after leaving Miami. But we got on the highway, heading south. I asked Calpurnia where we were going and got the usual answer, “Wait and see,” but that day I pushed back. Finally she told me we were going to Key West to see Hemingway’s house, populated by scores of six-toed cats.
“She almost had me there,” I said, smiling a little. “A colony of cats with six toes sounded pretty interesting, but spring break was almost over and I was worried about getting back. ‘Don’t worry,’ she told me, ‘transportation has already been arranged.’ I asked her what she meant but she wouldn’t give me a straight answer, just smiled and gave me the old ‘Wait and see.’
“We got to Key West, had lunch, saw Hemingway’s house, and petted some six-toed cats. Then we checked into another motel, one-night cash in advance, as usual. Calpurnia said she had some errands to run and would be back in a couple of hours. She told me to stay in the room. I locked the door, watched some TV, and ate the last praline. It was dried out by then and so grainy that I ended up spitting it into the wastebasket.”
I lifted my cup and took another sip, swishing coffee around in my mouth, welcoming its bitterness, remembering that sensation of chewing sickly sweet sand and the return of the feeling that something wasn’t right.
“I decided to call Sterling but the phone in our room didn’t work. And then, for some reason, I decided to look inside Auntie Cal’s suitcase. I don’t know what I expected to find . . .”
No, I didn’t. But I can still recall sitting cross-legged on the bed in my shorts, the way the blue chenille bedspread felt on my bare legs, the sick, clenching sensation in my stomach as I stared at Calpurnia’s suitcase. I didn’t know what I would find inside, but the grown-up part of me knew I’d find something and that it probably wouldn’t be good.
“At first it seemed like the usual—clothes, cosmetics, hair rollers. But when I picked up the cigarette carton, I noticed it was bulging on one side. When I dumped the packs onto the bed, two blue booklets fell out.”
I paused, bit my lower lip. “Passports. One for Calpurnia and one for me.”
Trey had been perfectly silent this whole time, barely moving a muscle, letting his coffee go cold. Now he pursed his lips and let out a soft, low whistle.
“What did you do?”
I’d never told anyone the whole story, not even Sterling. I had started to once, but when I began talking about our adventures, the swamp and the beach and boat and Disney, how exciting it all had been, Sterling started to scream at me. “Do you know what it was like? Do you know what I went through? I thought you were gone forever, I thought you were dead! Do you have any idea?”
I was just a kid; I couldn’t understand what he’d gone through. But I understood that what I’d felt during my time with Calpurnia, joy and excitement and wonder, was wrong and that I shouldn’t talk about it. So I never had, not to my father, not to Polly, not to my therapist, and definitely not to my ex-husband.
But now, for reasons that were hard to pin down, I wanted Trey to know my story, to know me. I’d gone this far, let him come closer than anybody ever had. But it was hard to talk about what happened next, impossible when looking him in the face. I lowered my eyes, stared at my hands, and answered his question.
“I went to the motel office, asked the guy at the desk if I could use the phone. He was cranky—I don’t think he liked kids—and said that the office phone was only for emergencies. He leaned over the desk so he was right up in my face and practically growled at me. ‘Is this an emergency?’
“I thought about it for a minute and said it might be. I told him that my name was Celia Louise Fairchild and I needed to call my dad because my aunt might be trying to kidnap me.
“The next thing I knew there were police cars, and sirens, and . . .”
I stopped there, pressed a fist to my lips and turned my face away, blinking back tears. A hand covered mine.
“Celia. Celia, you didn’t do anything wrong. You were twelve years old. What else could you have done?”
I