Page 4 of The Ghostwriter

My father’s street on the east end of town remains mostly unchanged, and as I turn into the long driveway, the years fall away. I consult the small Post-it on my dash, punching in the code sent to me by my father’s attorney, and the electronic gates swing open. My tires crunch on the gravel, the foliage on either side thick and green, and I pull into an open carport, parking next to a fountain that used to bubble water but is now dry and cracked.

The house is a two-story Spanish-style hacienda my father bought shortly after his first book sold one million copies. It looks the same at a glance but is showing the years upon closer inspection. Chipped roof tiles, peeling paint around the windows. But the landscapers have been doing their job keeping the space clear of weeds, switching out the roses I remember for drought-resistant plants and hardscape. The steps leading up to the oak front door are swept, the hand-painted tiles still colorful and bright.

I lift my hand to knock, but the door opens as if the person on the other side had been waiting for me.

But it’s not my father. It’s a small woman wearing a blue track suit, her gray hair in a low bun at the base of her neck. I look beyond her, expecting to see or hear my father, but the space behind her is empty.

She raises her eyebrows, as if expecting me to explain myself. I glance over my shoulder toward the driveway, then say, “I’m Olivia Dumont.”

“ Dumont. ” She rolls her eyes. “I know who you are.” Finally, she steps aside, allowing me to pass through the foyer and into the great room. The same furniture—well-worn leather chairs and couches in the same configuration—greets me. The terra-cotta floor gives the space a warmth against the white plaster walls. Dark beams high above are free of dust and cobwebs.

Unsure what to do, I stand there waiting. The directions from my father’s attorney had been very specific. I was to drive straight to the house, arriving no later than nine in the morning. I was to tell no one in town who I was or why I was there. I would be staying in the guesthouse and working only in the mornings with Mr. Taylor.

“My name is Alma,” she says, though she doesn’t say who she is to my father—a companion? Some kind of housekeeper? “Can I get you some tea? I was just going to make some for Mr. Taylor.”

“I’d love something stronger, if you have it. A gin and tonic?” I give a hollow laugh. “I know it’s early but…” I’m surprised by how tense I am. Forever that young girl, quivering with nerves at the prospect of a difficult conversation with her father.

She mutters something under her breath about fathers and daughters before gesturing toward the back staircase. “He’s in his office. I assume you know the way.”

Dismissed, I take the back stairs, a narrow tunnel that drops me just outside my old bedroom. I ease the door open and see it exactly as I remember. My bed shoved into a corner under the window, where I used to lie and stare at the stars peeking through the trees. Dreaming of one day leaving this town. I’d gotten what I wanted, but I never expected I’d get it so soon. Never expected how easy it was for my father to ship me off to Switzerland when I was fourteen and resume his life as if I’d been a phase. Fatherhood? I tried that once. It was fun for a little while.

I keep walking, past my father’s closed bedroom door to the end of the hallway, then down three steps to the door of his study, a corner room perched above the garage. I hesitate. The last time I spoke to my father was the night of my college graduation. But that wasn’t the last time I saw him; that was at a literary conference in New York about eight years ago. I always make it a habit to check the list of panelists and keynote speakers before attending one. If he’s on the schedule, I always pass. But that time, he’d been a late add and I’d missed the announcement. I’d been standing with a group of friends in the lobby of a hotel in Times Square when a commotion in the distance caught our attention. A wave of energy rippled through the crowd and my father appeared, surrounded by adoring acolytes and conference administrators. He’d glanced our way, his eyes landing on me for just a second before sliding away and passing through the revolving door and out onto the street.

“I can’t believe he’s still relevant,” one of my friends had said.

I don’t remember what I’d responded, my mind still on that glance. At the lack of recognition, and I felt a complicated mixture of sadness and regret. I’d left the conference that afternoon, citing an emergency at home.

I knock softly on his office door.

“Enter.”

He’s seated at his enormous desk facing the windows that span one entire wall of the room. The rest is dominated by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, filled with copies of his own books, printed in what must be more than forty languages. His hair is now completely white, looking slightly unkempt, as if he’s been running his hands through it, trying to noodle out a plot problem.

But the computer screen in front of him is dark. The stacks of papers and books littering the desk’s surface appear to be arranged rather than the result of a writer at work. He swivels in his chair to face me.

I stand there, unsure of what to say. Hi, Dad seems too easy when there is so much more I want to ask. What’s going on? Why am I here? Surely, he doesn’t really want me to write a book for him.

“Welcome home,” he says. He must notice the expression on my face because then he says, “You look like you have some questions.”

“What the hell is going on?” I finally ask.

He gives me a sharp look and says, “I hired you to do a job, Olivia.”

Echoes of the past fold over me, my father’s commanding tone sending me back to my childhood, and I press my lips together, reminding myself that I’m an adult and I can leave at any point.

“Let me rephrase,” I say. “Why have you brought me here? What is it you really want?”

“I thought the terms of the contract were clear.”

“I don’t write novels,” I tell him. “I sure as hell don’t write them for people like you.”

