One Speck of Truth

by Caela Carter

  “I want to give you an idea of who everyone is before tomorrow.”

  “OK,” I say. I go sit on her bed. I shiver.

  The truth is that I’m still angry with her. I need to tell her that. I need real answers. I can’t choose love over anger every day. Sometimes they exist together, in the same room, coming from the same place.

  She starts pointing to pictures. “This is your uncle Gregoria and your aunt Mariana and your cousins Gasper and Paulo and Ana. Of course they are a little older now. This is not exactly an up-to-date photo album.”

  I’m barely listening to her. I’m thinking about all the times she let me believe that he was dead. That he was in a graveyard. That he died of some disease sort of like cancer. They were all lies.

  I don’t know how to let that go so quickly.

  Someone knocks on the door. Mom gets up and opens it. Adam comes in behind her.

  Adam who also let me believe a lie. Adam who didn’t save me when he could have.

  Mom walks over to the photo album and I don’t want to hear about one more relative from her when these lies are still hanging between us.

  “You both should have told me,” I say.

  “Alma, sweetie, you know we couldn’t,” Mom says, voice up and down and up and down.

  At the same time, Adam says, “I know. I should have.”

  “Adam!” Mom says. “You couldn’t tell her. I hadn’t told her yet.”

  Adam leans against the door. He crosses one foot in front of the other. “You know I always went with that, Mercy, until the other day when Alma called. I mean, I always thought you were right. It wasn’t my place to tell her. She’s your daughter.”

  There’s a tiny difference in the voices grown-ups use when they talk to each other instead of talking to a kid. I’ve heard Adam’s voice like this before but only when I was listening in on something I wasn’t supposed to hear. When he talks now, in his grown-up voice, about things I said, it makes me feel big and important and in charge of my own brain and my own worries.

  I wish more than ever that he really was my dad.

  “But Alma brought up a good point,” Adam says. “She said if I wanted to adopt her, I should have told her. I was ready to be her dad so I should have stood up for what I knew was right. Instead I let a lie keep hurting and hurting her.” He looks at me. “Alma, I’m sorry. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  I thought the apology would feel better than it does. But I nod anyway.

  Then Adam comes and sits on the floor at my feet. He reaches up and takes one of my hands.

  “And that’s not all, Alma-bear,” he says. “I’m sorry for everything else too. For leaving and for not calling until you called me. I’m sorry for giving you another reason to be sad. That time I saw you at Julia’s house and it was so awkward when it should have been joyful. I was just so . . .” He looks at Mom. “Well, this is the truth. I was heartbroken. I missed you both so much. But that doesn’t make it OK. I was ready to be your dad and instead I left you? It makes me sick to my stomach when I realize how it must have looked to you.”

  I’m crying now. This apology is much better.

  “But I’m not going to do it again. And I hope you’ll give me another chance.”

  “Another chance?” I blubber. “At being my dad?”

  Adam smiles a half smile, a sad one. He glances at Mom, who is keeping her eyes on her feet.

  “Well, maybe not officially,” Adam says. “But I’d like to do what I can to fill that role. I’m going to come back to Portugal for Christmas to see you. And when you move back home—”

  “Move back home?” I say. “We’re moving back home?”

  Mom chuckles. “Did you think I was going to bring you here forever? We’re only here for a year.”

  “Why only for a year?” I ask.

  “I thought you deserved a chance to really live here. To understand the food and the culture and the language. To really get to know your grandmother and your family. To maybe give Jorge a few chances. But we can’t stay here forever.”

  I look at her again, keeping my eyes steady to show I’m serious. “You should have told me that,” I say.

  Mom scrunches up her nose. “Well, I didn’t know if you’d want to leave after a year. And I didn’t know if you’d be hoping to go home sooner. And I didn’t know how to . . .” She pauses and looks at me. “You know what. You’re right, Alma. I should have told you.”

  I take a deep breath. I suck those words into my lungs. I hold them there. This might be the closest I ever get to an apology and I have to savor it.

  “When you do come home,” Adam says. “Your mother said maybe you can spend some time at my house too? Maybe one weekend a month?”

  My jaw drops. That sounds like a dad. One weekend a month. Holidays. It’s like a regular divorced dad.

  I doubt kids are usually happy when their parents talk about how their time will be split up after divorce, but to me this feels amazing.

  “Sounds good,” I say.

  “Really?” Adam says. His face has the smile my heart wants my face to have. But I don’t want to give that to him and Mom yet. I’m still too angry.

  “Shall we go back to the pictures?” Mom says.

  I shake my head. “I can’t learn that way,” I say. “And anyway, the only person I really want to see is Jorge.”

  “Really?” Mom says.

  I nod. “I have some questions to ask him.”

  “Alma, sweets,” she says. She puts her arm around me. “I know that. And Flávia said she called him yesterday and he’s still saying he’ll be there. But he doesn’t come around the family very often. She warned me he doesn’t always show up where he promises. I don’t think I can guarantee that he’ll be there.”

  “I know,” I say. “But I can hope. And don’t tell me not to. I’m going to do what my heart says to do even if you think I’m too young for it.”

  Mom smiles. “OK,” she says. “I can respect that.”

  I wait with Julia on the stairs outside our apartment building. The rest of my family is gathering in a restaurant. Apparently avó has an in with some restaurant owner and they closed down the place so that we could all be together today. We’re leaving in just a little bit. I’m nervous for what I’m going to say to Jorge if he comes. I’m nervous that maybe he won’t come.

  Julia is sitting next to me so our shoulders are touching, the way we used to sit together as little girls. She’s singing Taylor Swift and I’m trying to sing along because she’s right that a little Tay-Tay is basically the only thing that could take my mind off this right now, but even that isn’t helping very much.

