Philip and I had a great time today. Nobody knows us here, and that's such a relief. I love Amity Park, but there are too many prying eyes there. People think I'm nosy, but they don't know our neighbors.
He had a business trip, going upstate to see a potential client. The case would make him have to leave us for a few weeks to work it here, which Mom isn't thrilled about. Still, it's good money and he's one of those lawyers that likes the impossible cases. He's good at working the impossible. I could see the sparkle in his tanzanite purple eyes. This will be one of those ones where he works hard, takes the family out afterwards and he and Mom will quit fighting for a while. Right now, though, this is just our time. This day is just for us.
There was a Wagner opera he wanted to see, and a romantic movie I wanted to. I think I enjoyed his opera more than he enjoyed the movie. It was epic and sweeping and even though I don't know nearly enough German to get most of it, the theatrics were so over the top! I can't believe I ever held out on going to one of these with him. Then he took me shopping and got me a dress I'm sure Mom would never let me wear, and we went out to dinner at an incredibly fancy restaurant. I felt like a princess.
But oddly, I think the best part of the day was walking through the park afterwards with him. The sunset on the pond was magnificent and there were so many geese. He told me geese represented loyalty. We talked about everything and nothing, and I took fall leaves to press in my scrapbook. I insisted on a picture under a flame red tree with Philip, which he agreed to after some badgering. The old woman that took it for us said we were a lovely couple. Dad told me that's what I get for calling him by his name all the time. We got milkshakes on our way back to the hotel.
I wish today would last forever.
Sam felt a burning rage building.
It didn't matter if what her mother was describing was a saintly man who gave his daughter everything. If anything it drove the knife deeper that he'd left her. He had called her his favorite and obviously he was her favorite parent and he – ugh! Her blood boiled to think of how he'd stabbed her in the back. How could he do that to her? An understanding dawned in Sam then that this was why her mother wanted to spend time with her, that this was why she was always trying to get her to cheer up. She was trying to be there for Sam in the way her own father had been, but unlike her father she was seeing it through. All her relentlessness stemmed from this loss, this pain, this part of her family that had walked out the door and never come back.
The questions were building into piles and the piles were becoming mountains. What had he done? What had this man done that had threatened to tear the family apart, that could necessitate all this secrecy and running away? She looked at the letter and the torn page – a journal entry, perhaps – and the letter. He still seemed like a loving father, but something had happened. Something had happened before he left… context might have implied a second thing? Her head hurt.
She pulled things from the box bit by bit. A teddy bear patched and well loved, a beautiful glass angel wrapped and preserved in newspaper, a small box with intricate swirling patterns on it that was firmly locked, a bone knife and finally a picture. Her mother was maybe fourteen or fifteen, dressed for prom, her parents beside her. Grandma Ida was dark haired and smiling, hair in a loose bun, wisps framing her face, clothes plain and simple. Sam's mother had her hair in curls and was dressed in more pink than Sam would ever touch, a one shoulder dress with ruffles. And on her other side was the non-Jew, non-Christian, daughter-abandoning man with a secret past, looking for all the world like a normal father. He was strikingly pale and tall, with pitch black hair like a raven's wing slicked back. His eyes were the exact color of Sam's, but his features were pointed, his hands long and his clothes dark and layered. He looked like a professional, a businessman, someone who thought about his appearance. She searched his face for more clues as to who he was, but there was nothing else to be gleamed from his visage.
Sam set the photo on the floor beside her and reached for the envelope underneath it. She opened it to see an old photo of her mother and her aunts and uncle. Her aunt Maeve was standing atop a high board above the swimming pool, her uncle Aaron on the ladder trying to talk her down, and her aunt Shannon was laughing at everything. Clinging to her grandfather's leg was Sam's mother, clearly trying to get him to stop Maeve. He was rolling his eyes affectionately. Strangely, he had a long sleeved T-shirt and pants on despite the hot summer day in the picture. Sam studied it for a moment. Her grandmother had been behind the camera, but scrawled in her tiny handwriting underneath the photo she'd marked everyone's ages – Pamela, 9, Aaron, 8, Maeve, 7, Shannon, 4. Everything seemed almost normal, save for her grandfather's attire. There was a necklace hanging from his neck with some symbol on it she was unfamiliar with.
A scrap of paper was next to come out of the envelope. It was small and purple, and had been folded in half. A child's messy handwriting proclaimed, Philip, don't be sad when Mom yells at you. Mom's just worried. I am too. Come home more. Love, Pam. There was a heart after her mother's name.
So her grandfather was away a lot for work. He was a lawyer. He was there when he could be. Most of this wasn't weird. Why had he left? She pulled out a piece of notebook paper and recognized the neat calligraphy instantly as her grandfather's. Pam, everything's alright. Don't worry about me, my little goose. I'll be home as much as I'm able, promise. – Philip. Well, apparently the first name basis thing had been going on for a while. Sam's parents had never been cool with that themselves, but she had classmates who called their parents by their first names. The next piece of paper was folded repeatedly, worn, a bit frayed at the edges as if it had been reviewed many times. This letter was shorter.
Pam,
I know what you've discovered is unsettling to you, but hiding out here in the woods isn't going to change things. I was going to just give you time to get used to things, but it's becoming clear no amount of time is enough without further explanation. I've left some things here in your treehouse for you to read. Hopefully they will help you make sense of things. Please remember I'm still your father, no matter who I used to be. Try to understand, and if you cannot understand, then forgive me as much as you're capable of it.
With love,
Philip
The response to this one was scrawled on the back in Pam's angry, loopy handwriting, in red ink.
Philip,
Unsettling?! I can't believe you! Do you have any idea what this is like for me? I always knew our family had to keep your religion secret. I could deal with that. I always understood we didn't have any relatives on your side on the family. And now you expect me to just forgive you? You're a murderer and a monster and you got away with everything! You lied to mom! You lied to me! YOU LIED TO ME! I love you and you lied to me and if you lied about that then was any of it real?! What about our Winter Solstice together? I thought that meant something special! I thought we really connected. Now I don't know what I think and it's all because of you! I hate you!
Her grandfather's reply was short and succinct.
Pamela,
Remember the night of the Winter Solstice, what I said as we stood by the fire? I have never meant something so sincerely in my life. I am tired of us living in a silent house. Please speak to me again. What I told you in the firelight was every truth I had in me. Regardless of the fact I was a Nazi, I am still your father.
Sam froze, breath hitching in her chest as she reread the last line, again and again, until she realized her hands were shaking and released the piece of paper. It fell into her lap, where the offending words stared up at her in crisp, controlled calligraphy, unapologetically blunt about the matter. She sucked in air again and again as her mind reeled. She couldn't make what she was seeing make sense. She couldn't make it go away. She could only stare at the picture of his grandfather with his wife and daughter. This man with an arm around her mother, this normal looking, well spoken immigrant lawyer who had by all outward appearances achieved the American Dream – he was her grandfather. He was evil. He took his beloved daughter on trips and gave her gifts and lied to her face for most of her life. Philip Tommler was a lot of things and already, the contradictions were beginning to stack quite high. They were only going to stack higher if she kept looking. She had a choice, now, as to whether or not she really wanted any more details than this, if she wanted to know what he'd done or if just this was enough. It should have been. Anything more and she might not be able to sleep tonight.
But there were still piles of papers, sitting there unread, some bound together and some loose, some yellow with age, a pool of knowledge waiting to be waded through.
Shakily, she reached for the rest of the box.
