braiding my hair. I don’t even have to look at her face while she realizes how weird I am.

  “So avó must have had a husband?” I say.

  “Yes,” Leonor says. “Vovô. Our funny vovô. He passed away a few years ago. He also played the piano. You would have liked him.”

  So they both play the piano. Both of my dad’s parents. Does that mean my dad played? Plays?

  “Was he my grandfather too? Like he was my dad’s dad?” I ask.

  I’m being so careful. It’s the perfect way to bring up my dad without getting back into the argument.

  “Of course,” Leonor says. “Your dad’s dad and my dad’s dad. Our dads are full brothers.” I tilt my head to the left and she uses her hand to straighten it. “Hold still,” she says.

  “Where is your dad?” I say, realizing I should have asked a long time ago. Maybe Leonor’s dad is gone or in some sort of trouble. I should know by now why she lives with her grandmother instead of her parents.

  “Oh, he’s in the south of Portugal,” Leonor says. “With the rest of the family. That’s where we are all from. My parents send me and my siblings up here to go to the International School just so we can get a better education. So we’ve all taken turns living with avó. I’m the youngest.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Do you miss him?”

  Leonor pulls a chunk of hair over my right ear. “Of course,” she says. “I can barely wait until mid-October when they will come for a visit. I usually go down to see them on the long weekends but this year they are coming up to see you.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “My mom told me about that.”

  I try to brainstorm what to say next. How can I turn this into information I can use?

  “Alma,” Leonor says. “I know avó and your mother have told us not to discuss him but . . . can I ask you . . . What exactly is the story you know to be true about your father?”