I remember my nightmare, with the garden and the ghostly face in the pool. But, like all dreams, it’s faded, lost its power, now that the day has worn on.
“I—one minute,” I say. My curiosity is bubbling to the surface. I’d called for Dad, but maybe I was meant to speak with Eloise all along. “Can I ask you something?” I add nervously. I press my feet into Mom’s cream-colored rug to steady myself. “What has … he told you? About me?”
“Oh,” Eloise says. She pauses, and in that instant, I can tell that she has a wealth of questions herself. “Not very much. I know you live in New York.”
The impressed way in which she says New York makes me roll my eyes. “Not New York City,” I tell her. “Although it’s not too far away.” How like Dad, to embellish that detail.
“Oh,” Eloise says again. I hear a note of disappointment—of disapproval—in her tone. I wonder if she has a snobby streak. At the same time, there is something warm and familiar about her. Could that be because we’re … related?
Oh God. We’re related. My head spins.
“And I know that yesterday was your birthday,” Eloise continues, and I try to focus back on what she’s saying. “Happy birthday,” she adds, a little stiffly.
“Thanks,” I reply, equally stiffly, as if this is a perfectly normal, polite exchange. “When is your birthday?” I ask.
“June twelfth,” she replies.
A summer baby, like me. Except she’s a Gemini. The twins. Gemini are supposed to be two-faced, which sounds like a bad thing, but isn’t, necessarily. Everyone has different faces that they show to different people. Everyone is a contradiction.
“Do you think you’ll ever come to France?” Eloise asks me then, since I suppose it’s her turn to do the questioning. She sounds tense. Concerned. As if she would dread my arrival, and also welcome it.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. I look around Mom’s room, at the Heraclitus quote hanging on the wall. You cannot step into the same river twice. “Not this summer,” I say with certainty. “Maybe another time.” The prospect of meeting Eloise—and her mother—is daunting, though not as dreadful as it seemed last night.
Eloise is quiet. It’s my turn now. There are a million questions on the tip of my tongue. I consider asking her if she’d ever visit America. Or if she visits Fille often, in its gallery. If she knows I’d assumed that painting was of me. If she hates Dad, or loves him, or both. If she hates me. If she likes to paint, or draw, or take photographs …
But before I can ask anything, I hear a man’s voice in the background, saying something to Eloise. It’s Dad.
“Hold on?” Eloise asks me, and then I hear her say to him, “Yes, it’s Summer.” I guess they speak to each other in English. No wonder she’s so fluent. “Okay,” Eloise tells him, sounding reluctant. Then, to me, she says, “He wants to talk with you.”
I nod, as if she can see me. I sit up straighter.
“Would … ” Eloise hesitates, clearly wrestling with something. Then, in a rush, she asks, “Would it be strange if I added you on Instagram?”
I feel my eyebrows go up; I wasn’t expecting that question. Then again, I wasn’t expecting any of this.
“It would be really strange,” I reply. “But everything is really strange.”
And I laugh; I can’t help it. Eloise laughs, too. It seems the appropriate response to this surreal new world. I never would have thought that I’d be sitting here, on Mom’s bed, talking on the phone with a girl in France who happens to be my—
My half sister.
Finally, I allow myself to think it. I let out a breath. I’m not sure I can accept it, but at least I can turn the words over in my mind. Half sister. That’s what Eloise is to me after all. My half sister. My ghost sister. Only she isn’t such a ghost anymore.
“Bye, Summer,” Eloise says.
“Au revoir,” I say. I have a feeling that, in some ways, our conversation is just beginning. There are still so many questions to be asked.
I hear Eloise hand the phone over to Dad. A second later, he is on the line.
“Hi,” he says, sounding relieved. And tired. “When I heard the phone ring downstairs, I hoped it was you.” He pauses and asks, “Did you want to Skype?”
“No,” I say. I was very deliberate about not contacting him on Skype.
“All right,” Dad says quickly, although I can tell he’s disappointed. “I’m glad you got to talk to Eloise a little.”
