“You always smell like bubble bath,” she whispers.
“I…I do?”
“Last week I was at camp and I came out of a classroom and smelled that same soap and I started looking all over the place because I was sure you were there.” She pulls away from me. “You weren’t.”
I try to imagine her, hope rising like yeast, turning in circles and not being able to find me.
She looks at my head. “Does it hurt?”
“A little.” I touch my scalp tentatively. “Very Frankenstein-chic, right?”
“It’s not funny.” Meret wipes a tear away with the back of her hand. “You could have died.”
“Anyone can,” I say gently. “Anytime.”
“But you didn’t even say goodbye,” she blurts out, and I wonder how I haven’t seen it until this moment: the streaks of self-loathing that paint the walls, the stripes of insecurity woven into the bedding where she nests.
I decide to tell her the truth. “If I did,” I admit, “I wouldn’t have had the courage to go.”
“You meanleave,” Meret corrects bitterly. “Leaveme.”
I hesitate. “I had to find someone.”
“My biological father.”
I take a deep breath. “That’s why I was in Egypt. I know that your”—I falter, trying to find the right word—“your other father told you.”
“He’s myonlyfather,” Meret says, loyal. “I don’t even know the other person’s name.”
“I could tell you about him,” I gently offer. “Wyatt.”
She is nearly vibrating with—with what? Fear? Rage? Finally, she glances up again. Permission.
So I bring Wyatt, metaphorically, into this house. I tell her the story of the boy I hated at first sight, with his golden hair and sky eyes and swagger. I tell her about how we both jockeyed to be the best in the department at Yale. I tell her about Wyatt’s upbringing in England and his brother’s death and his title. I tell her about the Dig House and how still the desert is before the sun rises and how we were fighting before we found the dipinto. I tell her that when he kissed me, I realized the reason I’d been pushing him away was because if he came close, I wouldn’t be able to ever separate myself from him.
“I didn’t know about you,” I finish. “I didn’t know I was pregnant when I left Egypt.”
“You expect me to believe that?” Meret scowls. “All the talks about being safe and using protection. The minute I got my period I practically had to wear armor to make sure I didn’t end up like—well, likeyou.”
“I guess I deserve that.”
“So you dumped him and rebounded with Dad?”
I wince. “I guess I deserve that, too. But it wasn’t a rebound. My life had fallen apart, and Br— your dad helped me put it back together. Howcouldn’tI have fallen for him?” I take a deep breath. “I’m not expecting you to forgive me. I’m not expecting you to even understand. But what I had with Wyatt—I buried it deep on purpose, because I needed to move forward, not backward. I wanted a life with your dad. I wanted our family. When I looked back at Egypt, all I had were questions, because I didn’t have the luxury of being a scholar anymore. I had to be a sister and a mother. When I looked forward, where your dad was waiting, I saw answers.” I clear my throat. “But the feelings I had for Wyatt, somehow, they got dislodged. And took root. And grew. I could cut them down, Meret. But if I did, I’d always be looking at the spot where they bloomed.”
In a very small, cramped voice, Meret asks, “What about me?”
“What about you.” A smile heats the words. “He wants to meet you.”
Her head snaps up. “Now?Here?” I watch as it all crystallizes for her. “He’s the one who was with you at the hospital.”
“He brought me back to you,” I correct. “He’s at a hotel. It’s up to you, whether or not you want to meet him.”
She pulls at her clothes, billowing her shirt away from her curves, the way I’ve seen her do a thousand times when she’s nervous.
“You don’t have to like him. You don’t have to make him part of your life.”
She looks at me curiously, as if she’s just seeing a piece of me she never noticed before—a crooked finger with a story behind it of how it was broken; a tattoo that was previously hidden under layers of clothes. “So what happens to us? To me and you and Dad?”
