Past Perfect Life

by Elizabeth Eulberg

  “Yeah, great.” Too bad I’m miserable that I’ve been found.

  “I know you’re upset, but I think you need to understand how serious this is.”

  “Sheriff Gleason, no disrespect, but my father is in jail. I have no idea what’s going to happen to him or to me, so, yeah, I think I get how serious this is.”

  He takes a long sip of his coffee. “Have you called your mother yet?”

  I shake my head.

  “I understand, I really do.” He puts out his hand hesitantly near mine, but then draws it back.

  “What’s her name?” I ask.

  “Paula.”

  “Paula,” I reply. It doesn’t feel right calling this virtual stranger Mom.

  “I’m going to be honest here, Ally. You have to talk to her. For over fifteen years, she’s been searching for you. You’re her daughter. If Jan, Julia, or Don went missing for even a day …” He clears his throat. “Well, it’s been hard to persuade her to stay away so far. She wants to be on the next plane here.”

  “Wait a second. You talked to her?”

  He nods. “She asked to speak to someone who knew you. She was so happy to hear what an amazing young woman you’ve grown into. But she really wants to see you. I told her that you’d call her today. She’s waiting by the phone.”

  I can’t call her. I can’t. Talking to her would mean that I’m somewhat accepting what’s happened.

  Sheriff Gleason sighs. “This has to be incredibly tough, but your mom—”

  “She’s not my mom,” I bark.

  “I understand—I can see your side,” he clarifies. “But she is also innocent in this.”

  “Is she really?” I fire back. “There must have been a reason my dad took me from her. Maybe, just maybe, she’s not this completely innocent person. Besides, this is my home. I’ve never even been to Florida. Oh.”

  I keep forgetting that I was born there. I lived there for my first three years. I try to picture life in the sun. There has to be a memory of being there. A memory of her.

  But there’s nothing.

  “Sheriff Gleason, I really, really need to talk to my dad.”

  He takes a deep breath. “I’ve got one more piece of bad news.”

  “Jesus Christ,” slips out.

  “On Monday at the hearing, the prosecutor is going to request a no-contact order.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That you won’t be able to communicate with your father. No talking, no letters, nothing.”

  “For how long?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. Probably not until the trial is over and he’s been sentenced.”

  “How long can that take?”

  “A few months.”

  I grab my jacket. “Well, then, let’s go talk to him now.” I open the front door and stare Sheriff Gleason down. He hesitates a moment before standing and following me out the door.

  I don’t care what a judge says. I need to see my dad. I need to look him in the eye, and I need him to tell me what happened.

  I deserve answers. I need the truth.

  Chapter

  FIFTEEN

  I jump at the buzzing sound as the doors open to the room where I’ll be talking to Dad.

  The room is concrete, with bright fluorescent lights overhead. Based on my TV-and-movie-watching experience, I’m surprised there isn’t two-way glass on any of the walls.

  I pick at my nails as I wait. Any sound coming from the hallway causes me to bristle. There’s another loud buzz, and I nearly fall off my chair. The door clicks open, and Officer Dash offers a tight smile as he escorts in my father.

  This entire time I’d been picturing our reunion with tears and hugs. But now …

  Dad is in handcuffs. He’s sporting more stubble than usual, and his face is drawn.

  He’s been in here for a little over twelve hours, and he already looks defeated.

  Neither of us speaks as Officer Dash starts undoing Dad’s cuffs.

  Officer Dash who is on Dad’s baseball team.

  Officer Dash who once came over to our house to make large batches of chili for a fund-raiser when the police department needed new sirens for the three cars in their fleet.

  Once the cuffs are off, he leads Dad to the chair across from me. “No physical contact, understand? I’ll be right outside the door if you need me.”

  I realize he’s saying the second thing for my benefit. As if I need protection from my own father.

  Officer Dash, whose two small children I babysit for, no longer trusts my dad.

  He nods to the camera in the corner of the room before being buzzed out.

  We’re being watched.

  The entire Valley Falls police department, including Sheriff Gleason, no longer trusts my father.

  And I hate it, I absolutely hate it, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to trust him again, either.

  Dad’s eyes are glued to the table. There’s a moment of uncomfortable silence, neither of us knowing what to say. This has never been a problem before. There’d be times when he’d be fishing that we’d both enjoy the silence that being in the middle of a lake gave you, but this is different.

  “Are you okay?” I finally ask, even though, I don’t know, maybe he should be a little concerned about how I’m doing.

  He moves his head a bit. I’m unsure if it’s a nod or a shake. Then he looks up at me, his eyes wet. “I never meant for this to happen. I’m so sorry.”

  “Stop apologizing,” I snap.

  There is only one person here responsible for what’s transpired. I’m not sure what’s going to happen once I leave this room or when the next time I’ll be able to talk to him will be. So I have to get answers. Now.

  “I need you to tell me everything,” I say, my voice cold. “Everything. I need to know the truth. Who am I?” My voice wavers on that question.

  Yeah, I’m pissed. I’m also scared. The reality of the situation hits me—I’m seeing my father as a criminal.

