Derailed

FORTY-EIGHT

I found a house outside Oakdale.

It wasn’t much of a house, a modest ranch built sometime in the fifties, but it had three bedrooms and a small garden and lots of privacy.

I rented it.

And waited for them to come join me.

Deanna sold the house.

It wasn’t the best price we could have gotten, but it wasn’t the worst, either. It was expedient.

When Deanna told Anna they were going to be moving, she had to weather a storm of protest, however. Deanna was ostensibly moving to be rid of the memories — Anna wanted to hold on to them. Deanna said it was done; there was no going back. Anna retreated into stony silence.

She left most of the furniture. We didn’t want a moving company having an address of delivery.

They packed up the car and left.

Somewhere between Pennsylvania and Ohio, Deanna pulled the car over and told Anna I was alive.

We’d agonized over this.

How exactly do you go about telling your daughter that her father isn’t dead? That he didn’t die in that hotel explosion after all? I couldn’t just pop out of the woodwork when she got there. She had to be prepared for something like that.

We’d also wondered what should be told to her. Why was I alive? Or, more to the point, why had she been allowed to think I was dead all these months?

She was fourteen — half kid and half not.

So we decided on a story that was half true and half not.

Deanna pulled the car into the parking lot of a Roy Rogers along Route 96. Later, she told me how it went.

“I have something to tell you,” she said to Anna, and Anna barely looked at her. She was still on a kind of speaking strike, using silence as a weapon, the only one she had.

“It’s something you’re going to have a hard time believing, and you’re going to be very, very angry at me, but I’m going to try to make you understand. Okay?”

And now Anna did look at her, because this sounded serious.

“Your father is alive, Anna.”

At first, Deanna said, Anna looked at her as though she’d lost her mind. And when she repeated it, as if Deanna were maybe playing some kind of sick joke on her. A look of near disgust passed over Anna’s face and she asked her mother why she was doing this to her.

“It’s the truth, darling. He's alive. We’re going to meet him now. He’s waiting for us in Illinois.”

And it was at that point that Anna finally believed her, because she knew her mother hadn't lost her mind and wouldn’t have been cruel enough to joke about it. She broke down, finally and completely and spectacularly broke down. She cried rivers of tears, Deanna said, cried so hard and so much that Deanna didn’t think the body could contain that much water. She cried out of happiness, out of sheer relief.

Then, with Deanna stroking her hair, came the questions.

“Why did you tell me he was dead?” Anna said.

“Because we couldn’t take the chance you would tell somebody. Maybe that was wrong — I’m so sorry you had to go through that. We thought it was the only way. Please believe me.”

“Why is he pretending to be dead? I don’t understand. . . .”

“Daddy got into some trouble. It wasn’t his fault. But they might not believe him.”

“Theywho? ”

“The police.”

“The police? Daddy? ”

“You know your father, Anna, and you know he’s a good man. But it might not have looked that way. It’s hard for me to explain. But he got into trouble and he couldn’t get out.”

Deanna told her the rest. Their names would be different. Their lives. Everything.

“I have to change my name? ” Anna asked.

“You always said you hated it, remember?”

“Yeah. But . . . can’t I just change my last name?”

“Maybe. We’ll see.”

All in all, Deanna said, she thought the overwhelmingly good news that I was alive canceled out the overwhelmingly bad news that her life was being turned upside down. And that we’d lied to her all these months.

Anna said, “Jamie.”

“What?”

“My name. I like Jamie.”

I was waiting for them in Chicago.

The car rolled up to the curb and Anna jumped out before the car actually stopped and flung herself into my arms.

“Daddy,” she said. “Daddy . . . Daddy . . . Daddy . . .”

“I love you,” I said. “I’m so sorry, honey . . . I’m so — ”

“Shh,” she said. “You’re alive.”