“Yeah,” I say. I draw a line in Mom’s rug with my toe. For no real reason, tears prick at my eyes; I suppose I was wrong about being all done with crying for the year.
“I know that I hurt you,” Dad says, his voice soft. “And your mother.” This acknowledgment only makes my tears grow in strength and number. “And I know an apology only goes so far. There’s a lot of work to be done. A lot of rebuilding. But I’d like for you to be able to trust me again.” I hear him swallow and I wonder, with a prickle of fear, if he’s crying, too.
Parents aren’t supposed to cry. Or get scared. Or lie. Right? I thought I knew all the rules. But there are no rules.
“I can’t imagine that right now,” I tell my father, wiping my damp cheeks.
“I understand,” he says with a sigh. “We’ll take things one day at a time. The thing is … ” I wait for him to continue, wondering if he has some other shocking surprise to reveal. Shocking surprises. Aunt Lydia put it well. “I was wondering how you’d feel about me coming to Hudsonville this summer. Maybe in early August?”
“You mean in, like, two weeks?” I ask. I glance out Mom’s window again; the sky has the pink-orange glow that precedes sunset. What would it be like, to have Dad here again? “Why?”
“I think it would be good for us to see each other,” Dad explains. “Face-to-face. That’s why I wanted you to come to France in the first place,” he goes on. “So I could finally tell you the truth, in person. I couldn’t go on like I was, leading a double life.”
Double life. That phrase sounds like it belongs in a spy movie. Like something criminal, and dark. It applies to Dad, and what he did. He tried to live two different lives, but in the end I suppose that’s impossible. Eventually you have to choose, one path or another.
“Summer?” Dad says, and I realize I’ve been silent. “Would you be open to me visiting?” he asks. “I will tell you, I proposed that idea to your mother when we spoke earlier, and she seemed open to it … ” He trails off, sounding hopeful.
“I’d be open,” I finally say. That’s the best I can do now—just be open. It doesn’t mean I’ll forgive Dad, or understand him. But I’d be willing to hear him out.
Dad lets out a big breath, and thanks me. He says that he’ll call Mom tomorrow to work out all the details, and he’ll book a flight.
“I love you, you know,” he tells me. “Have a good night.”
“Have a good night,” I reply. I can’t say I love you, too. Not yet.
I hang up and walk dazedly back into my room. I place the email printout with Dad’s numbers back on my desk. Then I glance at the Renoir poster of the two sisters at the piano, and I feel a pang in my chest. I no longer find the painting babyish. But maybe it’s time for a change, anyway. I peel the poster off my wall, leaving a blank space. I’ll have to think about what to put up there next.
As I’m standing surveying my room, hands on my hips, I catch a glimpse of myself in my broken mirror. There I am—my falling-apart topknot and tear-stained cheeks, my Picasso-ish features, my blue tank top, my one woven bracelet. My fragmented reflection tells the story of my day. My conversation with Dad, and with Eloise, seems to appear right there in my eyes.
I remember what Aunt Lydia told me last night, about our class’s final assignment: self-portraits. A surprising sense of inspiration rises up in my belly, and I reach down to unzip my bookbag. I take out my camera, focus the lens on myself in the mirror, and snap the picture. Self-Portrait: Summer, in Pieces. I smile. Perfect.
I gues
s I don’t need Dad to have painted me after all. I don’t even need Aunt Lydia to take my picture, as much as I like the photo she gave me. I can make my own portrait.
Darkness is starting to fall outside as I sit down at my desk with my camera and my phone. I attach my camera to my laptop and download all the photos. It feels like I’m seeing my summer unfold in reverse: there is the swimming hole, and the mailman in New York City, and the iced mocha. Of course, the summer isn’t over. There will be more pictures to take.
I send some of the photos—including the self-portrait—to my phone, and then I post them on Instagram. This way, when Eloise does add me, she’ll be able to see me.
I’m scrolling through my feed when I hear a huge crack of thunder outside. I put down my phone and stand up, peering through the window at the night. Abruptly, rain begins to pour down, in great, whooshing buckets. I thought no rain had been predicted for today?