  “You’re my daughter, and I love you very much.” He looks at the floor.

  “Why did you take me?” I ask, trying to understand how we got to this place.

  “I never meant for it to get this far. You have to believe me.”

  I wait for him to say more, but he remains stubborn with his silence.

  I stare him down, but still he refuses to even look at me. According to Sheriff Gleason, Dad was chatty enough last night. Telling him and the FBI agent everything they needed to know. But me, his daughter, his “pride and joy,” the person he’s put in this mess? He won’t tell me a damn thing.

  The chair beneath me makes a loud scratching noise as I stand. Dad finally looks up as I hover over him.

  “I need you to tell me what happened. I need you to tell me why.”

  He shuffles in his seat. “It’s complicated.”

  “Well, no shit, Dad.”

  “Language,” he scolds me.

  I laugh bitterly. “Oh, no. No. You don’t get to lecture me on a single fucking thing ever again.”

  He clenches his jaw shut.

  “You know that this affects me, right? You did this. You are the reason this is happening. So I have every right to ask you a few questions. Do you even realize? I’m a child you took away from her mother. So you better start talking, and I only want to hear the truth. NOW!”

  The door clicks open, and Officer Dash sticks his head in. “Everything okay in here?”

  “Not if he doesn’t start talking.” I point at my father with the anger that had been simmering now boiling over.

  “Okay, okay,” Dad relents.

  “Then I guess we’re okay.” I sit back in my chair, cross my arms, and wait for Dad to speak.

  Officer Dash pauses for a minute before shutting the door.

  “Talk,” I command.

  “Things weren’t going well with your mother.”

  “How did you meet? Were you married?” I don’t know where the deceit begins, so I’m not su
re if there’s even a shred of truth in what little I’ve been told about my parents.

  “We met in a marketing class back in college, Florida State. But everything I told you about our marriage was true.”

  “You went to college?” This entire time he’s made a fuss about me going since he never went. About how I’d be the first one in the family and how proud he’d be of me. Yeah, that’s what I was led to believe. Add it to the list of the BS he’s been spreading. “Why would you lie about that?”

  “I never meant to lie to you, it’s just … you started asking questions and I got worried that you’d start looking things up and realize that a Jason Smith never went to Florida State. I also didn’t want you wondering why someone with a business degree was working construction.”

  “I didn’t even know we lived in Florida.”

  He nods. “That’s where I’m from—and Paula … your—your mother. We got married young, right out of college, and then we had you. You were a bright spot in our lives. But we … we grew apart. We would have these epic fights about the smallest things.”

  “Did you hit her?” I ask, although I couldn’t picture my father ever being violent.

  “Of course not. But our marriage was never going to last. After a particularly bad fight—and what’s crazy is I can’t even remember what it was about—your mother and I decided to separate. I moved a few blocks away into a studio apartment, still holding out hope that maybe we could reconcile. Your mother had primary custody—courts usually favor the mother. So I got you every other weekend. Then I got laid off. I worked for a marketing consulting firm and they downsized.” He speaks slowly, probably sensing that I’m going to need time to process this all. “The good news in losing my job was that I was able to look after you while your mother worked.”

  “What does she do?”

  “Back then she worked long hours in the marketing department for a hotel. It was amazing for me, getting to spend all day with my little girl. You were so inquisitive. Always asking, ‘Why, Daddy?’

  “Every day, you’d learn a new word or discover something. And you loved animals. We spent hours poring over books with animals, or I’d sit you on my lap and go on the internet and look at whatever animal you were obsessed with that day. You went through a really long koala stage and kept saying, ‘We go Australia.’

  “We developed such a strong bond. I’d come get you every morning at eight and then return you when your mother got home. Sometimes that wouldn’t be until seven, and you went to bed soon after that. You started crying when I’d pull up to your mom’s house … Sometimes Paula had to call me in the middle of the night because you would wake up and scream for me. Paula wasn’t happy about that. She didn’t like that you only wanted to be with me.”

  He pinches the bridge of his nose. “It got to the point that I didn’t want to get another job, because it would take me away from you. I saw how the time apart from your mother affected your relationship. As soon as I’d start working again, I’d see you much less, and, well, that wasn’t going to be enough.

  “Things got tense between Paula and me. She thought I was poisoning you against her. So she decided she wanted to put you in day care instead of letting me take care of you. The day that was supposed to be my last weekday with you, I took you to Busch Gardens. You ran around all day. You got to feed a flamingo and see a giraffe. When we got into the car, you were so happy, holding the stuffed giraffe I bought you.”

  My stomach plunges as if the floor has crumbled underneath me. I still have that giraffe—I named her Ginger. There’s a relic of the pivotal day of my past sitting in my closet, and I had no idea.