“And yet, here you are.” We stare at each other, a silent standoff. Then he says, “You really screwed the pooch on that John Calder thing.”

Of course, my father would have heard about my massive misstep. Publishing is a small industry and people love to gossip.

“Not even I was canceled like that,” he continues, “and they all thought I got away with murder.”

“Most people still believe you did,” I say, unable to help myself.

He ignores my jab. “I figured a job right now—even a lowly novel—would be appreciated.”

“I don’t need your help.” It’s offensive to think that after all these years, the many ways he failed me as a parent—as a human—he thinks he can show up now with a favor and expect all to be forgiven.

“Sit down, Olivia. Looking up at you hurts my neck.”

The hardwood creaks under my weight, a familiar sound despite the decades since I heard it last. The quilted chair is still in the corner, the place where I once did my homework.

I sit, allowing myself a moment to really look at him. The first thing I notice is the way his shirt bags around his shoulders, no longer filling it out. His legs look like twigs beneath his usual dark jeans, bony ankles poking out with mismatched socks beneath the hems. It’s like looking at a bad portrait of a man I used to know. Familiar landmarks are there—the way his chin juts out, his slightly large ears pushing out from beneath the unruly mop of hair. The bridge of his nose still crooked. But he’s diminished. This was a man whose intensity could easily command an audience of hundreds. But now it’s as if he’s reverted back to the sullen teenager he once was, time circling in on itself.

Before I can say anything, Alma enters, bringing tea for my father and another one for me.

“I thought…” I start, but stop when I see the look she’s giving me.

“No alcohol in the house,” she says. To my father she asks, “Have you told her yet?”

“She’s been here two minutes.” He sounds annoyed, but his nerves are visible in the way his hands tremble, in the agitated way his gaze jumps from his tea to the window, to the books on the shelves.

Alma stares at him, waiting. They seem locked in some kind of silent argument, until finally my father capitulates and answers her question. “No.”

Alma turns to me. “Your father is sick.”

I look at him again, wondering what it might be. Cancer? His heart?

But Alma speaks for him. “It’s Lewy body dementia.” When she sees my confused expression she says, “It’s a cross between Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. It’s degenerative, though there are things we’re doing to slow it down.” She gives my father a pointed look and says, “And working on a book with his estranged daughter isn’t one of them.”

I nod, unable to speak, my mind trying to catch up.

Alma continues, “Your father’s disease has progressed enough that it’s compromised his written language.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, and I don’t mean to be rude,” I say to her. “But what exactly is your role here?”

“I am your father’s caregiver. He hired me shortly after his diagnosis on the advice of his doctor. I drive him to his appointments. I make sure that he eats and takes his medications on time. I make sure that nothing upsets him.” Her lips form a tight line, telling me that my presence here is not something she welcomes. Or perhaps she’s judging me for the fact that it’s her doing those things for him and not me.

My father interrupts. “I have a completed draft of a book. I’m under contract to finish it, but I can’t.” He looks down for a second, then up again, Alma a silent sentinel next to me, giving him the space to continue. “When you find yourself in a place like this, you look back on your life. You have regrets.”

I wait to see if he’ll expand on which of his many regrets he’s referring to.

“I don’t know if this is something I can do for you,” I finally say. “I realize I signed a contract but…” I look past him through the windows to the mountains in the distance. My father has the perfect vantage point to see the pink moment Ojai is famous for, when the sunset illuminates the mountains in a magnificent shade of rose.

“I know I’ve let you down in a thousand different ways,” he says. “But I need this, and I think you do too.” When I don’t respond, he says, “Let’s just try it out. If, after a week, it isn’t working, you’re free to go.”

I think again of the money I owe John Calder. Of the $500,000 that I’ve barely made a dent in. Of my mortgage payment, which had been late again last month, and the call from my attorney’s billing department, asking for me to get current on my account, which is edging up toward $200,000. I think of my house, which I will surely lose if I don’t make this work. I take a sip of my tea, wishing desperately for that gin and tonic, and say, “Okay. A week.”

My father slaps his hands on his knees, delighted. “Excellent.” To Alma he says, “We have a few more things to discuss. Could you take Olivia’s things up to the guesthouse?”

“That won’t be necessary,” I interject. “I can get myself settled.”

“There are clean sheets and fresh towels,” Alma says. “Unfortunately I couldn’t do anything about the boxes, but hopefully they won’t get in your way.” She leaves, closing the door softly behind her.

“Any dead hamsters in them?” I joke.

When I was young, my father loved designing treasure hunts for me. He’d leave me notes on the bathroom counter, sending me running to his sock drawer for a shiny silver dollar, or taped to the milk carton, directing me to the broom closet where I’d find a package of my favorite licorice sticks. But when I was eight, I came home from school to find a box sitting in front of our apartment door. That particular hunt had involved boxes of many kinds, growing larger and larger until I’d found the final box tucked underneath the sink in the bathroom.

“That was a mistake,” my father snaps, pulling me back to the present. “It could have happened to anyone.”

“Not to people with a basic understanding of biology,” I tell him. “Everyone knows you need to punch more than two holes in the lid.”

