Page 52 of The Someday Daughter
WASHINGTON, DC
Fallon Martin—wearing a Colorado School of Mines T-shirt, surreptitiously eyeing her watch, and, last I checked, still living in Uganda—is standing on the National Mall next to my dad. I’m so excited to see her that I drop Silas’s hand and start running.
“Aud,” she says, her face splitting into a grin the same moment I launch myself at her. “Hi.”
“Oh my god,” I say over her shoulder. Her bony arms lock around my waist and she sways us back and forth. “What are you doing here?”
“Ask your dad,” she says, and when I catch his eyes he smiles. He got into DC last night. Told me to meet him here for a surprise.
“Thought you might need someone to lean on,” he booms, his enormous voice trumpeting across the Mall. When I pull away from Fallon, he yanks me into a bear hug. “Good to see you, mouse.”
I squeeze the familiar breadth of his shoulders, still looking at Fallon. “I thought you were in Africa?”
Fallon shrugs, tugging a hand through her short hair. She’s tanner than I’ve ever seen her. “I was supposed to come back in a few days, but we were mostly hanging around waiting for our flight by the end there, anyway. Quick DC detour on my way home to Alabama, as I heard there’s been some news.” Her eyes flick to Silas, who’s come to stand next to me with Puddles at his feet. “Who’s this?”
I turn to look at him, and his eyebrows lift just the tiniest distance. Fascinated to hear how I’ll introduce him, I’m sure. “This is Silas,” I say, voice as steady as I can get it. “My boyfriend. And Puddles, his dog.” Silas grins, and it moves through me like the best kind of shiver. Like the first warm breath when you come in from the cold. “Si, this is my father. And Fallon, my roommate from school.”
“Roommate and best friend,” Fallon says sternly, reaching her hand out to Silas. “Rude, Aud.”
“Best friend,” I repeat, hand over heart. Seeing Fallon and Silas right next to each other, occupying the same space in the same city, is nearly too good to be true.
“Silas,” my dad says, clapping him on the back. “I remember you from the paparazzi photo.”
“Oh my god,” I say, just as Silas says, “That’s my favorite picture.”
I rear back, eyeing him.
“What?” He shrugs, then looks down at Puddles. She’s on her back legs, pawing at his knees, and he picks her up. “I think that was the first time you ever gave me your full attention.” He waggles his eyebrows at me. “Best day of my life.”
I roll my eyes, and Fallon honks out a laugh. “Wow, I did miss some shit.”
“Oh, this is the tip of the iceberg,” Silas says. He bounces Puddles a little, and she lunges to lick the edge of his jaw. “Did Audrey tell you she walked barefoot? Outside?”
“No,” Fallon says, looking at me. “My Audrey? Audrey St. Vrain?”
“Okay,” I groan, “enough. Thank you so much, I’m so glad you’ve met each other—”
“She also jumped into Lake Michigan to save Puddles’s life,” Silas says. “Even though she—”
“Can’t swim,” Fallon says, wide-eyed. “No, you didn’t.”
I sigh. “Unfortunately, I did.”
“You don’t even like dogs.” Fallon reaches out to rub Puddles’s ear.
“She likes this one,” Silas tells her, and I shrug. “Loves, even.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I say, and Dad touches my arm.
“Mouse.” He tips his head toward a nearby bench. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
I glance between Fallon and Silas, and she nods. “We’re good here.” I watch them lower themselves into the grass, Puddles wiggling with excitement between them. Silas has been so busy editing film for the past few days that I’ve hardly seen him—as Dad and I walk away, it’s like there’s a tether inside me, not wanting to stray too far.
“Kiddo,” Dad says as we sit on the bench. Our eyes meet, and he smiles in a sad way. “I owe you an apology.”
The sun is high and hot over the Mall, tourists moving in waves over the grass. I tilt my head to the side. “You knew, too.”
“I did,” he says, nodding. It shouldn’t surprise me, I know: my parents have always been so close. If there’s one person Mom would choose to keep a secret for her, it’s Dad. It’s Dad and Magnolia, though only one of them turned out trustworthy. “And I’m sorry it all came out this way.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He exhales, lips pressed together. “It wasn’t mine to tell you, mouse. That was your mom’s history, from years and years before we knew each other. But I’ve watched it taking up space there, between you two, for so long. I’ve wanted her to tell you, but only she could decide when she was ready.”
“And Sadie decided for her,” I say. “In the end.”
“Yeah,” Dad says. “That’s usually what happens when you wait too long to tell the truth. It finds its own way into the light.”
I nod, look out over the grass. Watch Fallon dangle a dandelion puff over Puddles’s head and jerk it out of the way just before she bites it.
“Are you angry?” Dad asks. I look back at him, the worried set of his eyes.
“I don’t know,” I tell him honestly. “I don’t think so, not anymore.” It’s been four days, and the truth of all this has made its home in me. That’s what happens—even with the worst news, even with the intolerable things. Days pass and your body absorbs them like air. You learn to live together. “Just trying to figure out my place in all of it, I guess.”
My dad shifts toward me. “What do you mean?”
I look at him. “I mean if Sadie’s the someday daughter, what am I to Mom?” Every day with her has gotten easier, like we’ve razed it all down and now we have a flat foundation to build from. I’m not my mother’s someday daughter, but I never was. And now that we aren’t lying, it feels like we have our first honest shot at actually knowing each other. “What’s Sadie going to be to us? Who am I going to be, I guess, when the tour ends?”
Dad’s eyebrows draw together. A kid flits past us on a bike, rainbow ribbons streaming from its handlebars. “You’ll be who you’ve always been, mouse. Your mother’s daughter. Not someday—already.”
I nod, and when he props his arm on the back of the bench, I scoot closer to lean my head against his shoulder. His hand drops onto my bicep.
“You’re going to talk to Sadie,” he says, “and figure out what you both want that to look like. You’re going to get to change your mind, and course-correct, and do the best you can as you go along. Just like everything in life. You’re you, and you’re smart, and you’re going to be just fine. With your family and with school.”
I close my eyes. “I just thought I knew exactly who I was, and now I’m not so sure.”
“Then you’re in good company.” Dad squeezes my arm, and I look up at him. His familiar eyes, the quirk of his smile, the home he’s been to me all my life. “Most of us spend our whole lives figuring out who we are, and we’re all right after all.”