  “You asked where we were going once I started up the car, and when I told you that I was taking you home, you asked which home. When I said your mother’s, you started crying uncontrollably. I had to pull over to comfort you. So I told you we were just going for a drive. I missed the exit to your mother’s and kept driving. I was an hour late. Then two hours. I got you some ice cream and saw the missed calls and messages from Paula. At first, she was worried we’d gotten into an accident. Then the messages became accusatory. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to keep you with me. I didn’t want you at some strange place the next day, surrounded by people you didn’t know. I’m your father; I should take care of you. I wanted to keep you with me. So two hours turned into three. I couldn’t bear the thought of dropping you off and not seeing you again for nearly two weeks. You kept saying, ‘I want to stay with you, Daddy.’ It broke my heart. I couldn’t bring myself to take you home.”

  He hangs his head while the realization of what he’s implying hits me.

  “So you took me away from my mother because I threw a fit? All of this was because I was crying? Jesus Christ, Dad.” I can’t count the number of times that a kid I’m babysitting has had a breakdown when their parents start to leave. Do the parents stay at home? No. They leave, and the kid eventually gets over it because they’re kids. Kids bounce back way better than adults. Clearly. “I was a toddler.”

  “I know!” The anguish on his face grows. “You have to understand, I kept telling myself that in ten minutes I was going to turn around. Then I wanted another ten minutes because I knew how much trouble I was going to be in once we returned to your mother’s. I was planning on going to Paula’s. Once you were asleep in the back, I took out my phone to call Paula to tell her where we were. But my phone was crazy with more messages. I listened to the last one first. Your mother was furious … and she had every right to be. But she told me she had called the police. She said she’d make sure that I would never get to see you again. I realized at that moment that if we went back I could lose you forever. I’d be lucky to even get supervised visits.

  “I knew I was making a mistake, and it would eventually catch up to me, but I got back in the car and kept driving. And driving. With every mile, I was digging myself into a deeper hole that I couldn’t get out of. So I made the decision to keep digging. I kept driving. At one point, I took out all the money I had, traded in my car for another, and kept heading north. When you woke up in the middle of the night, you asked what we were doing. I told you it was an adventure. Eventually you stopped asking questions altogether. We stopped in Cleveland since I figured we could hide in a bigger city.”

  “We lived in Cleveland?” I have absolutely no memory of Cleveland. Chicago was the first home I can recall.

  “Yes. For only a couple months. The longer I kept you away, the more lies I had to tell, the more trouble I knew I was in. So I kept us moving. I was anxious those first few years. We never stayed more than six months in a town, especially when someone would start asking questions. My plan was to eventually get us to Canada. That’s where we were headed when we stopped in Valley Falls. I found a temporary job and was waiting on a contact to get us passports that hopefully would’ve worked. We were only supposed to be here for a few months, but you really took to it … and so did I. So we stayed.”

  He leans back in his chair. “After a while, I started to believe my lies. I’d been lying for so long that it had to be true. I couldn’t face what I had done. What I did to you. What I did to your mother. But all it took was one look at you, to see how happy you were here, to convince myself that it was for the best.”

  As furious as I am at him for what he did to us, this part rings true for me. I liked our life. But it doesn’t change the fact that none of it was based on reality.

  “I thought that it was behind us, then the college applications started happening.”

  And there it is. The real reason we’re in this position.

  “Oh, so first it’s my fault you took me and now it’s my fault you got caught?”

  “No!” He holds up his hands. “No, not at all. My love for you made me do something foolish. My fear of what your mother was going to do kept me driving. This is all on me, and I’ve been running from that mistake ever since. I should’ve told you. I should’ve done a lot of things. But now the truth is fin
ally out and I’m going to take responsibility for my actions. All I can say is that I’m so sorry, Ally.”

  “Don’t you mean you’re sorry, Amanda?” I don’t feel like an Amanda. But in this moment I want to punish him as much as I feel I’m being punished.

  “Amanda …” He looks off in the distance as if he forgot that was my real name. “We called you Mandy. I thought I could easily switch you to Ally without you asking too many questions.”

  Now questions were all I had.

  “Didn’t I ask about my mother, miss my other family?”

  “You were so young,” he says. “You did ask about her at first, but then as time went on, you adjusted.”

  “By ‘adjusted’ don’t you mean you told me she was dead.”

  He flinches.

  “She’s alive. She wants to talk to me.”

  This surprises him. “You haven’t talked to her yet?”

  I return his question with a glare. How could he think that it would be so easy for me to go from thinking I don’t have a mom to being totally cool talking to her?

  “Honey, you should. She really loves you. I’m sick thinking about what I did to her.”

  “What you did to her? What about what you did to me?”

  Tears begin streaming down his face. “I know. I know. This is all my fault. I’m so sorry.”

  “You keep saying that. Everybody keeps apologizing to me, but it doesn’t fix anything. Is saying sorry going to change the fact that the past fifteen years of my life have been one big lie?” My entire body is vibrating with anger and frustration.

  “Ally Bean—”

  “Don’t you dare Ally Bean me,” I spit out.

  “I’m sorry. I’m going to make this right, please believe me. I’m not lying anymore. I’m going to serve my time. The only thing I hope you can do is forgive me. Can you forgive me?”

  I don’t know what to say. He’s the only parent I’ve ever known. He also really screwed things up. And he’s going to pay for it.

  But so am I. So have Paula and her family. Along with every person we know in Valley Falls.