One Speck of Truth

by Caela Carter

The young man’s eyes light up with recognition. “Jorge?” he says. “Um minuto.”

  He takes off in a little golf cart and I stand there and press my hands together.

  I don’t know what I’m going to say.

  I don’t know what I’m going to do.

  I don’t even know how to feel.

  I wait and wait until I hear the little golf cart coming from behind me. I don’t turn. I got all the way to Portugal. I searched for him for years. I’m going to make him cross the last distance.

  “Alma,” he says, walking around to face me.

  I finally turn and look at him.

  I see avó Flávia in the shape of his eyes. I see the same dark eyes and wrinkles in his forehead that were on his father in the picture in avó’s room.

  He smiles.

  In his smile, I see my own.

  My pounding heart slows just a little bit. My fingers relax at my sides. This is my dad. This is finally my dad.

  This is the moment I’ve thought about forever. This is the moment that was never supposed to happen.

  “You’re here,” Jorge says. “Does your mom know you’re here?”

  I shake my head no.

  Jorge nods. “Not at all?” he says.

  “I mean, she knows I’m in Portugal, in Lisbon, of course, because she’s here too. We’re living above avó’s apartment. But . . . she thinks I’m at school.”

  He nods again. “OK,” he says.

  “My school is right over there,” I say. “So it’s not like a big lie or anything.”

  I’ve known my dad for less than five minutes and I’m already more honest with him than I am with my mom.

  “OK,” he says again.

  I’m somehow surprised by how thick his accent is. It’s even thicker than Leonor’s. I can’t hear myself in his voice at all.

  “Come on,” he says. He walks back toward the golf cart. “Let’s talk.”

  I take a beat before I follow him.

  Can I follow him?

  Could he be dangerous?

  “Wait,” I say. He turns. “Are you really him?”

  He studies my face like he isn’t sure what to answer. Or whether to answer.

  “Are you really my dad?”

  He nods.

  I follow him.

  We drive the golf cart slowly through the winding alleys of the graveyard and out through a back entrance I’ve never seen before. We drive a few blocks and then he pulls into a driveway next to a Portuguese mansion. “Turns out I’m working over here these days,” he says. “Right by your school.”

  I nod.

  “So this was easy. After all this time. Who would have thought?”

  “Yeah,” I say. I try to say something else. I’m too overwhelmed. I don’t know where to begin.

  I know I need to ask questions. This is the parent who I’ve always known would tell me everything. But I don’t want to say the wrong thing. The thing that would make him disappear again.

  Of course, if this is my honest parent, my never-lying-never-sneaky parent, why does my mom think he’s dead?

  I put my hands in front of my face, trying to physically shove that thought out of my brain. Jorge doesn’t seem to notice.

  “Come in,” he says, getting out of the cart and walking around the back to a small shed next to the mansion.

  I follow him. I’m nervous until I see the inside. There are lockers around the walls and a TV much too big for the wall it’s on. There are folding chairs scattered about the floor. A big window across from the TV lets in plenty of light.

  “The boss for this job is all right,” Jorge says, pointing out the door toward the mansion behind us. “They let us have this little area to take some breaks.”

  Jorge flips on the TV. The screen turns green, and black stick-figure soccer players bounce in the middle of it.

  “Sonic Soccer,” Jorge says, even though I already know the game. “You know how to play?”

  I nod. I push the image out of my head. I pretend I don’t see Adam’s hands on the controller next to mine as he refuses to let me win.

  How can I still miss Adam?

  How can I want another dad when I’ve finally found the right one? When he’s alive? When he’s right here?

  “Let’s play,” he says.

  I should ask him what happened. I should ask him why he never tried to find me. Why I had to find him.

  Why my mom thinks he’s dead.

  But I just sit in the folding chair next to him and we begin the game. I score a goal in the first minute.

  “Wow!” he says.

  But I can tell he let me score.

  “How do you know how to play?” he asks.

  “My stepfather,” I say. “He taught me.”

  Jorge nods. “He’s here with you now?” he says. “In Portugal?”

  “No,” I say. I wait a minute before I say, “They got divorced.”

  I’m doing what he told me to do though. Adam. I’m being honest with the people who love me.

  Because Jorge must love me, right? Or he will love me? He’s my dad.

  We play for a minute. Then another. Another. Too many minutes go by without any words. This is not OK. This is not what I was picturing. I thought my dad would be full of chatter and stupid jokes. I thought he’d cook for me and drive me places and show up to cheer for me at piano recitals.

  I never once pictured him playing video games.

  Time ticks by. I look at the clock on the wall and realize I have to get back to school in twenty minutes.

  “So,” I say. “Why . . . why now?” I think about how to go on. How to ask more without scaring him. “What . . . Where did you think I was? And why . . . why don’t I know you?”

  Jorge coughs so loudly I stop talking.

  “Alma,” Jorge says. He says it like avó does. He says it in Portuguese.

  I should have been hearing my name said like that my entire life.

  “We’re here now. Together. Let’s enjoy it.”

  “But,” I say. “But why—”

  He cuts me off again. “Who wants the unpleasant details when we could just enjoy each other’s company?”