I hurry out of my room to go close the living room windows. But they’re all already shut. Mom must be home by now. It’s no surprise that I hadn’t heard her return; I’d been so wrapped up in my phone call and then in my photographs.
“Mom?” I call, wandering into the kitchen. Ro is lapping at his water bowl in the corner, but Mom is nowhere to be found. Is she in her room? Then I glance out the rain-lashed windows, squinting at our porch. Mom is sitting there, on the cushioned bench.
“Mom?” I repeat, a little worried about her as I open the door and step outside. I wonder if I should have taken an umbrella, but our porch is dry; it’s set back far enough that it’s protected from the elements. The rain comes down in sheets all around.
“Join me,” Mom says, waving. She has stapled papers and sharpened pencils in her lap; she must have been grading papers out here, as she likes to do in the summer. “How cool is this?” she asks as I walk over. “We can watch the storm.”
I sit down beside Mom. The air is cool and I rub my arms. The sky turns white with lightning—it looks like a giant camera flash. Then thunder booms again, so loud that our house seems to shake. It was storming like this the night I almost left for France—the same kind of power and wildness.
I think about telling Mom that I talked to Dad tonight. That I said it was okay if he came to Hudsonville. And that I met Eloise, over the phone.
But all that can wait until later, or tomorrow. Right now, it feels like a relief to simply sit in silence while the storm rages.
“I saw Lydia when I was on campus,” Mom says after a while. She takes off her glasses and wipes the lenses with the shirttail of her pink blouse. “She asked after you. She said she didn’t expect you to come to class today, but she was still concerned.”
I feel grateful toward my aunt for understanding, for caring. I want to talk to her, really talk to her, someday soon. I want to hear her side of the Mom-and-Dad story. I want to get to know her even better in general. I hope I will.
“What did you tell her?” I ask Mom. I pull my bare feet up onto the bench and I hug my knees.
Mom glances at me and pats my arm. “I told her you’re okay. That you will be.”
I nod. A huge fork of lightning divides the sky. I imagine Aunt Lydia seeing that lightning from her house, maybe wanting to photograph it. Is Ruby seeing it, too? And Hugh, if he’s back from D.C. tonight? Austin? Skye? Everyone in Hudsonville?
In a way, it seems like the storm is happening just for me and Mom. I think of that old expression: Lightning never strikes twice in the same place. I know that saying isn’t about actual lightning, but more about things not repeating themselves.
“I was wondering,” Mom goes on, raising her voice over the rain, “if you’d ever want to talk to someone … a professional.” She glances at me again.
“Like, a therapist?” I ask, glancing back at her. When Ruby’s parents got divorced, she and Raj were both promptly sent to sessions with therapists. I’d been almost envious then.
Mom nods, her brown eyes thoughtful. “I have found it helpful myself. It’s just something for you to think about.”
“I will,” I promise. I reach over to take Mom’s hand and I study her profile. I know I haven’t fully forgiven her yet. But as Dad said, it will take one day at a time.
Earlier, on the phone with Eloise, I’d been upset that she had a complete family unit. I do, too, I realize now. I have Mom. And she has me. And we have Aunt Lydia, and Max, and other people who support us. All together, we make up a whole.
“Look,” Mom tells me suddenly, her eyes widening. She points forward, and I turn my head, following her gaze.
The storm has stopped.
As quickly as it began, it’s over. A few drops of rain plop from treetops onto the ground, and puddles reflect the moonlight. But the night is still and calm.
“How—how is that possible?” I ask Mom, glancing at her in bewilderment.
Mom shrugs. “Anything is possible,” she tells me.
I stare out at my familiar street, beautiful and glistening after the storm. It looks different from what I’m used to. I think of Emily Dickinson, what Wren said about her, how she never left her hometown, but she still had a deep understanding of the world. I suppose it’s not always about where you go, but what you see.