  I interrupt her to tell her about the new plan with Adam when I get home.

  “He’s adopting you?” she asks. “He can do that?”

  “Well, no,” I say. “Not officially.”

  “Are you going to call him dad?” Julia asks.

  I close my eyes and think about it. I want to. I want him to remember that he made these promises to me every time he talks to me. I want to use the word as a guarantee that he won’t disappear again. “I think so,” I say.

  “Sounds close enough to me,” Julia says. She bumps her shoulder against mine. “We’ll both be adopted.”

  I smile at her.

  Then her eyes get wide. “Alma!” she says. She throws her arms around me. “Your dad will be my uncle. . . . We’ll be cousins!”

  “Oh yeah!” I say, squeezing her back. My heart bounces around my chest with joy. Who knew I could feel joy while at the same time being so worried.

  But the joy is real. Two new cousins in two months.

  The two best cousins a girl could have.

  It almost makes me feel lucky.

  I was hoping to find a grave in this country. I didn’t. Instead I got one dad, one grandmother, and two cousins. That should be enough.

  Mom comes down the stairs behind us. Adam follows her.

  “Ready, girls?” Mom says. “Flávia and
Leonor are already there.”

  “Ready,” Julia says.

  I get up and follow.

  As we walk the winding pathways of the old part of the city, I try to stay as close to Adam as possible. Even if Jorge has terrible answers, I’ll have a dad at the end of this. Even if Jorge isn’t there, I’ll have a dad at the end of this.

  It’s funny how I sort of know my way around now. I know that when we turn this corner there will be a set of stairs and a huge mural with a priest hanging out of a window and a woman at a table eating bread with a big glass of wine. I know that if we turn another corner there will be cars because we’ll be back on the road again despite an imperceptible difference in the size of the streets. It feels like I know Lisbon about as well as I know myself now. Still twists and turns and lots of surprises. But I’m getting more confident that I can navigate it.

  We reach the little restaurant nestled into one of the walls behind a set of stairs. There are three big windows in the front. I see shadowed figures moving around them. I stop walking. My heart is pounding so fast my legs can’t move at the same time.

  Adam, Mom, and Julia take a few more steps before realizing they’ve left me behind.

  Julia walks back and takes my hand. “Come on,” she says. “You can do this.”

  I nod and walk with her to the door of the restaurant. Mom and Adam pause behind us.

  I see people moving in all directions. There’s cheerful music playing. There’s a buffet set up in a corner. Some people are standing around chatting. Some are playing on the floor with small children and babies. Some are in line for food or sitting at one of the tables eating.

  I look and look for him. I scan each face.

  He’s not at the tables. He’s not on the floor. He’s not chatting in the corner.

  He’s not here.

  I turn to look at the three people I have. The three who are no way nohow disappearing. “He’s not here,” I say.

  Mom frowns and her eyes get that weepy look in them. “Alma,” she says. I know she wants to tell me not to care. I know she wants to tell me to just have a good time. But she doesn’t. She stops.

  “He’s not,” Adam says. “You must be disappointed.”

  I nod.

  My heart aches for him. Somehow my heart is aching for the actual Jorge. The one who only plays guitar and video games and complains about work. The one who has only ever given me a small stuffed lion and a pastel de nata. The one who said a month was “enough.” He wasn’t the dad I always dreamed of, but still, he was my dad.

  “I think I’m always going to miss him,” I say out loud. I tell the truth now in this moment when it would be so much easier to put on a fake smile.

  “I know,” Adam says. “You will. But look.” He points through the door at all the people who are my aunts and uncles and cousins, my family I’ve never met. “You do have all these people who traveled here to meet you. To see you. You can miss your dad and get to know them too.”

  I look up at him. I look at Julia. I look at my mom.

  I know they aren’t who he meant. But they all traveled here, across the ocean, to be here for me. They are all standing in this doorway, still, waiting for me to be ready.

  No matter how many new aunts and uncles and cousins and grandmothers I get. No matter how many more people I start to love. No matter how different life gets. I’ll have them.

  Family.

  About the Author

  Courtesy of Caela Carter

  CAELA CARTER is a writer and an educator. She is a graduate of The New School’s MFA program in writing for children. She has been teaching children and teenagers for ten years. Her books for teens include Me, Him, Them, and It; My Best Friend, Maybe; and Tumbling. She has written two other books for middle grade readers, My Life with the Liars and the critically acclaimed Forever, or a Long, Long Time. Caela lives in Brooklyn with her family. You can visit her online at www.caelacarter.com.

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  Books by Caela Carter

  My Life with the Liars

  Forever, or a Long, Long Time

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  Copyright

  ONE SPECK OF TRUTH. Copyright © 2019 by Caela Carter. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Cover art © 2019 by Becca Stadtlander

  Cover design by Molly Fehr

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Carter, Caela, author.

  Title: One speck of truth / Caela Carter.

  Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2019] | Summary: “Alma yearns for the truth about her dead birth father, and a trip to his birthplace might provide the answers she desperately seeks”-- Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018025429 | ISBN 978-0-06-267266-7 (hardback)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Mothers and daughters--Fiction. | Secrets--Fiction. | Fathers and daughters--Fiction. | Identity--Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Emotions & Feelings. | JUVENILE FICTION / Family / Parents. | JUVENILE FICTION / People & Places / Europe.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.C24273 One 2019 | DDC [Fic]--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018025429

  * * *

  Digital Edition MARCH 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-267269-8

  Print ISBN: 978-0-06-267266-7

  1920212223PC/LSCH10987654321

  FIRST EDITION

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