Chapters (57)
- Books by Gregg Olsen
- Dedication
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Hear More from Gregg
- Books by Gregg Olsen
- A Letter from Gregg
- Acknowledgements
Me: I didn’t get it. I didn’t really get any of this. I was confused, shocked.
Dr. A: Of course, you were, Rylee. You’d been traumatized in multiple ways within a very short time. You were piecing together bits and pieces that had been your life up to that point. You were a strong girl. Incredibly so.
Me: I didn’t feel so strong. I felt sick. I kept thinking over and over that who your parents are don’t need to define you and the rest of your life.
Dr. A: Yes. And look at you now. You’re in college. You’re moving forward in ways that you might have not ever imagined.
Me: (crying softly).
Dr. A: You will be fine, Rylee.
Me: I hope so.
Dr. A: I know so.
Me: Thank you.
* * *
I’d continued telling the story of how we made our way to Idaho to see our unheard-of Aunt Ginger. How I felt disoriented. So much had been crammed into my head, a mass of loose ends that felt like they’d coagulated inside my throat, that I could barely speak. I remember sitting in the back of the second car. I let Hayden have the window. He was tired, and I was hoping the monotonous beat of a rolling train would lull him to sleep. It worked. I pulled out the envelopes and papers from the safe deposit box and consumed the information on each page as if I were a human scanner. I am, sort of. I’ve always had the ability to remember things. I know that I possess a photographic memory. I never say so aloud. It sounds too conceited, but I do. While I took everything inside, while I felt the gun in its paper wrapper, I was thinking over and over about what was happening to Mom. I was so angry at her for the lies she’d told me. I felt foolish too. I imagined the father I never knew, the soldier, and how he’d fought for our country. He was a hero. When I was small, I used to pretend that I was talking to him on the phone all the way across the world. He was dodging bullets, bombs. He was facing death inside some burned-out village in the Middle East, but he stopped everything to talk to me. I saw my father as a kind of superhero worthy of respect, love, and a movie. All of that had been a figment of my imagination.
My stepfather was a good guy. Decent. Yet still a mystery.