46

46

F lora has listened to her father's story in silence, her heartbeat steadying but still strong, pushing against the hard cavity of her chest in search of an escape route. She cannot fathom how her father has kept this from her.

"How?" Flora asks. "How could you not tell me?"

He shakes his head. "You were so young…"

"And then I grew up. You had thirty-two years to tell me this," she spits.

"It didn't feel like my story to tell," he says.

Flora throws up her hands. "Bullshit! Zephie was your daughter, too."

"I was trying to protect you—"

"You were protecting yourself, " she says.

He sits with this a moment, swallowing whatever other excuse he might have had on deck. And then he is crying. Soft but strong, nearly silent sobs. Flora can count on one hand the number of times she has seen her father cry.

"I was ashamed," he finally admits. "I was so ashamed." He clears his throat and leans his head back to direct the tears back into his eyes, as if he could rewind time and stop them from ever falling.

"Why?" Flora asks, her voice still biting but her body softening. " She's the one who should have been in jail."

"Maybe," he says, his shoulders sagging. "Truth is, we don't know what happened in that bathroom. We never will. Because I wasn't there. And I should have been."

"Dad, you can't—"

"No, Flora," he says, his voice stronger now, his chest puffing out with authority. "I should have done more. Should have done anything. I knew she was struggling, but I didn't want it to be true. I didn't want that to be our story." He bites the knuckles of his right hand, and Flora wonders if this is to stop himself from punching the wall beside him. "But our story turned out so much worse."

Flora remembers her mother's admission about how lonely that time had been. She remembers her mom's comment that Michael had not been there for her the way he was always there for Flora. Now knowing the truth in those words, Flora wonders what else her mother told her over the years that Flora dismissed as exaggeration or pity bait. What other moments of connection did Flora unknowingly bat away? The familiar heaviness of guilt sets in.

Then another realization dawns on her.

"I told you," she says. "I told you about my imaginary friend. That her name was Zephie. You didn't think that was weird ?"

"No," he says, a brightness sneaking into his eyes, curling the edges of his lips upward in a slight smile. "No, not at all." His voice is suddenly light and full of hope. "When you told me that, it was the most comforting thing to happen to me since her death. I knew then that she was still with us."

Flora shakes her head. "What are you talking about? You think—you think she wasn't an imaginary friend? You think she was some kind of ghost ?"

Her words are laced with doubt, but even as she says them, she knows they are true. Flora always thought Zephie looked just like her, but when she inspects her memories, she sees the subtle differences of a twin: Zephie's left incisor that jutted forward, the cowlick at her hairline an inch from her middle part, her eyes beautifully flecked with gold.

But that's impossible, isn't it?

Flora shakes her head again. "I probably just internalized her name or something, when I was a baby…" Her voice trails off, the words not even convincing to her.

Her twin sister hadn't left her. She had stuck around for as long as Flora had allowed.

Her dad looks to her. "Maybe I should have told you then. But part of me thought you already knew. That you had to know. Your sister was with you."

Flora's heart aches. She is a cauldron of emotions. Anger, surprise, devastation. She feels unmoored, as if her father has pulled up the anchor of who she is and has set her boat free in the middle of the ocean. Suddenly, the world around her presents a narrative that is not her own. When one thing is painted a lie, everything else takes on a similar hue.

Her father holds out his arms, and Flora crawls into them like a small child. "I'm sorry," he says. "I'm so, so sorry."

"Me, too," she says.

And she is sorry. She is sorry for Zephie, who Flora knew was always something more but never allowed herself to believe. She is sorry for her father, who carried this burden alone so unnecessarily for so long. And she is sorry for her mother. Because no matter what happened in that bathroom, her mother had to live with the consequences. She spent her life in prison, after all. A prison of her own making.

Flora pulls away from her father just enough that she can make eye contact. "I'm afraid, Dad," she says. "I'm afraid she's trying to do it again."

"What do you mean?" he asks. "Who?"

Flora decides to lay it all out for him. No more secrets. She has seen the destruction that lies leave in their wake.

"Mom was at my house last week," she begins.