  I do. I want the unpleasant details. And the pleasant ones. I want all the details.

  “I . . . I want to know . . . I need—”

  “Listen,” Jorge says. “I will tell you. I’ll make sure you understand. But let me . . . let me get to know you first. It’s too . . . soon. Too difficult too soon. Give me a few days.”

  My heart squeezes and contracts. I can’t fit it into the tiny place it wants to go.

  “No!” I want to say. “No! No! No! You are supposed to be the parent who gives me answers. You are supposed to be the parent who sees me as a full person who deserves her full story. You are supposed to tell me what happened.”

  But I’m sure that would be the wrong thing to say.

  The thing that would make him disappear all over again.

  I focus on the give me a few days. I’ll see him again. In just a few days.

  I score on him. Then I say, “It’s hard to enjoy your company when you’re letting me win.”

  He laughs a big, bright, open laugh that is so unlike my mom it makes my heart grow a little closer to its normal size. “OK, then,” he says.

  With two flicks of his thumbs his players are behind me and he scores.

  “What do you say again?” he says. “Game on!”

  I stand up to make my players charge back at him. “Take that!” I say.

  He laughs again. I make him laugh.

  I make my dad laugh.

  Twenty minutes later, Jorge drives the golf cart to the edge of the woods to drop me off close to school.

  “Come see me again?” he says.

  His eyes are shining. The smile on his face matches the smile on mine.

  “Yes,” I say. “I can’t see you tomorrow though. I have Portuguese tutoring after school.”

  He’ll ask me a question now. All day I
’ve been waiting for him to ask me a question. It’ll be a simple one like Oh, you don’t speak any Portuguese? or Oh, you’re trying to learn the language?

  He doesn’t.

  “The day after, then,” he says. “You can meet me at my shed. Just knock on the door.”

  I nod.

  “Oh!” he says. “I almost forgot. I got you something.”

  He reaches into the little compartment in the golf cart that’s between our seats. He pulls out a small white box tied up with red-and-white string and hands it to me.

  I pull the string to untie it. I open the box.

  “Pastel de nata,” he says. “My favorite Portuguese treat.”

  I pinch my lips together and bite down with my teeth to keep myself from saying “I knew it! I knew it! When I ate one of these the first time I knew you must love them as much as I do.”

  “Thank you,” I say finally.

  “Do you want to try it?” he asks.

  I stare at it. It’s sitting perfectly in the center of the little square box. Its crust is crinkled symmetrically. The waning sunlight reflects off the burnt-sugar top.

  “I will later,” I say. “When I’m good and hungry.”

  He chuckles.

  But I know I won’t. I just told a lie. That is the first lie I’ve ever told my dad.

  I’ll never eat this pastel de nata. I’ll put it on my windowsill next to the fresh flowers. I’ll keep it there as it melts and grows moldy and even if it stinks. I’ll never get rid of this. The first thing my father gave me.

  Proof that he could have loved me all along.

  He chuckles again. “Well, just don’t tell your mom where you got it from.”

  I push those words out of my head as I climb out of the golf cart and watch him disappear back in the direction of the mansion and the shed.

  I think instead about my treat.

  About my dad.

  About how my dad gave me something. My dad did something just for me.

  That night I don’t Skype Julia.

  I don’t go downstairs and talk to Leonor.

  I avoid my mom.

  I sit by the window in my bedroom and stare at my pastel de nata.

  Leonor and Julia would ask me all the questions he didn’t answer. They’d make me feel like today was less than perfect because there are so many questions still in the air.

  If my mom finds out he’s alive, she’ll be afraid of me finding answers and then I’ll never find them.

  No one could understand what happened to me today.

  None of them could understand how a little pastry could mean so much in the face of all these mysteries.

  Twenty-Two

  What Is a Dad?

  I GO SEE JORGE AGAIN TWO days later after school. Leonor has been asking about the first time over the past few days but I tell her a need a little time to figure out how to talk about it. I tell her I’ve been missing my dad for twelve years and I need to spend some more time with him before I start to talk about it. She seems to understand, but she keeps asking anyway.

  I have to get some answers today so that I can tell her something.

  I walk up to the shed outside the mansion and knock.

  “Alma,” Jorge says, opening the door and standing aside so I can walk in. I immediately see a guitar leaning against the chair. He notices me notice it. “She’s beautiful, right?” he says about the guitar. He holds it.

  I take the guitar from him like he indicates. I sit and strum an easy A, B-flat, A.

  “You already know,” he says, smiling.

  “A little,” I say. “I’m better at piano.”

  “I can’t stand the piano,” he says.

  I pretend it doesn’t sting.

  “So why has it been so long?” I say. I’m not waiting to ask my questions. I need answers. I know that Mom won’t give them to me and Adam won’t and Flávia can’t. And Leonor barely knows more than me. This is the adult who I’ve always known would give me the answers.

  “What you mean so long?” he says. “So long since I last played guitar?” He takes the guitar back from me and sits across from me.

  I lower my eyebrows at him. I have no idea when he last played guitar. I know almost nothing about him. That’s the problem.

