Page 14 of Home Before Dark

“So. Sorry.”

After that, all the light left my father. Even though he would technically remain alive for fifty more minutes, I consider that the moment of his death. He was in the shadowland, a realm from which I knew he’d never return.

In the days that followed, I didn’t dwell on that final conversation.I was too numb with grief and too consumed with making funeral arrangements to think about it. Only after that draining ordeal had ended did it dawn on me that he never gave me a proper answer.

“Asking Dad is no longer an option,” I tell my mother. “You’re all I have left. And it’s time we talk about it.”

“I don’t see why.” My mother looks past my shoulder, desperately seeking out our waiter for another drink. “All that is ancient history.”

A bubble of frustration forms in my chest. One that’s been building since the night we left Baneberry Hall, inflated a little more each day. By their divorce, which I’m sure was caused by the Book’s success. By every question deflected by my father. By the relentless taunting from classmates. By each awkward encounter with someone like Wendy Davenport. For twenty-five years, it’s grown unabated, getting bigger and bigger, nearly bursting.

“It’s ourlives,” I say. “Mylife. I’ve been associated with that book since I was five. People read it and think they know me, but what they’ve read is a lie. Theirperceptionof me is a lie. And I never knew how to handle that because you and Dad never wanted to talk about the Book. But I’m begging you, please, talk about it.”

I down the rest of the gin and tonic, holding the glass with both hands because they’ve started to shake. When our waiter passes, I also order another.

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin,” my mother says.

“You can start with Dad’s last words. ‘So sorry.’ That’s what he said, Mom. And I need to know why.”

“How do you even know he was talking about the book?”

Because he was. I’m certain of it. That final conversation had the feel of a confession. Now the only person who knows what my father was confessing to sits directly across from me, anxiously awaiting another hit of vodka.

“Tell me what he meant,” I say.

My mother takes off her sunglasses, revealing a softness in her eyesthat I’ve rarely seen in adulthood. I think it’s because she feels sorry for me. I also think it means I’m on the verge of learning the truth.

“Your father was a very good writer,” she says. “But he had his struggles. With writer’s block. With self-doubt. He had many disappointments before we moved to Baneberry Hall. That was one of the reasons we bought it. To get a fresh start in a new place. He thought it would inspire him. And, for a time, it did. That house and all its problems and quirks—it was a treasure trove of new ideas for your father. He got the idea for a book about a haunted house. A novel.”

“But Dad wrote nonfiction,” I say, thinking about the magazine covers that had hung in his apartment, proudly framed.Esquire. Rolling Stone. The New Yorker.During his heyday, he had contributed to them all.

“That’s what he was known for, yes. And that’s the only thing his connections in the publishing world wanted from him. Facts, not fiction. Truth, not lies.”

I implicitly understand where this story is heading. Since my father couldn’t snag a book deal with a typical novel, he decided to go a different route. Make-believe masked as something true.

“Your father realized that in order for this to work, we’d need to make it look authentic. Which meant leaving Baneberry Hall and telling the policewhywe left.” My mother takes a shy pause. “I know it all sounds so ridiculous now. But it felt like something that could be pulled off if done carefully. I agreed to it because, well, I loved your father. I believed in him. And, since I’m being honest, I hated that house.”

“So, none of it was real?”

“There is some truth behind it. Baneberry’s history. The stuff about the Carver family. And the kitchen ceiling, unfortunately. Although that was caused by a burst pipe and not, well, you know. As for the ghosts your father said you saw, they were nothing but your bad dreams.”

“I had night terrors even back then?”

“It’s when they started,” my mother says. “Your father took inspiration from everything, even though the end result was mostly fiction.”

I was right—the Book is a lie. Not all of it. But the important parts. The ones that involve us.

And Mister Shadow.

I always thought that if I was ever told the truth, it would feel like a weight lifting off my shoulders. It doesn’t. Any relief I might have is tempered by frustration over all that useless secrecy. When I was a child, the Book made me an object of curiosity to some and an outcast to others. Being told the truth might not have changed that, but I sure as hell would have been able to handle it better. Realizing some of those growing pains could have been avoided fills my heart with an angry, gnawing ache.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“We wanted to,” my mother says with a sigh. “When the time was right. That’s what we always said. ‘When the time is right, we’ll tell Maggie the truth.’ But the right time never seemed to arrive. Especially when the book became more successful than we ever imagined.”

“You were worried I’d tell someone?”

“We were worried you’d be disappointed in us,” she says. “Your father especially.”

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