I’ve missed you.
None of those things happened.
“We need to get inside,” he said quietly, before turning and walking at a brisk pace toward the house on the cliff, hefting the trash bag over his shoulder.
Stella and I gave each other a puzzled glance before following after him.
He left the front door standing ajar.
This first floor of the house had an open floor-plan. The front door led to a foyer and a wide hallway with a staircase on the left and tall storage cabinets on the right. The hallway opened up to a dining area on the left and a chef’s kitchen on the right. Beyond the kitchen was a sunken living room with a large stone fireplace and two leather sofas with a matching chair and ottoman. A wall of windows overlooking a large patio and the deep blue waters of Puget Sound far below filled the back of the house. Several small boats dotted the surface. Further out, a cruise ship floated northbound for Alaska.
I had to help Stella. She was horribly weak. Her arm was draped over my shoulder and she leaned into me, her breathing labored, shivering in short stutters. Over the past day, her strength came and went with little warning. At the ferry terminal, less than an hour ago, she had been alert, her energy up. She seemed strong. Even as we approached the house, I saw hints of the girl I remembered throughout the years. I began to realize she made a conscious effort for that girl to appear, to lift from the thickening fog of her illness. And each appearance came with a price, a toll, a drain, that shortened the next.
Stella was fading.
This was different from the car two days earlier, the lake.
Something worse.
Neither of us wanted to admit to that, but it was there nonetheless.
I am to die soon, my dearest Pip. You know that, right?
Through the thick material of her clothing, I felt the heat of her body and knew she was feverish again. I got her inside the house and over to one of the leather sofas, where I gently set her down, her head resting on a soft leather pillow.
She smiled up at me, silently mouthing the words My Pip.
Hobson entered the house behind me, having left the car without any coaxing. He stepped into the foyer and closed the front door behind him, then stood there, still and silent again.
Stuck, as Stella said.
My father stood at the dining room table. He had torn open the black garbage bag, dumped the contents, and was sifting through what looked like bundles of bound pages—folders, video tapes, and journals.
I went over to him.
He didn’t look at me.
“Dad?” The only word I had said to him in twenty years, now said twice. Ignored twice, as he continued to rifle through the material.
Charter was printed on most of it. Either as a logo on many of the documents, handwritten at the top of others, or stamped onto the folders—this was accompanied by Confidential or Eyes Only or Internal Use Only. There was a bundle of photographs, too. I picked it up, tugged off the rubber band, and flipped through them. About a dozen in all. I recognized the faces from the yearbook—Perla Beyham, Cammie Brotherton, Jaquelyn Breece, Keith Pickford, Jeffery Dalton, Dewey Hobson, Garret Dotts, Penelope Maudlin, Richard Nettleton, Emma Tackett. Pictures of my parents were absent from the stack, but I had no doubt they were once there. There was a thick folder on Elfrieda Leech—an ancient photograph of my former neighbor and my parent’s guidance counselor clipped to the outer flap. I opened the folder and found dozens of pay stubs, sizable checks payable to Leech from Charter. The earliest dated February 4, 1974, and the latest stamped August of 1980. There were memos and handwritten notes, both mentioning the same names, those same Penn State students.
I found a folder with my name and picture on it. One for Stella, too. The photos were old, both of us no more than three or four. Inside my folder were dozens of other pictures and at least a hundred pages of loose paper—some typed, others handwritten. One of the oldest on top was dated only four months after I was born. A handwritten note said—
Sixteen pounds, four ounces. Rolling from front to back on own. Teething. Conscious of environment. No outwardly signs. Nothing abnormal presenting.
—Charter Observation Team 102
I showed it to my father. “What the hell is all this?”
He glanced down at