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The knock I’d been waiting for finally happened early on a normalMonday morning, not long after my daughter left for school. It came almost as a relief. There she was, the stranger at the door who I’d been afraid of for so long: a woman maybe fifteen years younger than me, a rumpled linen blazer that advertised seriousness of intent, ergonomic sneakers tapping nervously at the planks of my porch, black hair yanked into a crooked ponytail.

How many strange knocks at the door had I heard over the previous decades? Each one accompanied by a corresponding knock in my chest, a surge of my pulse: I’ve been found. I didn’t get many solicitors out where we lived, in the winding woodlands of Marin, but people sometimes made their way to me anyway. Neighbor kids selling raffle tickets, a particularly persistent Environment California fundraiser, real estate agents wondering if I was willing to list my covetable acreage. I ignored the strangers, answered the door when it was children, hid in the back when it was a man.

So why did I answer this particular knock? Why did I drift toward the entry, the cereal spoon from my breakfast still in my hand, impulsively compelled to open the door?

Probably I had felt the global temperature shift, despite my attempts to disregard it. Once you’re aware of something’s existence, you can’t will it back into oblivion, no matter how hard you try. Or maybe some long-buried voice from deep inside me had sent up a smoke signal: It’s time.

Gus was barking like a maniac, claws scrabbling at the door. I grabbed his collar as I twisted the doorknob and peered at the woman standing there, her laptop bag heavy across her thigh.

“Hi, I’m Yasmin Amadi. San Francisco Chronicle ?” She had an eager squeak in her voice, her breath came fast even as she tried to keep her face calm. She stuck her hand out, a business card in her palm.

I stared down at it, at the fingernails chewed to the quick and the string bracelet on her wrist. I gripped Gus’s collar tighter, forcing him to sit. “Sorry, but what’s this about?”

“Is this you?” She held out a piece of paper with a sketch of me that I’d hoped I’d never see again. Her eyes scrutinized my face, and I could sense her measuring me up against my teenage self: noting the gray now threading the blond, the wrinkles that split my forehead like a cracked windshield, my nearsighted squint from too many hours staring at close objects. I could tell that she was looking for something in particular, could see the question mark in her eyes as she failed to find it. A renegade air, maybe. A criminal mien. But all she could see was a faded middle-aged lady with paint in her hair. It was possible she was questioning herself.

I could have answered no. Could have hidden behind the new name I’d given myself, the carefully constructed smoke screens I’d thrown up years before. Names are easy to slip on and off, like an ill-fitting suit. I’ve gone through so many. Personal identity, however—that’s a whole different story. Identity is far harder to change.

I closed my eyes. Behind my lids I saw the same familiar ghosts flicker past, my life’s movie on perpetual rerun. Blood spatters across a shiny red dress. The cold heft of a gun in my palm. A tower of flames, bright against the night sky.

“How did you find me?” I asked. Gus panted obediently at my feet, drool dripping on my bare toes.

To her credit, she didn’t grin in victory. Instead, she bit her lip apologetically, clearly aware of just how much effort I had put into not being found. “A lot of research. It took a few months to connect the dots, piece together clues. And the internet was very helpful, of course.”

“Of course,” I repeated. Because the internet was how it had all begun. It had undone me, made me whole again, and then undone me once more. My savior, my nemesis, the harbinger of doom for us all.

“Considering everything that’s happening, I thought maybe you’d want to talk to the press?”

“Everything that’s happening?”

Her eyes opened wide, a little patronizing. “Oh. Maybe you aren’t aware that your father has been in the news lately—maybe you don’t have a television?” I wondered if she was thinking that after so many years of trying to escape my father’s legacy, I had somehow ended up rebuilding his Arcadia.

“I’m aware,” I interrupted her. I pointed the cereal spoon over my shoulder, to clarify. She glanced past me for the first time, noting the interior of our little cedar-lined house: the paintings that hung on every wall, little clay figures teetering on ledges, the novels flung open on the couch. Signs of a teenager, scattered shoes and clothes, abandoned breakfast plates. But also: a desk with a full computer setup and a television that was currently on mute.

“In that case, maybe you’d like to set the record straight,” she persisted. “You haven’t ever told your full story, not since it all went down.”

“Thanks, but when it’s time for me to tell my story, I’ll do it myself. Please leave.”

I released Gus’s collar and he leapt happily at Yasmin, clambering up her thighs. She backed away, wiping off the drool on her slacks, then turned and walked to her car. I felt a little bad—she seemed nice enough. Smart and persistent, which would probably take her far. But I also knew that she was facing a futile task: How could an hourlong conversation with a reporter possibly capture the complexity of the story I had to tell? After all, the dichotomies of my childhood were a subject that even I struggled to wrap my head around: All these years later, I still wasn’t sure I fully understood what had happened.

But as I turned back from the door, I found myself thinking of my daughter. She was almost the age that I had been when everything began; and her gaze was starting to settle on the territories beyond her familiar borders. I knew that for her sake—if not my own—it might finally be time for me to try.