Lost in the Lies

“Dad?” I say in confusion.

The word leaves my mouth without a second thought and I recoil at the foreign sensation that rolls off my tongue. I haven’t said that word in years. 

The smile across the man’s face deepens as he does a double-take, drinking in what ten years had done to his little girl. 

He has more lines etched into his face, his salt and pepper hair has flecks of gray, his hairline is receding, and there’s a softness to his face that must’ve come with age. His face is darker and tanned to a coppery brown, like he’s spent hours out in the sun.

But he’s still got those eyes. The same 5 o’clock shadow. Baggy jeans, worn sneakers, and a collared shirt. 

But this can’t be true. 

He’s dead. Mom told me he was.

I still remember that night. It’s been burned into the back of mind. The silent dinner, the clink of silverware, and the “bad news that I have to tell you, sweetie.” He died on his research trip to Peru after contracting a disease. Mom never said which disease but she didn’t have to because I didn’t want to know.

“Bailey. Bailey!” Dad says, his face splitting into a gorgeous smile that pulls memories out of my mind like loose threads. All the years of suppressing my childhood so I wouldn’t start crying, all the years of building a mental gate around these thoughts...everything is suddenly flooding back in and playing across my eyes. Suddenly I’m playing with him in the sandbox. He’s sneaking a KitKat into my hand as I get out of the car for the first day of school. We’re warming up Dino Nuggets in the microwave at 11 PM and I’m telling him that ranch is disgusting and that he was a heathen for liking it so much. 

His arms are wide open as he comes towards me. “Come give me a hug, Bailey.”

I step back instinctively, jaw slack in disbelief. 

A hint of hurt flashes across his face but all I’m seeing are tea parties in the backyard, Thing #1 and Thing #2 for Halloween, chocolate sundaes every Sunday, riding ponies at Grandpa Jim’s farm…

He reads my stance, my expression. The stiffness of my body. The disbelief across my face. The distance between us. “Bailey?”

My head is pounding. I lick my lips before I speak and I’m searching for my voice, which must’ve fallen down into the pit of my stomach. “Dad. What-what...What are you doing here?” The colors look brighter, the sounds are louder, and my eyes are betraying me. 

My mind and my eyes are disjointed. The synapses in my brain are pulsing with electric signals, rapidly charging after one another and trying to make sense of it all. 

Mom said his body was burned for the fear of contagion. 

Dad never called once. 

Mom still kept all of his clothes. 

Dad never wrote a letter. 

Mom never held a funeral.

“Darling, darling. I told you I would come back. Didn’t you believe me?” Dad says. His arms are still open at his sides. My feet are planted into the street but suddenly I’m soaring 10 years back into my memory when Dad and I are eating at Chuck-E-Cheese. It was the day before he was going to go. I was so, so upset and he tried to make it up to be with cheesy pizza and arcade games. He cupped my face and told me that he loved me. He said he’d bring me gifts. That he’d be back before I knew it. 

“So...you’re back,” I say numbly, blinking unbelievingly at him. “F-from Peru.”

He hesitates. “More or less, yes. Of course I’m back,” Dad says softly, but there’s a familiar touch of exasperation, just like he’s telling a 5-year-old me that no monsters exist under the bed, that kindergarten will be the best year of my life…

He shakes his head and closes the distance between us and wraps his arms around me tightly. A shiver runs through my body when I feel the solid, realness of his body.

He is not a ghost, he is not a spirit. 

He is here. 

He is real.

He still smells like cedar and I nearly double over at the familiar, unfamiliar smell. Being in his embrace, it feels foreign and wonderful and beautiful, all at the same time. His breath is hot on the top of my head. He’s barely a head taller than me now. 

My arms are limp at my sides. 

Dad places his cheek against my head. “There’s my girl,” he murmurs soothingly. I pull away from him to face him again. To look up into his face. 

He’s alive. 

My dad is alive.

“Cripes, Bailey,” Dad says in disbelief. His eyes are drinking in my appearance with a scrutiny that overwhelms me. “You’re all grown up now. Look at you! You look exactly like your mother, wow. You’re seventeen now, right? Look, I’m so sorry that I couldn’t make it for your birthday. You don’t know how difficult it was just to get here-”

The tinny ringing in my ears grows louder and louder by every second and his voice drowns out into the background.

 His face is so terrifyingly familiar. I do not know what to believe anymore. “No. No. No. Stop talking, please. Mom said you were dead. Mom said you got into an accident and died,” I say forcefully and the sting in my voice is sharper than I wanted it to be. But I can’t stop. “Dad, how are you alive? Where have you been this whole time? I’m so- I’m so confused right now!”

