Amelia stood behind the tree, unmoving, like the tree itself. She let it all sink in for a moment, trying to reconstruct and process what she’d just seen, every gesture. Watching Epiphany and the Professor together added a piece of truth, a whole new layer to the story and made it more plausible. Oddly, the fact that her father hadn’t been wearing a jacket or coat was what struck her, what was so unlike him, what she’d remember most clearly of the scene.

She rose up on her toes. Something had just happened. Something out of the ordinary. She knew that. The knowing was like an electric charge that shot through her body and made her tremble. And then, with great urgency, she ran up to the house and went inside looking for Mrs. O’Brien.

22 • The Mystery of the Situation

“I saw her! I saw her!” said Amelia. “Now I know she’s real. I saw them together.”

Mrs. O’Brien’s smile was kind, as always, but it was stretched too wide, as if it could hide the obvious truth that she was thinking hard about what to say, how to respond properly. That moment of thinking was long and it contained the stillness of the room (the kitchen) and the suspension of time and the mystery of the situation and the keenness of Amelia’s attention.

“What do you know?” asked Mrs. O’Brien softly.

“What do you mean?”

“Did your father talk to you?”

“No.”

“Oh.” Now Mrs. O’Brien’s hands got busy. They seemed to be in flight, weightless, unable to stop moving. They smoothed Amelia’s hair and squeezed her shoulders and brushed aside something from her shirt and touched her cheek. “Poor thing,” she said.

“What’s happening?” asked Amelia. “I saw them on the porch. I saw them drive off together.” And then she asked the question she’d been circling in her head. “Who was the woman with my dad?”

The expression on Mrs. O’Brien’s face changed quickly, as though she were running through every possibility in search of the appropriate one. She looked out the window, and when she turned back her face was clouded, unreadable.

Amelia’s confusion and powerlessness weighed her down, but she fastened her eyes onto Mrs. O’Brien’s and was determined to keep them locked firmly in place until she got a response.

Mrs. O’Brien looked out the window again, shaping her lips. “I don’t know what to say,” she announced gently and carefully, tossing the statement out into the world like a beach ball lobbed to a toddler.

Amelia kept her gaze steady.

Mrs. O’Brien inhaled and exhaled, a sigh big enough to rearrange the furniture. “It’s not my place,” she began, her voice crimped with worry and concern. “This is between you and your father. You and your father and—” She stopped herself and looked away once more.

“And?” said Amelia. “And who? My mother?”

“Your mother?” Now Mrs. O’Brien looked utterly confused, her deeply lined face a portrait of bewilderment.