Page 19 of The Ghostwriter

It’s been nearly a week since I emailed Calder from my father’s account, but now that I’ve entered into a dialogue with him, I’m unable to step away. How often do you have the chance to speak with someone you despise under the pretense of being someone else?

I woke the following morning to a response from him.

I can do for you what I did for Mac Murray.

However, I was only interested in one thing—how Calder came to be pitching for a book no one was supposed to know about. I asked:

How did you hear about the project?

The response came within two minutes.

I have sources in high places. I’m perfectly positioned, not just to write the book, but to market it as well. Like you, my name is synonymous with blockbuster. We would be a formidable team.

I’d responded.

Why are you pitching for a book that’s already under contract?

I tried to imagine how he would respond. What he might say about me, about my ability as a ghostwriter. Perhaps slamming my reputation and legal troubles in the process.

But he hadn’t responded, and I’ve spent the last several days reading and rereading the exchange, wondering exactly what I want from it. Questioning my own motives and wondering if this is a distraction I can afford.

Voices float through the open window as Alma and my father return from whatever appointment he’s had. I head downstairs and into the house, where I find Alma in the kitchen, pulling food for dinner from the refrigerator.

“Is he upstairs?” I ask.

“Yes, but I wouldn’t disturb him right now. These occupational therapy sessions tire him out.”

“I just have a quick question.”

I’ve spent all afternoon trying to make sense of a small scene in my father’s handwritten manuscript about an argument Danny had had with Poppy, who’d been spying on him. Following him around, filming. All of our conversations over the past few days have been about Danny and his conflicts with my father. But this is the first mention of an argument between Danny and Poppy.

Alma takes a step toward me and says, “I have to ask that you save it until tomorrow morning.”

The idea of sitting around the guesthouse waiting until the morning is crazy. I ignore her and jog up the stairs.

I find him in his office, staring out the window. He turns when I enter, his expression startled. “When did you arrive?” he asks.

I falter. “A couple weeks ago,” I say. “Remember?”

“Why? You said you’d never come back here.”

“You hired me to write your memoir,” I remind him.

He shakes his head. “You can’t write a book, Lydia. You need to leave,” he hisses. “You can’t be here.” He turns toward the doorway. “Alma!” he yells, panic threading through his voice.

Alma arrives, wiping her hands on a dish towel.

“He thinks I’m my mother again,” I tell her.

“Go downstairs. I’ll handle it.”

As I exit, I hear him say, “Did you know she was coming? She knows about the book. Did you tell her?”

Alma says, “Shh, Vincent. That’s Olivia, your daughter. She’s the one helping you with the book, not Lydia. Lydia lives in Bakersfield, remember?”

Alma finds me ten minutes later.

“You can’t ambush him like that. He’s easily confused in the afternoons. Sometimes paranoid. He forgets things, and that scares him, and he covers it up with anger.”

“I’m familiar with that, at least,” I say, remembering the times when I would hear my father railing at someone on the phone—his agent, his publicist, a reporter.

Alma shakes her head. “This is different.”

“The manuscript,” I explain. “It’s not exactly cohesive, and when I have questions, I don’t have time to wait for an appointment to get answers.”

Alma’s expression is steely. “I think I’m going to have to set some boundaries,” she says.

“I have a job to do—” I start, but she interrupts me.

“So do I,” she says, her voice rising. “You need to understand what is happening to him. Lewy bodies are growing on his brain, which is manifesting in a number of ways. Right now, he mostly understands that his hallucinations aren’t real. We’ve been controlling them with meds, but as you can see, that’s not going to work indefinitely.” She looks toward the stairs, and I imagine my father up there, waiting out the confusion. Waiting for his brain to start working properly again. Alma continues. “If you push him too hard, if you press him about things that he can’t remember, he could grow violent and hurt himself. Or you. And if that happens, there won’t be a book at all.”

“Are you afraid of him?” I ask.

She brushes off my words. “Not like that. But I need you to listen to me. When I say no , that needs to be respected, for your own safety as well as his.”

She holds my gaze, challenging me to argue. But I don’t. Because even though my father thinks he’s the one in control, he isn’t. Alma runs this show.

***

Dismissed, I return to the guesthouse, at loose ends until tomorrow. If I’m not writing, I need to be moving. I look toward the door when it occurs to me—the boxes my father wants me to sort through and the possibility there might be something useful in one of them.

I flip the lid of the one closest to me, peering in to find it jumbled with old take-out menus and several packages of plastic straws. I set it aside as trash and keep looking.

I plow through ten boxes, each one filled by a man with hoarding tendencies, before finding something different in a box near the bottom of a stack next to the bathroom. Old Pee-chee folders from the ’70s. An old ERA button, the back side pocked with rust. I open one of the folders and find a typewritten report on Shirley Chisholm, Poppy’s name in the top right corner, dated 1974. It’s riddled with typos, and as I skim it, it becomes clear Poppy was never going to be a secretary. I tuck the report back into the folder and hold it, wondering about the girl who wrote it. Who’d likely gone to the library to research it, reading newspaper articles about the first Black woman to run for president in 1972. I feel a smile creeping across my face, admiring my aunt’s passion. Wondering what her teacher thought about her choice of subject.

I look at the exterior of the box, searching for a label, but it’s blank. Whoever packed it hadn’t given much thought to making sure it could be found again. As I lift it, something slides along the bottom, and I remove the rest of the Pee-chee folders to find a round film canister. The metal is rusty around the seams, and a pulse of adrenaline passes through me as I imagine my aunt and uncle appearing on screen. Hearing their voices for the first time.

I try to pry it open with my nails, but it’s rusted closed, so I grab an old butter knife from the kitchenette and set to work, chipping the rust away and wiggling the rim until it loosens and finally scrapes off.

But inside isn’t a reel of film. It’s a diary. The old kind with a tiny lock, the key likely long gone. I trace the edges of the cover with my finger, a mottled pink with red hearts running around the border. My pulse accelerates as I realize what I’m holding. This is exactly what I need—Poppy’s own words. Poppy’s secrets. I use a paper clip to pry it open.

The first page has been cut out, the rough edges poking out of the spine. After that is a blank page, but when I turn to the next one, my throat clenches.

May 6, 1975

I heard a rumor today. That Lydia was pregnant and now…she’s not.