Set Me Free (8 page)

But she didn’t want to tell Lydia any of this, and she didn’t have
to, because here was the truth: the world of Benson never had to collide with the world of Ponderosa. Lydia would never meet
Wes or Sadie; Sadie would never get to feel superior to Lydia. Now that Amelia was home, she didn’t have to think about them
either. Even if she wanted to, Amelia knew she couldn’t talk about any of this; it was way too soon.

Lydia sat across the table, waiting for reassurance, for a measure of their friendship. Amelia knew the one way to make Lydia
feel right, come fully home again, was to tell Lydia something
big.
She had a whole range of not quite big things, but if she picked the one that felt the furthest away from her, maybe she
could make it big enough, maybe Lydia would buy it, and maybe it could explain everything.

“You know why I left? Really? Why I came home?” She saw warmth creeping into Lydia’s eyes; noticed her jaw softening. “It’s
sort of creepy. Not just because of the thing itself but because I can’t tell my dad. Ever. He can’t ever know.”

Lydia was poised, alert. She reached her hand across the table, toward Amelia. “You can tell me. You know that. I won’t ever
tell.”

Amelia nodded. And blurted, “It’s about sex.”

“Oh my God, Amelia, you didn’t, did you?”

“Oh no, it’s not about me. It’s about my teacher. Jackson Rice. You know, he’s the guy I auditioned for to go there in the
first place. He was going to change my life.” Amelia held her breath for a moment, then went on quietly. “He fucked one of
the students and they fired him. But not the way my dad would have fired someone. They didn’t even act like what he did was
bad. They acted like he was just young and it was some stupid mistake. Like if he hadn’t gotten caught, it would have been
okay. He went someplace else to teach, and we were all supposed to cope.” She was shredding her napkin as she spoke. “I felt
really stupid, Lydia. Like I was the worst musician there. I just couldn’t be there anymore. I mean, he was the whole reason
I went, and…”

Lydia looked at Amelia with concern and said,“God, that’s horrible.
What a creepy thing.” Then she cocked her head to the side. “But honest? This Jackson guy was so important that you had to
come all the way home?”

“You know me.” Amelia smiled. “That oversensitive-artistic-temperament thing. It’s just so far away. When I think about it
now, I think I hated it there. I needed to come home, you know?” She realized what she needed to say. It was the truth: “I
missed you. I didn’t know how to deal with that shit alone.”

“Absolutely.” Lydia smiled broadly at her friend. “So is the girl okay?” Amelia didn’t answer. “You know, the ‘victim’ of
harassment? She okay?”

Amelia dropped her smile. “It wasn’t a she.” She sighed. And nodded as Lydia caught on. “You’ve got to promise not to tell
anyone.”

That was the way Amelia and Lydia became best friends once again. Lydia believed she knew the truth, even as a single hundred-dollar
bill lay curled tight in Amelia’s jeans pocket. She had intended to share it somehow with Lydia but realized that the money
represented a truth too complex, too confusing. So the two friends counted out coins and rumpled bills the way they’d always
done, leaving a jumble of cash on the table.

Mission accomplished.

W
ILLA

New Milford, Connecticut
Wednesday, May 7, 1997

Y
ou even brought Ariel.” Disappointment skated the edge of Willa’s voice. She noticed the ancient cat immediately, curled into
a sleeping ball on a pillow on the front seat. Nat was reminded of how much he admired Willa in the moments before their departures.
She never threw fits. She never cried. She made observations.

Nat put his hand over her fingers, where they perched on the ledge of his rolled-down window. “I thought…” he said, then faltered.
He had planned it all on the drive over, and now he couldn’t locate the right phrasing. It was so strange to think of leaving
her behind. “I thought it would be easier for me to take care of Ariel.”

“Than who?”

He smiled. “Than you.”

Willa stepped back from the car. Just a fraction of an inch, but to her, it was miles. “You’re leaving me here?”

Nat patted her hand and tried to look reassuring.“You’ll be fine. I’ll be back soon.”

Miss Finlay emerged from the art building, a stack of papers in her hand. “Good morning, Mr. Llewelyn,” she chirped. As Willa
watched her walking off toward Tully Hall, she remembered all those times she’d nearly run after an adult like Miss Finlay
and
begged her for help. Begged her to make time stop. In North Conway, New Hampshire, it had been Willa’s third-grade math teacher,
Mr. Wilson, who’d sauntered obliviously by the idling car. In Chapel Hill, North Carolina, it had been the kindly Mrs. Sims,
who lived next door and was on her way to buy groceries. But when it came down to it, Willa always let her intercessor carry
on, unknowing. There was nothing to tell that third party. What could Willa say? “My dad makes me move when I don’t want to”?
“My dad keeps ruining my social life”? It wasn’t as if he were kidnapping her. Willa knew it was dangerous for a little girl
in America to accuse her single father of anything inappropriate, because of what people would decide to believe. The very
idea that someone would think her father was capable of hurting her the way other girls were hurt, well, that was preposterous.
He would never
abuse
her. And whenever he came and got her, she understood it was only because he believed something had changed that was threatening
their safety. As if he could see an invisible army mounting against them both, and there were only a few moments in which
rescuing was possible. Really, it was just in the seconds before they left a place for good, when it felt as if they were
being scattered together into the world, that Willa felt a strange, searing pain inside, as if Nat were asking her to remove
pieces of herself willingly, for a reason he would not name.

“Look, kiddo,” Nat said, adopting a no-nonsense dad voice. “I’m just going on a little trip—”

“This is not a little trip, Dad, okay? I’m not fucking blind. The car is packed.”

“Two suitcases. A cooler. The tent. A sleeping bag or two. Ariel’s medicine. A bunch of chips. Some paperbacks. You know how
I travel. I need my things.”