The best summer ever. That was what France was supposed to be. But if I’d had the opportunity to go back in time, to switch France for home, would I have? Now I’m not sure. If I’d gone to France, I wouldn’t have discovered the swimming hole, and taken a photography class, and learned how not to be scared of Hugh Tyson.
I tilt my head back and peer up at the sky. The clouds have dispersed and the stars have emerged in their dazzling glory. There are so many of them, filling every inch of inky-black space.
“Tell me, Mom,” I say, like I’m little again, and asking for fairy tales. “Tell me some theories. Like the one about parallel universes.”
Mom laughs softly, also gazing up at the sky. “Well,” she says. “Some philosophers, some physicists, believe … ”
I listen to Mom, feeling delicious shivers down my back as I study the stars. There are so many secrets and mysteries out there—and down here, too. I’ll never know them all, but maybe that’s all right. In fact, maybe that’s how it’s meant to be.
Wednesday, July 19, 7:17 a.m.
The peach house with its green shutters looks vacant. I didn’t bring a key with me when I ran away yesterday. My stomach clenches again, and I knock on the door.
Silence.
It could be my first day, me standing on this doorstep with my heart in my throat.
And then, just like on that first day, I see movement in a second-story window. A lace curtain flutters aside, and Eloise’s pale face appears. She peers down at me, and I peer back up at her, holding my breath, wondering what she’s thinking.
The curtain flutters closed, and the front door creaks open. And there is Vivienne, with her low red ponytail and bright-blue eyes, in her chic striped shirt and cropped black pants. I almost laugh. The world is on a loop, repeating itself.
Vivienne’s eyes widen. “Summer,” she says softly. Some-air.
She takes a step toward me, like maybe she’s going to embrace me, or kiss my cheeks, but then she seems to think the better of it.
I stare at her. Here she is, the person who split my family down the middle. I should hate her. I should want to scream at her, or push her. Tell her not to talk to me or look at me. But there’s a formality between us that somehow dilutes my anger. Vivienne is a stranger. It’s like when Mom and I were driving to the mall last year, and some guy bumped our car from behind. Mom got out to exchange insurance information with him, and they were surprisingly polite toward each other. Oh, you may have almost killed me, or destroyed my life as I know it, but it’s nothing personal, so let’s behave civilly! I wonder if Mom would act that way toward Vivienne, too, if they were ever to meet.
“You did not see your father?” Vivienne is asking me now.
I frown. “What? Where?” I glance ov
er my shoulder in confusion.
“He left here a minute ago,” Vivienne says. She steps outside and squints down Rue du Pain. “You missed him?” She seems deeply perturbed by this mystery.
It’s no mystery; I missed my father because I made the split-second choice to stop into the bakery. While I was in there, he was out here. But why?
“Where did he go?” I ask Vivienne. Back to Berlin? I wonder sourly. I wouldn’t be surprised.
Vivienne wrings her hands. “To pick you up. From the Cassels’ house. Jacques Cassel, he called Eloise last night to say you were staying there.”
“Oh,” I mutter. I feel a flicker of betrayal, picturing Jacques in his room on his phone, secretly updating Eloise on my whereabouts. I’m sure he thought he was doing the right thing, keeping my father from worrying about me. I roll my eyes.
“Ton père, your father, he was frantic,” Vivienne tells me, as if she’s followed my train of thought. As if I’m supposed to feel bad for Dad on any level. “I told him to at least wait for the morning to get you. He did not sleep all the night.” She pauses, lifting her hands to rub her temples. “Nobody in this house did.”
I look up at Eloise’s window again. The curtain doesn’t move.
“Please, come inside,” Vivienne insists, stepping back into the house herself. “I will call your father’s cell to tell him you are here.”
Hesitantly, I step into the foyer. I wonder what Vivienne thought of me that first day—this other daughter, ignorant of the secret that breathed in the walls of the house like a phantom. Had she felt sorry for me? Curious about me? Had she been on edge, afraid she would accidentally say the wrong thing? No wonder I’d sensed a careful distance from her.
“Would you like—euh, something to eat?” Vivienne asks me now, nervously smoothing out a wrinkle in her striped top.