Land of Smoke and Ashes

Secrets and School Daze

Natalie's dad always drove her to school. Normally she didn't mind this at all. She was not, unlike some of her friends, the sort to be terribly embarrassed by her father. In fact, normally she thought he was pretty great. But today, the morning after her attic discovery, Natalie wasn't sure what to think. Or more importantly, what to say to him.

The article in her pocket didn't tell her much about her mother. Just that Mr. Porter had reported his wife missing. Had told the police he'd come home one day to find her gone. None of her things were missing, she hadn't packed a suitcase. She was just...not there. It was as if, he was quoted as saying in the article, she had simply vanished.

They had lived back in New York when he'd given that statement, a city that Natalie didn't remember at all. She'd been too small when they'd moved. Last night, Natalie had stared at the words in the newspaper, words her father was quoted as saying. Words he must have said. And she couldn't imagine him saying them. Couldn't imagine him keeping something like this from her.

Even now, darting looks at him out of the corner of her eye, she tried to put the man in the article together with the man driving her to school. He wasn't Mr. Porter, he was just...dad. And he didn't have secrets from her. Sure, he didn't want to talk about things that made him sad. But he wasn't a liar. Was he?

Not her father, who sat there in a rumpled white "Hard Rock Café" t-shirt, his five-o'clock shadow just beginning to show on his jaw, his hair slightly mussed, chatting merrily away about how they should go see that new movie at the cinema when it came out. Her father, who was shut up in his office all day scribbling madly away at blueprints, but who would always burst out of his office as soon as he heard the bus pull up. He was always eager to ask how her day had been.

How was it possible that he'd kept something so big from her? That her mother was not, in fact, dead. That she had merely gone missing. Vanished.

Her stomach swooped at the thought. In fact, she'd felt a little queasy ever since she'd seen the article. Without thinking, her hand drifted up to the chain at her throat, the necklace hidden beneath her shirt. Now that she knew it had probably belonged to her mother at one time. Her mother. The words repeated like a pulse in her head.

It felt a little reckless wearing it, a little daring. Her father might see it. But she couldn't seem to help herself. This had belonged to her mother. It had hung around her neck, had rested in the same spot, the metal charm warm on her skin.

"Hey, you okay?" Her father glanced over at her, and Natalie quickly put her hand down. He hadn't seen her touching it, had he?

"What?"

"Just...are you okay? You seem really distracted this morning."

"I'm fine," she said weakly, though this was decidedly untrue. She was not fine. She wanted answers. She could feel the questions pressing at her lips, knew how easily they would roll off her tongue. But she knew they would be accusing right now, they would burn with the same anger she felt blooming in the pit of her stomach. Because her father, the man who drove her to school every morning and came bursting out his office to meet her every night, the man she'd implicitly trusted up until now, had not told her the truth. He had, it seemed, lied to her since day one. And not the small lies that parents so often told their children, not Santa is real, or He's mean to you because he likes you, or even, Everything will be okay, but the deepest sort of lie she could think of.

So she wanted to ask him about her mother, about the article in the attic, and the chain resting around her neck, about what had really happened to her mother. But she didn't know how. She couldn't seem to find the words. It was too big. Too much.