I take another sip of tea, waiting for my father’s flare of defensiveness to die down. Finally he says, “I’m seven years sober, you know.”

“Congratulations,” I say, wondering if he’s about to make some kind of amends.

“It nearly killed me, so I quit. The irony is that now I’m dying anyway.”

I shake off the complicated swell of regret and fear that I might lose a man I’ve spent years convincing myself I didn’t need. “Tell me about the book.”

My father swivels in his chair and opens the bottom desk drawer, pulling out a stack of legal pads held together with rubber bands—twenty or thirty of them. Horrified, I realize he’s written the entire thing by hand. “There are a few things you need to know.” He hesitates, as if unsure how to continue. “First of all, it’s not a novel. It’s a memoir.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. “Why lie about that?”

“We didn’t want anyone to know about the scope of the project in the event you passed on it.”

Of course. My father wants me to ghostwrite a memoir about his glorious career. To extol his talent, his many awards and successes. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that objectively, but I promised I would try.

“There’s certainly a lot of material to work with,” I say. “I’ll need access to all of your editors, your publicists over the years, your agent of course. And just so you know, I’m not going to gloss over your addiction or your behavior. You wouldn’t want me to. Scandal sells books, and you certainly created a lot of it.”

“You misunderstand,” he says. “The memoir isn’t about my career. It’s about my childhood. Specifically, it’s about my family and the months leading up to the murders of Danny and Poppy.”

I sit back in my chair and stare at him, the lie about the novel suddenly making sense. If word got out that my father wanted to write a tell-all about the murders, people would go berserk. My mind shifts again to who I’ll need to talk to—Danny’s and Poppy’s friends, anyone who worked on the case in 1975. People who knew my father.

My mother.

I don’t know if I’m ready to tackle this project, and yet I feel as if I’ve been waiting my entire life to write it.

“I’ll have to read what you’ve written so far,” I finally say. “But I’ll also need your permission to talk to the people who were there. Have you done any of that prep work? Let them know you’re writing a book?” I ask, my chest tightening, imagining having to approach people cold. Typically, when someone decides to write a memoir, they tell the people closest to them that I’ll be reaching out and that it’s okay to talk to me.

My father shakes his head. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary. I haven’t hired you to write a book; I’ve hired you to fix the one that already exists.”

“But what if I have to rewrite something?”

“I know how to write a book, Olivia.”

“You know how to write a novel,” I clarify. “This is completely different. A book like this has to hang on facts, not fiction.”

“This is a nonnegotiable. No one knows what I know, so they can’t help you anyway. And I’d like to remind you that a breach of contract is probably not something you’d like to explore.” His gaze is hard, and he holds mine, waiting for me to capitulate.

I want to get up and leave. Tell him this isn’t how I work. Or that I’m happy to figure out nondisclosure agreements for the people involved if that would make him feel more comfortable, but the idea of approaching them—Poppy’s best friend, Margot; Danny’s best friend, Mark; my mother—and explaining that my father is writing a book about their shared trauma isn’t something I want to do.

He hands me the stack of legal pads. “I apologize for not typing it.” He waves in the general direction of the mess that now sits on my lap, the edges of the pages limp, some of them stained. “Everything you need is in there,” he says. “All you have to do is transcribe it and clean it up. I thought I could do it myself, but my disease had other plans.” He looks defeated. “This should be easy money for you. I estimate four weeks, tops. Then you can be on your way.”

My unease at the idea of sitting down with my mother for the first time in nearly forty years melts away as I stare at the stack of ruffled pages. I will admit, I’m intensely curious to see what my father has to say about that time. Those events.

“Why do you want to write this book?” I ask. “What are you hoping to accomplish?”

My father sighs and looks out the window. “I need the money,” he admits. His voice is quieter as he continues. “The kind of lifestyle I was leading, it gets expensive.”

I think of how many books my father has sold over the course of his career. The size of his advances and film options—seven of his books have made it to the screen. “Are you telling me you’re broke?”

He looks at me again and says, “I’m saying that there isn’t much left. Certainly not enough to pay for my care, which is only going to get more expensive as my condition worsens.”

“What about the house?” I ask. “It’s got to be worth several million at this point.”

He shakes his head. “It needs a new roof. Updated plumbing and electrical. But aside from that, I pulled most of the equity out and spent it.”

“What about other investments? Properties?”

“I never got around to buying any.”

I’m numb. I often imagined how I would hear of my father’s passing. An obituary in the New York Times landing in my in-box? A social media post floating through my feed? I never expected he’d leave me anything, always assuming his money would go to charity. To be honest, I’m not that surprised there’s nothing left.

God, what a pair we make.

“I need this to work, Olivia. But aside from the money, it’s been decades of speculation. Of rumors and innuendo. I realize I played a part in all of that by refusing to speak about it.” He gives me a searching look and says, “No one knew Poppy and Danny the way I did. Not their friends, not even our parents. When I die, they’ll die with me, without ever having gotten to live. This is the least I can do for them.”

I say nothing, knowing this isn’t about my aunt and uncle. It’s about making money and about manipulating me one last time.