“You may,” I said, standing back to let her enter. “I apologize for the mess.”
But if she was bothered, she didn’t let on, moving slowly around the room, taking in the silly signs, a homemade clay ashtray from Lizzie’s elementary days, a picture frame made of puzzle pieces from Emma’s. There were drawings in crayon that had faded over the years, and photos from every decade scattered about—from this one all the way back to my childhood.
She stopped in front of a black-and-white photograph. The first ever taken of me in my uniform. We were supposed to keep a straight face, but at the last moment I couldn’t help it, the corners of my lips turning up just slightly. Selene turned, the same smile on her face, and I froze.
“You’re...”
But I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t understand. I blinked once. Again. But there it was, right in front of me this whole time. I hadn’t seen it because I’d been looking for Kate. But it wasn’t Kate I should’ve been looking for.
It was me.
I reached back, feeling around for my chair and then sinking down onto it.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered.
She sighed, her eyes conveying something I’d seen many times in my life. Surrender. But not the kind that leads to the end of a life. The kind that accepts whatever is coming next.
Her smile remained soft as she gestured to the sofa half-covered in paperwork and books behind her. I waved a hand. Yes. Please. Sit. And waited as she did so, catching a small stack of books as they slid toward her and setting them upright, before turning her pale eyes to me, her fingers laced in her lap.
“First, I’m sorry I wasn’t forthright at the front door,” she said. “I wasn’t sure how to begin. Despite rehearsing in the car on the way over.” She gave a shy laugh and then clasped her hands as she continued, a more serious expression on her face. “The woman you knew as Kate Campbell was born with a different name.”
I frowned, and then remembered Selene mentioning another name when she’d arrived. Something Kate had alluded to having in the few entries she’d made in the journal I’d read, but had never stated outright. Perhaps because she’d been afraid what might’ve happened if it had gotten into the wrong hands. I assumed that was also why she’d only vaguely mentioned the places she’d stopped on her way to Germany, choosing descriptions over names, and feelings instead of facts about what was happening and who she might’ve met.
“Giselle?” I asked.
“Gisela Holländer,” she said. “Born to Gerhard and Gabriela Holländer, two people who fully supported the Nazi ideology. And when I say supported, I mean funded, threw lavish parties, and mixed with the man himself.”
The words sat between us as I tried to take them in. Absorb them. Have them make sense as I remembered the woman from my past who had haunted me ever since.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “How...”
My eyes darted around the room, memories, tarnished and blurry with age, forcing their way to the forefront of my mind.
“It’s a long and complicated story,” Selene said, empathy welling in her eyes, just as Kate’s had so many years before as she’d worked over me, stitching me up so I wouldn’t bleed to death.
I held up a hand. “I’m sorry. Can you just...” I stood. “I’ll be right back.”
I hurried down the hallway and found Lizzie and Emma standing at the kitchen island, a laptop open to our favorite pizza place.
“Old Man?” Emma said, looking up, taking in my face, and stepping toward me. “What’s wrong?”
“Dad?” Lizzie reached out a hand, placing it on my arm. “Are you okay?”
“Can the pizza wait?” I asked. “I want you to hear this at the same time I do.”
“Hear what?” Emma asked.
“I’m not really sure. I just...don’t want to be alone.”
The two women looked at one another and then nodded and followed me silently back to my office where Selene had cleared the sofa, making neat little stacks on the floor beside it. She stood waiting for us, as if anticipating a slightly larger audience.
“I know this is all very strange,” I said, looking from my daughter to my grandaughter. “And I’m sorry for the secrecy. I just...wasn’t sure where this was going. But now...” I motioned toward Selene. “This is Selene Michel. She knew an old friend of mine and is helping clear up a bit of a mystery. Selene, this is my daughter, Lizzie, and my granddaughter, Emma.”
“I am so pleased to meet you both,” Selene said.
The four of us sat then, Lizzie and Emma looking curiously from Selene to me, seeing the same thing in her that I had, but not realizing yet what I’d come to understand but couldn’t quite explain. Yet. But finally, after a lifetime of wonder, I knew the answers were coming.
“Who is the old friend?” Lizzie asked.
