Chapter 3: Long Enough
I didn't answer him.
My mouth opened, but nothing came out.
I just stood there in the hallway with my phone burning in my pocket and my heart going so fast I could feel it in my throat.
Dad took one step toward me.
"Cara."
"Long enough," I said.
He stopped.
The word just sat there between us.
He didn't ask me what I meant.
He already knew.
"Come inside," he said quietly.
"Let me explain."
"Explain what?" My voice came out steadier than I expected.
"Who is she?
Who were you talking to?"
He looked at the floor.
Then he looked at me.
Something moved across his face — not guilt exactly.
Something older than guilt.
Something that had been waiting a long time to come out.
"Come inside," he said again.
"Please."
I followed him into the kitchen.
He pulled out a chair for me and I sat down, but he didn't sit.
He stood at the counter with his back half-turned, and for a long moment he just looked out the window at the backyard like he was trying to find the right place to start.
"Her name was Lena," he finally said.
"Was."
He nodded.
"The article said she went missing." I kept my voice flat.
"It didn't say she was d—" I stopped.
"It didn't say what happened to her."
"They never found her." He turned around.
His eyes were red at the edges.
"They never found out what happened.
She just — she was there one day and gone the next."
"Who was she to you?"
He pulled out the chair across from me and sat down heavily, like the question had taken something out of him.
"She was my sister," he said.
I stared at him.
"Your sister." I said it slowly, like I was testing the weight of the word.
"You have a sister.
You had a sister.
And you never told me."
"I never told anyone." He pressed both hands flat on the table.
"Not even your mother."
The kitchen felt very small suddenly.
I could hear the refrigerator humming.
Outside, a car passed on the street.
"Why?" I said.
"Why would you keep that from Mom?
Why would you keep it from me?"
He didn't answer right away.
He looked at his hands on the table.
"Because talking about her meant accepting that she was really gone," he said.
"And I never accepted it."
"So instead you—" I stopped.
I looked at him.
"Instead you paid me to look like her."
He flinched.
It was small, but I saw it.
"It wasn't like that."
"Then what was it like?
Dad.
You paid me every month for two years to keep my hair the exact same color and cut as a woman who disappeared before I was born.
What is that supposed to be called?"
He stood up.
Walked to the window again.
His shoulders were tight.
"When you were fifteen," he said, "you cut your hair short for the first time.
And I walked into the kitchen and I — I thought I was seeing things." He stopped.
Swallowed.
"You looked so much like her.
The shape of your face.
The way you tilted your head.
And then when you dyed it blue that first time, I—" His voice broke.
He pressed his fist to his mouth for a second.
"I'm sorry.
I know how it sounds."
"It sounds like you were using me," I said.
"To keep seeing someone who was gone."
He turned around.
His face was wet.
"Yes," he said.
"I know.
I'm sorry."
I sat with that for a moment.
Part of me wanted to get up and walk out.
Part of me couldn't move.
"Who were you talking to on the phone?" I asked.
He was quiet for too long.
"Dad.
Who were you talking to?"
"Someone who knew her," he said.
"Someone who's been looking for answers as long as I have."
"What kind of answers?"
May you like
He looked at me then — really looked at me — and what I saw in his face made my stomach drop.
"The kind," he said slowly, "that your mother cannot know about."