  “No. So long without us seeing each other,” I say, choosing the words carefully.

  “We saw each other two days ago,” he says. He starts strumming a song I don’t recognize.

  This is starting to feel like talking to my mom. But no. It can’t. It can’t be like that.

  “I mean before that. You hadn’t seen me since I was a baby.”

  Jorge stops playing and looks right at my face. “Since you were a baby?” he says.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I mean . . . what happened?”

  He sighs and plays another chord.

  “What else has your mother told you?” he asks.

  My fingers start to wiggle at my sides. I wish I had a guitar or something to keep my hands and eyes busy. I don’t think I can tell the truth on this one. “Nothing,” I say. “She doesn’t tell me anything.”

  I don’t say “she thinks you’re dead.”

  I don’t want to start giving him answers until I have mine.

  “What did she say when you told her you’d found me?” he asks carefully.

  I can’t answer that either. He’s a stranger but he’s also my dad. I have no idea what is safe to tell him. It’s so confusing.

  “I have questions!” I blurt, exasperated. “I always thought that if I could find you, you’d give me answers.”

  His face softens. “You always thought that, huh?” he says. He pats the folding chair next to him, indicating that I should sit in it.

  I do.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  He takes a deep breath. “You know, Alma,” he says. “Everyone has their own stories. I can’t give you answers about your mother or anything else.”

  “I know,” I say. My heart is calming down. He’s not sidestepping. He’s talking to me directly.

  “You trusted me before you met me, huh?” he says.

  I think about that for a minute. “I guess I did,” I say.

  He nods. “Then maybe you can trust me now. I’ll tell you my story. It just . . . it just might take a little while. OK? I need to get to know you. I need you to get to know me. We need to spend some time together before any of the past can make any sort of sense.”

  Part of me wants to just say OK. He’s my dad and I’ve missed him for so long and I want to make him happy.

  “When do you think you can tell me?”

  But instead of answering, he plays louder. “This is my favorite American song,” he says. Then he plays the cords. D, E7, G, A. I know what it is right away. Well she was an American girl.

  After a bar he hands the guitar back to me. I continue where he left off. D, E7, G, A. She couldn’t help thinking that there was a little more to life, somewhere else.

  My fake Portuguese lesson goes like this. The guitar going back and forth. The words all singing and no answers.

  I don’t ask what I need to. I let the questions haunt me. I bathe in the music.

  I go back again a few days later, and again after the next weekend. Every time I don’t have Portuguese tutoring after school, I pretend I do so that I can go see my dad.

  He doesn’t do any of the things I always thought he would. He doesn’t give me anything else after the pastel de nata. He doesn’t cook. He doesn’t make silly jokes. He doesn’t ask about school or my mom or my friends or my life. Either of my lives.

  He tells me one thing that lets me know he’s my dad though. He tells me he loves the graveyard.

  He wasn’t dead, but he loves a graveyard.

  That explains why I always felt him there.

  Even if the him I felt seemed like he’d be different than who he’s really turning out to be.

  He shows me around the graveyard. He tells me it’s called the Cemitério dos Prazeres, t
he Cemetery of Pleasures. Apparently it’s called that because this part of Lisbon is called Prazeres. But I also think it’s the right name for this place. It’s full of plants and colorful doors and every cheerful thing missing from other cemeteries.

  I try to tell him that, but Jorge doesn’t ask why I’ve spent so much time in so many other cemeteries.

  Jorge doesn’t ask any questions and he doesn’t answer any either.

  Every time I start to say the word why he says, “Alma, I will tell you everything soon.”

  When I keep asking he changes his answer to “Sometimes it seems like you’re just here for the details instead of to get to know your own father.” And I don’t want him to feel that way, so I stop asking.

  I trust him. I force myself to trust him. To believe he’ll answer me soon.

  Some days we play video games. Some days we play guitar. Some days we wander the graveayard and he complains about his boss, who makes him work extra hard even though he doesn’t ever seem to really be working. He shows me trees he’s planted and gardens he’s arranged on his boss’s property.

  But he doesn’t seem humble or brave or funny, like the dad I pictured back in the old cemetery behind my old house. He’s nothing like what I pictured. At least not yet.

  One night in early October, a few weeks after I first met Jorge, I’m up late tossing and turning. I’ve been trying to get used to my new life, my new school, my new cousin, my new secret I keep from my mom. It all swirls and gets stuck in my brain when it’s time for me to go to sleep.

  A tiny sound coming from my top night table drawer rescues me from my own thoughts. It’s my tablet.

  It’s Julia.

  I listen to be sure I can hear my mom snoring through the wall, then I yank it out and open it.

  “Alma!” she says. “I thought you forgot all about me!”

  I should have called Julia weeks ago when I first found him. I should have told her right away.

  But I can’t say anything.

  I can’t tell her I finally found my dad but all he does is play video games and the guitar and complain about work.

  I can’t tell her he doesn’t cook like her dad. He doesn’t joke like her dad. He doesn’t answer my questions or even ask me any.

  I can’t tell her that the person we searched for, the person we thought was lovely and then died, isn’t dead and isn’t alive. He never existed in the first place.