There’s a tightness in my throat and I can feel the tears beginning to form in my eyes, goddamnit. The initial euphoria and the confusion mixes painfully in my stomach. My fingernails dig sharply into my palms.

Dad’s face crumples with confusion and I watch the emotions play across his face as I blink the tears out of my eyes. Confusion, disbelief, anger, horror, heartbreak. His face looks waxy in the sunlight. “Y-your mom...said...what?” He sucks in a long breath and stares up at the sky.

The silence between us stretches on dramatically.

I try to remember to breathe. To calm down. 

“Dad. Y-you’re supposed to be dead.”

Dad shakes his head. “No. No. Your mother would never do this…”

“But...but she did.”

The brokenness on his face makes me angry. He has no right to do this to me, to let mom do this to us…My emotions are boiling.

“Why did you never call then?” I yell. I can feel the back of my ears starting to warm up. “If you were alive this whole time, why did you never call us? I-I COULD HAVE KNOWN THAT YOU WERE ALIVE THIS WHOLE TIME AND YOU-”

I press a hand up to my mouth and try to stop crying. It’s as if every nerve in my body is vibrating in outrage. I can feel myself floating out of my body, as if I am a bystander to everything that is happening to me right now. 

Dad is staring at me like he doesn’t recognize me. 

I wonder for a moment, how terrifying of a sight it must be to see your daughter who’s not 10 years old anymore, to be yelling and crying and screaming at you for your alleged death. 

I’m trying to calm down, I really am, but I can’t control the emotions that are spiraling inside of me, I can’t breathe properly, I can barely see Dad’s face through my blurry eyes, I can’t do this right now.

“Bailey,” Dad says emotionlessly. “I sent letters every week. You never responded to me.”

I shake my head. “I never got them. I had no idea...W-why would mom do this?”

“Jesus, Bailey. How much has changed since I was gone?” Dad hides his face in his hands.  He looks like the shell of the man that I used to know. The anger is beginning to evaporate and dissipate into something stronger and harsher.

I taste iron in my mouth as a realization begins to dawn in my head. “Dad.” My voice echoes in my head. “Oh my god, Dad.” He looks up at me and his bright green eyes drive the realization further in. Grounds me down further into my body. “M-mom said that you died. She said that you died from a contagious disease in Peru. They...they burned your body.” My stomach somersaults. “They...they sent us your ashes.”

Dad’s face begins to look a sickly pallor of green.

“Oh god...I think I’m going to be sick,” I whisper. Every sense within my body is heightened. I can hear my heart beating in my head. I can feel the air rushing out of my lungs. An uncomfortable warmth is spreading down my neck.

What. Is. Happening?

I remember the night when mom and I cried together in front of our fireplace. She couldn’t bring herself to touch me. 

The betrayal is like a slow poison. It spreads gradually inside of my body, attacking my heart, my lungs, my brain in the most painstaking ways. 

My mom knew that Dad was alive this entire time. She hid his letters. She faked his death. How much more was she hiding from me?

“M-mom’s coming to pick me up right now. She usually comes by 3:15, at the latest,” I say shakily. “Y-you guys should...we should all talk.”

Dad’s face is unreadable. He’s usually so easy to read but his face is blank and his eyes are indecipherably complex. It’s the flat look in his eyes that scares me. 

“D-d-dad?”

I can see Dad trying to put himself back together. The ire fades from his face and his resolve is beginning to settle in. His mouth is set. His jaw is tight. But his eyes are flashing dangerously. 

“I knew Helen could be sneaky but...this? No, no,” Dad says flatly, shaking his head. He’s talking more to himself than to me. I don’t even know if he realizes that I can hear him. “This has got to stop. S-she’s not the same anymore.” I reach out and grab his arm tentatively. He jolts slightly, as if he’s been electrocuted, and his eyes focus slightly on me. Like he can finally see me. “If she said that to you...lied to you. God...how much has changed since I was gone?”

A fear is beginning to settle in the place of the melanage of emotions. “Dad, what are you talking about?” I demand. “What did she do? Do you know why she did this?”

“There’s something I need to tell you, darling. I should have told you this when you were younger but-” He stops himself and shakes his head. Gets a hold of himself. “I will tell you everything as soon as we’re safe. I promise you. But we need to go.”

He notices the distress in my face and he cups my cheeks, just like he used to when I would cry when I was younger. “Darling. I love you. I’ve missed you so much. I promise you, I will explain everything to you. But we need to go now.”

I shake my head fervently. “No. No.”

His finger tightens protectively on my arm and the fierce gaze that he holds makes my skin shiver. “No, Bailey,” he says firmly, an iron edge at his words. “We need to get you out of here. Now.”