“So this is some kind of vacation?”

“Not exactly.” He wasn’t going to lie.

“Dad,” she said, all business, “my art show’s next Friday. You’ll be back by then, right?”

Nat knew to play this carefully. “I hope so.” He looked away. It was worth risking her wrath.

“Where are you
going?”

“Oregon.”

Willa couldn’t believe her ears. They’d never been west of the Mississippi. He had instructed her of this once, but she knew
exactly where they’d been. Driving away from Rochester. Willa had been ten and bold and begging Nat—if they were just moving
random places, please could they move somewhere with something interesting near it, like the Grand Canyon or Mesa Verde, where
they had Indian ruins? She’d been in her Manifest Destiny phase. But her usually freewheeling father had issued a sharp “No.
We do not go west of the Mississippi.” His clarity on that point was unforgettable.

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Nope.”

“Jesus Christ, Dad. So let me get this straight. With no warning, you’ve packed up half our house, even the cat, you’ve decided
you’re going to Oregon, of all places, which is, may I remind you,
west of the Mississippi,
and you’re, like, leaving me here for a totally unplanned period of time.”

“I guess that about sums it up.”

Willa crossed her arms and caught him in her sights. “Is this some kind of trap?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you
do
know what teenagers do when they have a house all to themselves, don’t you? Are you going to be hiding in the bushes, watching
to see if I bring any boys over?”

“Of course not, Willa,” Nat said gravely. “I trust you.”

Playfulness left Willa when she heard how serious her father was. “So you’re just going to
leave
me.” She was taut again, preparing herself. For what, she didn’t know. But she’d forgotten that when he made decisions like
this, she had to keep herself prepared for anything.

“Look, kiddo, you’re welcome to come with me.”

She laughed bitterly.

“What?” As if he didn’t know why.

“I knew it. We’re moving.”

“No,” Nat said, and it was the first time in the conversation that he sounded like
her
father and not some stock version of himself he’d summoned up for the occasion. “I promised you. This is where we live now.
We will always come back.”

“Dad.” Willa stressed the word, so it sang out of her. “Come on. School will be over in a month. We can go camping then. My
art show’s next week. I don’t want you to miss it.”

“This cannot wait.”

“You always do this. When something matters to me, when something actually matters, when I care about someone, when I finally
have a friend… You
love
this, don’t you? You love doing this to me.”

“I do not love anything about this,” Nat said, looking down at his hands on the steering wheel. He was not going to let Willa
see the tears welling in his eyes. But she saw them anyway. The tears changed the conversation, because they brought Willa
back to the car. She put both hands on the lip of the window and leaned down to get a better look.

“Dad,” she said, in a soothing voice. “I know sometimes you feel like, you know, things are too hard to handle. Like it’s
better to leave a place, to escape it? And I understand that, I really do. But we have to stop this. We
have
stopped it. We don’t need to move anymore. Remember how much I love my school? And how much we love our house? And the garden?
And how you like your boss now? You’re getting really good work. And you’re making your furniture again.” She put her hand
over her father’s. “We’re happy here,” she said. “We don’t need to run away.”

“I’m not running away,” Nat said, and when he looked at her, his chocolate eyes were calm again. “I’m going to Oregon.”

Willa sighed and withdrew. “Why?” He had seemed so much
more sensible over the last three years. She had loved him even more because he was normal, reasonable, acting like a father,
but still himself. Still fun. Maybe he’d been lying all along.

“Because,” he said, “I made a promise to your mother.”

Willa could barely breathe. Hearing that word was like being punched in the stomach. “What did you say?”

“Before she died, I told Caroline I would find a man named Elliot Barrow. She made me promise I would find him.” Nat winced
from the memory. “I made a pact with her. Just before she died. And this morning I heard something on NPR. Elliot Barrow is
a very well-known man, and apparently, he has been in a terrible accident. He was in a fire. He will probably die very soon.
I have to get to him before that. I have to keep that promise, Wills.” As an afterthought, he added, “Apparently, he runs
a school. In Oregon.”

“But, Dad,” Willa said, her mind spinning. She cast about for more information, anything, while she tried to get a grip on
what Nat had said. “You heard about it on the radio?”

“Yes,” replied Nat.

“But it’s something”—she hesitated—“my mom said she wanted? For you to find him?”

“Yes.”

“So you looked for him before, or something, and you couldn’t find him, and now you found him but he’s going to die?” Nat
nodded once. Willa tried to get a handle on the situation. The game had changed. She wasn’t thinking about herself anymore.
She said, “Why didn’t you say that in the first place? I mean, you never talk about Mom. And if she wanted you to, you know,
I mean… Go. You should go.”

Nat nodded again. “The thing is, sweetheart”—here he took her hand—“I know this isn’t fair. I know you’ve worked so hard to
get to this art show. And I know how important your education is. But“—and here he paused—“and this is your decision. But.
I think your mom might want you to come along. Not because you have to. Because—”

Willa was already gathering up her drawing and the fixer. “I’ve just got to put this stuff down,” she said. “I’ve got to get
my backpack.” She had started to move away from the car when Nat called her back.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “It’s going to be…” He sighed. He couldn’t tell her how it was going to be. He had no clue.

“I’m sure,” Willa said, and she smiled broadly. She had been waiting her whole life for this, to be invited into the world
of information. She’d always known her mother had wonderful secrets. She’d even believed her father was privy to them. But
now she knew her mother was the kind of woman who made deathbed wishes about men named Elliot Barrow. Willa’s father was inviting
her to fulfill these wishes with him. This was the real thing.

“Okay,” said Nat, holding her gaze. “But you have to promise me it’s what you want. I need to hear you promise it’s your decision.”